6 Great Call Center Recruiting Strategies

Contact centers need candidates who can multitask, problem-solve, work reliably, and work flexible shifts, as well as use their technical skills and keep customers happy. contact center recruiting means sourcing and screening candidates who possess these skill sets.

Well-managed job attraction is crucial if your organization wants to hire the right people and reduce attrition. In the same way that applicants strive to make themselves stand out to get noticed by employers, you should also work hard to differentiate your contact center from the crowd.

Particularly now, during the Great Resignation, positioning your organization as an employer of choice has never mattered more. Are you struggling with how to recruit contact center agents? Let’s dive into some contact center recruiting strategies.

1. Ask Your Agents

Contact center leaders often wonder where to recruit contact center agents. An excellent source of valuable information and advice is your existing agents. Ask what they would look for if they were the ones doing the contact center recruiting. Not only will you gain their perspective in the contact center, but you’ll help them feel engaged by involving them in business activities.

Asking your existing team for help with contact center recruitment within their own networks is also a great way to find quality people. Current staff have a good idea about the job requirements and have the ability to pre-screen the prospect. Interested prospects can informally ask current employees more detailed questions about the job so they aren’t intimidated by the contact center recruitment team.

Exit interviews of departing agents are often revealing resources in your quest to improve your contact center recruiting strategy. Start by finding out why they’re leaving — and what you could have done differently to make them stay. Then ask the employee if there is any information they wish they had known about the job before they started working with your team.

Armed with this information, you can revise your recruiting strategy to give potential employees a better idea of the position and what it entails. You’ll save money and time by not hiring someone who’s the wrong fit and likely to leave abruptly.

6 Great Call Center Recruiting Strategies

2. Post Jobs Strategically

While posting a job online can help your organization quickly fill positions, a mass posting approach might bring in a large number of unqualified prospects.

Quantity isn’t as important as quality. Too many unqualified applicants add time to your hiring managers’ plates as they must filter through the clutter.

Another downside of posting the job in too many places is the impersonal aspect of this type of contact center recruiting, as opposed to the personal approach of using your existing team to look for candidates.

Unlike when one of your agents shares the job opportunity with a friend or connection, an online applicant is shown limited information and must find out more details at the interview, resulting in more time needed to screen. This can be a problem when a position needs to be filled rapidly.

It’s a smart contact center recruiting strategy to market the position to a specific audience on carefully chosen websites, rather than to a large applicant pool. Your job listing should draw interest and emotion and be directed to the person applying. Great job postings illustrate the company culture and showcase what the position will really look like each day.

3. Make The Most Of Your Company Website

Use the recruiting power of your website to maximize the applicant pool. Here you can provide information about your contact center culture, the nature of the job and create a realistic picture of what people can expect.

An attractive and helpful employment website combined with audio, video, and social networking (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn) is a great strategy to give a picture of the working environment and contact center company culture.

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4. Screen ’Em Out

While it can be nice to have countless resumes pouring in, you need to weed them out based on levels of qualifications and talent. Check for gaping holes in work history, including strange employment patterns, when contact center recruiting.

If you’ve made sure to limit your job postings to key sites, evaluating the resumes you do get for problems will help you narrow the field even more and save you time with future interviews.

5. Be Clear About Roles And Responsibilities

Before you can post a job, your organization must be clear about what qualifications and other job elements you are requiring. Don’t wait until you’ve offered the job to explain the terms, as many job seekers will be excited about an offer and may regret the decision later. Transparency is priceless.

During the interview, give the basic information: salary, working hours, sick and vacation leave, dress code, and other information. Explain your expectations too, including what a typical workday and work week will look like. See if they can work holidays, attend training, etc. Then, let the interviewee ask questions. All of this will give them a clear understanding of exactly what you’re looking for during the contact center recruitment process.

6. Host A Career Day

For strong contact center recruiting, invite candidates into your office. As the saying goes, seeing is believing. It also lets you show off the contact center culture and help others understand what is important to you. They can see where they will sit, the facility, programs, and who they will work with. This extra planning will save you time and effort in the long run, since candidates can be pre-screened to help you make the right selection.

The work-from-home trend might leave some questions about how to recruit call center agents if you have a hybrid contact center. Prioritize video conference interviews, if possible, so the candidates can make a more personal connection. Even if potential contact center agents can’t be on-site, you can still paint a picture of what it looks like to be part of the team.

Hiring talented contact center agents isn’t an unfulfillable dream. Retaining them isn’t either. Successful call center recruiting depends on creating a reliable strategy to locate great employees who can confidently fill positions in your contact center. For additional assistance and resources, schedule a demo with Playvox today.