Um, what do I do here?

Back in the late 1990’s, when I thought I was done with university), I was applying for all sorts of jobs. One of them, was in a call centre, Now I wasn’t very experienced phones at this point, a bit shy and didn’t like ringing people, but I was fine if people were ringing me…so the job I applied for was specifically for an inbound call centre. This particular call centre had contracts with multiple businesses, but wanted someone that was studying marketing for a particular client…so I applied.

The interview was a group interview, and lasted the entire morning. Those that they were interested in, were asked to stick around after lunch, for some practical experience. I was one of the ones that stuck around. So after lunch, they place us all individually in these inhumane cubicles…sometimes I don’t understand how you call centre workers can stand working in such small confined spaces all day. So anyway, I get placed in my cubicle…and we are told what our activity is going to be. For the next hour, we would be cold calling people, asking them if they would like to do a survey for a medical related non-profit organisation (lets call it Australian Red Noughts). We were given the survey questions we were to ask. We had a worksheet in front of us where we had to write down the phone number, and the answers to the survey questions. We were also given a list of phone numbers for us to call, and supervisors would be listening in to see how we were going.

Now the first problem we all had, is that none of us had ever worked in a call centre before. With the exception of one or two, we were all in our late teens/early 20s. So we were given a very brief rundown on how we were supposed to talk on the phone, not to get angry with the person on the other end of the call, and a couple of cheat sheets on what to say if a person answered a particular question a particular way. If we get stuck, we were to put our hand up, and a supervisor would come over. Seems pretty straight forward. Now, maybe they were testing me or something, but I got possibly the worst batch of numbers, and the worst cubicle.

For starters, while everyone else got a handset, my cubicle was without one. The supervisors had to go running around finding one, and when they couldn’t find one, I had to be given a headset…so there goes an extra couple of minutes showing me how to use the headset. Then that headset didnt want to work properly, so they had to get me another headset. My first call…no answer. My second call…no answer. I got to about the eighth number before there was an answer…a bloody answering machine. We were not given instruction on what to do if we got an answering machine. Another four no answers. Then I got someone who answered…they politely said I am not interested in buying anything, and promptly hung up. Two more no answers, and then did a call that was answered by a 5 year old kid. Again…no instruction on what the hell to do in this situation. Supervisor came over and said to just hang up. Three or four more calls that went unanswered…and then my time was up. Total surveys done…ZERO.

Feedback two weeks later when I am told I didn’t get the job…I didn’t get enough people to answer the survey to gauge my ability. When I said that only two people actually answer the phone, they told me that everyone else had at least 10…so why didn’t I have that many? Looking back, I am glad I didn’t get the job.