It’s not easy to set your resume apart from your competition. Most job applicants get rejected in the first round of application screening, and only 2 to 3% of applicants receive an interview call.
So what changes can you make to your resume to increase your chances of getting a call center job?
There are a few key pieces hiring managers want to see to help you get past the first round—whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a complete newbie.
What a Hiring Manager Wants to See
Since call centers are entry-level roles, there are typically thousands of resumes that recruiters have to sift through.
As a result, they only spend a few seconds reviewing each, giving you limited time to catch their attention and show them that you’re an ideal candidate for the position.
This means you can’t waste time with a ton of introductory fluff. You need to instantly communicate that you’re a solid candidate.
You don’t need to build a ton of rapport or get them to like you—you only need the hiring manager to think, “This is a real candidate with real experience, we should interview them.”
1. Write a straightforward and relevant profile summary
The hiring manager is going to skip straight past your name and contact details and get right to the good stuff: your profile summary.
This is why you need to make sure you quickly describe what makes you a suitable fit.
Get any call center or customer support experience that you have at the very top of the resume. Skip personal introductions, because the hiring manager is going to skip that anyway. Give them exactly what they’re looking for: relevant experience.
If you don’t have direct experience, get the closest thing that you do have. And you can leave recent jobs off if they’re not relevant.
2. Use action verbs
Action verbs are dynamic words you can use to highlight your skills and experience.
Since hiring managers are flooded with applications, action verbs give you a better chance to catch their attention. Even better if you can follow up the action verb with real metrics and examples showing how you made a positive impact in your last call center or customer service role.
Some action verbs you can use in your resume for a call center position include:
- Led
- Exceeded
- Upsold
- Resolved
- Achieved
- Earned
Don’t write things like, “Excellent at customer support.” Instead, give concrete data showing how you resolved a certain percentage of customer queries upon their first call or led the company in product upsells.
3. Make your resume ATS-friendly
An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is a software that scans and organizes resumes to speed up the hiring process.
More hiring managers are using this software than ever these days. This means if your resume doesn’t align with ATS criteria, it may never be viewed by a human.
So what can you do to make sure your resume gets seen?
Many applicant tracking systems pull out and rank resumes based on keywords that go with the job posting. Since this software can only read resumes that follow a standard format, you should always keep it simple—don’t use fancy fonts or ornate design features.
Some ways you can edit your resume to match ATS’s requirements include:
- Use keywords. Your terminology should match the job you’re applying for. (Though don’t just copy the job description word for word, either. There’s a happy medium here.)
- Save your resume as a PDF file. Some applicant tracking systems are unable to read HTML or RTF documents.
- Use a simple font such as Times New Roman, Calibri, or Ariel.
- Avoid too many graphics and tables. The system may not be able to read more complex designs, and they also make your resume look cluttered and unprofessional.
4. Quantify your abilities
We talked a bit about metrics above, but it’s worth repeating: you need to give the hiring manager something quantifiable to show them you’re worth talking to.
Percentages or ratios of performance metrics highlight your achievements and add credibility to your resume. They’re also going to make you stand out, because most candidates aren’t going to give them this type of data.
For example, you could replace “Resolved customer queries” with “Resolved at least 60 customer inquiries on average daily, earning a customer satisfaction score of 97%.”
Similarly, you can give metrics of how you increased customer retention or decreased average call handle time.
You can also use financial figures to demonstrate the impact you had. For instance, mention how much revenue increase you brought to the business using upselling and cross-selling strategies.
This doesn’t just show your track record and experience, but it also shows your problem-solving abilities in a tangible way.
5. Mention your years of experience
Turnover is a known issue in call centers, and it’s expensive to continually onboard new hires. Hiring managers want to make sure that the agents they hire won’t leave anytime soon.
Let recruiters know how long you stuck to your last call center role. Mentioning your tenure at each job in your resume, if it was long enough, shows your reliability.
Consistency at a job doesn’t just convey that you have the experience, but it also shows your commitment.
Stating your previous jobs’ duration will also give you an edge over less experienced competitors.
6. Cut out fluff and customize your resume
You may think it’s a good idea to pad your resume with a ton of buzzwords and extra information like random skills and hobbies. It’s not. Best case scenario is the hiring manager skips over it. Worst case scenario is it annoys them enough to take one look at your resume and add it to the reject pile.
Instead, include only certifications or qualifications that are relevant to the position. Similarly, only mention soft skills and hard skills that align with the job description.
This means that you’re likely going to have to customize your resume for each position you apply for. You might not like it, but taking an extra 10 to 15 minutes to really fine-tune your resume for the role is going to get your foot in the door a lot faster than blasting out the same resume to 100 different companies.
The statistics back this up as well. A recent Glassdoor survey found that 63% of employers prefer resumes that are personalized to the role they’ve been sent for. 83% also say they’re more likely to hire individuals who send in customized resumes.
7. Write a cover letter to go with the resume
Some hiring managers will read your cover letter. Some won’t. But it’s worth taking the time to write one, even if it’s just a few paragraphs.
A well-written cover letter complements your resume and gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your communication skills.
It also gives you the space to:
- Show your genuine interest in working with the call center.
- Elaborate on your qualifications.
- Provide deeper insight into any relevant call center metrics you achieved.
Other than giving you more power to personalize your application, a cover letter also hints that you’ve done your research on the company. So make sure you personalize the cover letter to match the role you’re applying for.
One ResumeLab survey found that 83% of hiring managers think cover letters are important. The same percentage also said that candidates can earn an interview if their cover letter is impressive, even if their resume isn’t.
Last thing—don’t use AI to write your cover letter. Hiring managers can sense an AI-generated cover letter in seconds thanks to the same words and sentences being used over and over again. It’s just going to land your resume in the reject pile along with the hundreds of other AI-written letters.
8. Include your most relevant experience at the top
After your name, contact information, and summary, aim to have any customer support experience at the very top of your resume.
For this, you can follow the reverse chronological format, unless you’ve switched fields in between.
The reverse chronological order is not only the most popular and common, but it also enables you to showcase your most recent experience first.
This makes it easy to skim and also gives the hiring manager a birds eye view of your career growth.
However, go for the hybrid format if:
- You’ve taken a long gap between your customer service career
- Or your most recent job doesn’t reflect relevant experience
What a Perfect Call Center Resume Looks Like
To give you an even clearer idea of what a good call center resume looks like, here’s an example you can take a page from:
This call center representative resume follows a reverse chronological order to list the applicant’s experience. It also touches upon their education and skills so that potential employers get a quick glimpse if they’re interested.
But even more importantly, this resume example uses action words, reveals performance metrics, and also has a clear summary of the candidate. There isn’t a ton of fluff, and they don’t waste time with things like hobbies and high school job experience.
It’s visually appealing as well, with:
- A basic design
- Just enough white space
- A simple font
- Contrasting text colors to make it easy to read
An additional quick tip you can pick from this sample: it doesn’t just mention the applicant’s name and contact details but also hyperlinks to their LinkedIn. If the hiring manager really likes you, they just might click on it.