How to Write a Resume for Call Center Application

August 09, 2012 • written by

Total read time: 7 minutes

I want to share some tips on how to improve your resume.

These are tips based on my research and experience as a job applicant.

I also worked in recruitment.

Here are some guidelines when writing a resume for a call center application:

A resume is a conversation piece.

I want you to think of your application as a business process.

I’d like you to picture yourself in this manner:

With that in mind, here are some things to consider when you’re creating your advertisement.

Your resume needs to be short.

When was the last time you read a full catalog or a manual?

That’s right, never.

You are not applying for a position that requires a lot of credentials.

Your resume needs relevant information.

Remember that the common positions are customer service, sales, and tech support?

Act accordingly.

Your resume has to be interesting.

Recruiters receive thousands of job applications a day.

Recruiters are looking for ways to eliminate unqualified applicants faster.

Recruiters remove unqualified applicants so to find good applicants.

Recruiters know what they are looking for, and they are aiming to find the best.

It’s your job to convince the recruiter that you’re a good person to hire.

You’ll need to convince the recruiter that you’re a good person.

Here are some tips on how to keep your resume short, relevant, and interesting.

Write a short resume

The ideal resume size is one to two pages.

If you have a few jobs under your work experience, you can compress your resume into a single-page resume.

If you don’t have a lot of formal work experience, you’d like to write a two-page resume.

There are situations when your experience no longer fits a single-page resume.

That’s okay.

You can expand your resume to two pages when you have a lot of experience.

When I was new to the job market, I maintained a two-page resume.

My two-page resume contains all my part-time, short-term, and freelance jobs.

I also included my interests, skills, and seminars attended to fill my two-page resume.

When I had more experience, I used a one-page resume.

After successfully landing several jobs, I eventually went back to a two-page resume.

Be specific about your resume’s job descriptions

Do you have awards, achievements, and accomplishments?

Recruiters like numbers.

I’ve sold ₱11 Million worth of Property in six months, working as a real estate agent.

I’ve helped the call center school sell ₱5,000,000 training services.

I’m a top agent in 2013 for Customer Service Feedback - Customer Satisfaction.

I’m a top agent in 2015 for TSR, a Sales KPI.

I’m a consistent awardee of Customer Satisfaction Incentive and have earned an extra 100k over two years.

I’m a super-agent.

I’m a level-ten customer service representative.

Recruiters spend a lot of time reviewing your work experience.

I often find missing job descriptions when I review resumes.

If you worked as a sales representative, you might not realize that:

Different companies have different work assignments.

Different companies use different tools.

Different companies have different policies and procedures.

The job description for a sales representative will vary from job to job.

One company may have the sales representatives:

  1. Go to the office.
  2. Offer products to sell to walk-in clients.
  3. Answer phone inquiries.

Another company may have the sales representative:

  1. Research relevant industries and companies that can become clients.
  2. Telemarket different businesses and offer service.
  3. Building, updating, and maintaining a customer database.
  4. Copywriting tasks: Writing marketing collaterals and email.
  5. Email Marketing: Reaching out to clients for offers and announcements.
  6. Appointment setting: Telemarketing to generate appointments for the company.
  7. Scoping: Probing clients for sales requirements.
  8. Presenting: Presenting technical sales information.
  9. Writing Proposals to match client requirements.
  10. Negotiating budgets and time-frames with clients.
  11. Closing: Processing the paperwork to complete the transaction.
  12. Collections: Retrieving payment from clients.
  13. Account management: Consistently reaching out to clients for future orders and upgrades.
  14. Networking: Attending events and parties to build relationships with existing clients and get new clients.
  15. Social Media Management: Using copywriting skills and multimedia skills to maintain relationships and generate clients using social media platforms.
  16. Answer phone inquiries.

Which kind of salesperson are you?

If you just put Sales Representative on your resume, I wouldn’t know which one.

Perhaps you have more responsibilities or fewer responsibilities than my examples.

I wouldn’t know unless you tell me.

I strongly recommend that you include these details on your resume.

What are your responsibilities and daily tasks?

This principle applies to any job.

Different jobs have different responsibilities.

You will look more responsibly and trustworthy when you have more responsibilities in your job description.

Include details of your responsibilities in your resume:

I like starting my sentences with the following words:

Responsible for… (output)

In charge of… (tasks)

What victories are you responsible for?

What tasks are you in charge of?

Use a professional email address

Don’t use sexyangelbutterfly@yahoo.com or ilovechocolate@hotmail.com.

Use an email address that has your name in it.

My personal email address is kevin@olega.org my Gmail is kevinolega@gmail.com, and I recommend that you open a similar email address if you haven’t done so.

If you have a website, you can use:

hello@kevinolega.com Not a real email.

or

kevin@callcentertrainingtips.com

Alternate ideas.

Add services or industry.

kevinolegaservices@gmail.com

kevinolegamarketing@gmail.com

Use Initials:

kolega@gmail.com

kevino@gmail.com

Stop using Yahoo Emails.

I recommend using Gmail or iCloud if you have an Apple device.

Place active contact numbers at the top

The recruiter will contact you when you qualify for a position.

The recruiter will call and/or email you to:

  1. Conduct a phone interview.
  2. Schedule an in-person interview.

When I was working in recruitment, if I couldn’t reach an applicant on his or her mobile phone or landline, I move on to the next applicant.

Make your resume easy to read

No crazy designs, please.

Do not use font’s that are difficult to read.

Do not use comic sans or script or whatever.

I use Arial, Verdana, and Calibri for Windows-based computers.

I use Arial, Lato, Helvetica Neue, and Open Sans when I’m composing on Google Drive.

I use Helvetica and Lato for Mac Based computers.

My font varies from 11-14 for body text.

I use anywhere from 16 to 24 for my header text.

I do my best to stick to one font.

I sometimes use another font to adjust the headings.

Stay away from resume wizard

I found it best to organize the details of my resume in a text file.

I arrange my resume using my own format.

I’ve tried Apple’s Pages templates, and the resume looks okay.

I’ve tried Google Doc’s templates, and I’ve seen many good-looking resumes.

Here’s my problem with many templates.

The design is complicated.

There’s a lot of sections that don’t fit together.

There’s a lot of lines.

I made my own template.

I follow a simple top to bottom format to present the information.

I don’t use columns or lines.

I want my resume to be simple and easy to read.

Remove personal information

Personal information in a call center application is not relevant information.

Remove the following information from your resume:

Unnecessary details waste time, ink, paper, time, and attention.

Call center recruiters are after what you can do for them.

Call centers don’t care about your vital statistics.

NO NEED TO INCLUDE EVERYTHING.

A resume must be relevant.

If you’ve had several jobs, don’t include jobs from several years ago.

Often, the last three or four jobs will do.

However, you might need a more comprehensive resume if you jumped to different jobs several times.

ADDITIONAL RESUME FILLERS THAT YOU CAN REMOVE AND REASONS WHY:

AGE

Not unless you’re below 18 or over 60.

If you’re younger than 18 and older than 60, you are automatically disqualified.

DATE OF BIRTH

Not unless you were hoping your recruiter bases your personality on your zodiac sign.

I used to work for an employer who did this.

He wanted to avoid hiring someone who was born on the year of the sheep.

HEIGHT

Call center companies don’t care how tall or short you are.

I understand that this is important if you’re working as a model, saleslady, or security guard.

WEIGHT

Your weight doesn’t matter to call center employers.

It’s all good.

Put in your weight if you are heavy enough to wreck office chairs by sitting on them.

RACE

Call center companies are equal opportunity employers.

Many call centers, clients, and customers don’t care about race.

EYE COLOR

You are not applying as a commercial model.

We don’t care if that’s your real eye color or you’re wearing a contact lens.

NATIONALITY

Call center companies are equal opportunity providers, but you can ask.

As far as I know, Filipinos are okay.

Foreign applicants may require a working visa/permit.

RELIGION

Call center companies are good with any religion.

Call center companies are good with no religion.

The only possible discussion about religion is if you have any religious activities that conflict with your work and sleep schedule.

SEX

Call center jobs accept males, females, or anything in between.

Sex doesn’t matter in a resume.

SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER

Remove your social security number from your resume.

Your social security number should be confidential.

TAX IDENTIFICATION NUMBER:

Your TIN Number is not relevant to your job application.

Remove your TIN Number from your resume.

PAGIBIG NUMBER

Your PAGIBIG Number is not relevant to your application.

Remove your PAGIBIG Number from your resume.

HEALTH INSURANCE NUMBER

Your Health Insurance Number is not relevant to your application.

Remove your Health Insurance Number from your application.

PASSPORT NUMBER

Your passport number is not relevant to your Call Center Job application.

Call center jobs do not require a passport.

Do not put your passport number on your resume.

Not unless you want to brag that you have a passport.

I HEREBY DECLARE THAT ALL THE INFORMATION IS TRUE AND CORRECT.

Everything you put on your resume is already true and correct.

There is no need to reiterate the statement by adding this line to your resume.

Your resume is a summary that includes your contact information and limited documentation of your work history, education, and skills.

SIGNATURE

Your resume is a resume, not a contract.

You do not need to sign your resume.

Should I add a picture to my call center resume?

To add a picture or not to add a picture?

Using a picture in a resume may bring up conversations about discrimination and racism in American culture.

The situation is different in the Philippines.

I tried going with the no-picture approach.

In my experience, the security guards and receptionists always ask for a picture anyway.

Sticking an ID photo to my resume is expensive, annoying, and a hassle.

I later decided just to add a picture to my resume’s file.

My photo gets included whenever I print my resume.

After a dozen job applications or so, I realized the reason why it makes sense to keep your photo on your resume.

Having a picture in your resume helps the guard, receptionist, or recruitment professional identify you when they call your name in the reception area.

If you look good, then adding a picture is an advantage.

If you’re not very good-looking, include your photo anyway and carry out your application with your confidence. :)

LOOK FOR TYPOS ON YOUR RESUME

Nothing ruins a well-written resume like a typo.

What’s worse is if the typo happens to be on your phone number.

Hurry up and go check.

Copy-paste your resume to an online spelling and grammar checker tool like Grammarly.

ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO HELP YOU LOOK FOR TYPOS ON YOUR RESUME

It’s sometimes difficult to spot all the typos by yourself.

I often ask someone else to double-check.

I ask my friends and family members with good English skills to help check my resume for errors.

You want to project a professional image.

Do not ruin your professional image by going cheap on paper.

It’s okay to go to a computer shop that charges you 3-5 pesos per page.

Use the printing service if the print output and paper quality are good.

If the quality isn’t good, I buy my own paper.

If bringing my own paper doesn’t improve the print quality, I look for another computer shop.

When you apply for work, some companies will say yes, and some companies will say no.

It’s okay.

Take the no’s and use what you learned from the experience to prepare yourself for the yes.

USE A HARD ENVELOP

A crumpled resume means you’re irresponsible.

Naah, I just made that up.

Seriously.

The last thing that you want to give an interviewer is a crumpled resume.

How you do anything reflects how you do everything.

Give your interviewer a crisp, good-quality resume.

Show the interviewer that you are a reliable professional.

ADDITIONAL TIP:

After submitting your resume, be prepared to answer your phone.

Expect a call.

Answer all unknown numbers in the same way as if you’re speaking to an interviewer.

If you miss a call, call back twice and send an SMS if you don’t get an answer.

Callback spiel:

Say:

I’m sorry I missed your call. May I know who’s this?

** Don’t answer calls saying “who’s this?” or worse, in Tagalog.**

Here’s how I answer:

Hello Good Morning (or afternoon or evening). May I know who’s this?

Thank you for reading this far and thanks for your attention.

I am praying for your success. God bless!

If you made it this far, you should introduce yourself.

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