My name is Ian and I've known the call center industry my entire adult life, I worked in call center when I was 18 years old, ti'll 19, I went back to school and finished a degree in psychology, I had my internship (OJT) in call center and, still now by grace of God now 23 years old.. still working in a call center.
So how do you get a call center job?
You must be good in English. Contrary to popular belief having an "American" or "English" accent is not really a plus, cause applicants usually try to fake it, and it doesn't make your chances of getting hired higher., it just makes you sound pretentious and stupid. HR's usually go for applicants with a neutral accent.
Here are some things you need to watch out for;
1. Be careful pronouncing z and s, p and f, o and u, v and b
Read this: Peter likes to play with his fan because it's fun, while Sarah doesn't it enjoy anything anymore since since her waist size, seems like a zebra's, oh..poor Sarah always feeling down and unappreciated, while Peter Piper's last name is Piper not Pifer. Lol
Ok I just made that up and it's nonsense I know, but the objective was to watch out for you z,s, p,f, a, o,u.
2. Avoiding dead air- What does dead air mean, it's pausing for long duration of time. Eg. My name is Jared and I like football,...uhm.......hm...., or just a silent............................., you can pause of course, but it shouldn't exceed more than 3.5 seconds. And saying "Uhm..., "Hm..." makes you sound unsure and it doesn't make you sound good.
3. Regional accent- This is a problem specially to the applicants from Visayas (just like me, I'm from Visayas too), before applying in a call center try neutralize the accent first.
4. Typing speed- You should be able to type at least 30wpm (that's words per minuet)
5. Multitasking- In a call center job, agents (people receiving and making calls are called agents) must be able to multitask, I'll give you a scenarios; A customer called and his concern is he want his computer fixed, now you have to file report concerning his case, you must type and listen to the client at the same time. Here's another one, and your computer is not working. What do you do?
6. Attitude- Be courteous to the HR, no matter how good you are if the HR doesn't like you. Sorry.