Call Center Job Interviews

What personality and skill attributes should you look for when interviewing call center applicants? First of all, look for people with easy demeanors. Call center work tends to get quite frenetic and emotional. If you can counterbalance this chaos by hiring refined and calm individuals, you'll improve morale at your center and ultimately reduce the frustration of your callers.

You should also select candidates who speak articulately under pressure. In other words, stutterers need not apply. That said, no one is born with a full-blown intuition for how to handle call sales. Thus, if an applicant comes to the office who is professional and adept at learning, you may want to give him a chance, even if he appears nervous over the phone.

Interviewing Call Center Job Applicants

You can spice up your call center job interviews with call center simulations. For instance, you could have a friend or associate test candidates by pretending to call in with a customer complaint. You give the applicant a script to read, and then you evaluate how he or she manages the call. While this simulation might not be predictive of the candidate's true capacities, you can gain some insight into how he manage crises.

Bear in mind that telephone call skills can be taught. If your job candidate has demonstrated success in other lines of work, you might want to hire him preferentially, even if there are other candidates in line with previous call center experience. Finally, you might take into account the character of your workplace environment--you want to select someone who fits in well with your other employees.