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Call center employees are the face, or rather the voice, of your company. They are central to your company’s customer service and sales efforts. When your call center team is highly effective, it lifts up every other department of your company. 

Since the typical call center job doesn’t require advanced degrees or highly technical skills, the quality of applicants for these positions is extremely broad. This makes hiring a call center employee quite difficult. The best approach it to look for soft or ‘transferable skills’ that are useful in any job, such as poise or adaptability. 

Below is a shortlist of transferable skills you should be screening for when hiring your next call center employee. 

Active Listening 

Obviously, the job of a call center employee requires a lot of talking. However, a more important skill actually has to do with not talking. Call center employees should be using their active listening abilities when paying attention to what a customer says. Active listening allows them to ask smart questions and deliver targeted responses. 

According to a study by Korn Ferry International, active listening is the most essential skill in any job. The company said good active listening skills can actually cover for skill gaps in other areas, like leadership and negotiation abilities. 

Applicants who don’t listen well during your interview process should be viewed with skepticism. 

Problem Solving 

Most of a call center employee’s time on the job is spent problem-solving. A great deal of a call center employee’s job involves dealing with complaints and questions from customers and prospective customers. They need to be resourceful to develop solutions that satisfy expectations of both the company and customers. Problem-solving abilities are transferable to nearly any industry, but they are particularly crucial in technology-related industries. 

Applicants should be able to give concrete real-life examples of when they were able to effectively problem-solve. 

Teamwork 

Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say, and if you’re dreaming about providing great service to your customers, you need call center employees who work well together. 

Rather, call center staff members function as part of a team to serve callers and support their employer’s objectives. Call center must often jump in to help co-workers tackle difficult customer issues or handle a particularly busy workload. 

Resilience 

Call center employees should be resilient. While most people are pleasant enough, callers dealing with problems related to a company’s product can be short-tempered and even angry. During these times, call center employees must depend on their sense of resiliency. If a call center employee is easily rattled, they won’t be able to deliver high-quality service to every customer. 

If an applicant gets easily rattled or irritated during the application process, it’s a good bet that they won’t be very resilient when it comes to dealing with customers. 

We Can Help Your Call Center Find Top Talent 

At Cornerstone, we connect many of our clients to best-fit candidates for their call center positions. Please contact us today to find out how we can do the same for your company. 


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