Hays Recruitment has reported that the current economic environment is likely to fuel further demand for senior contact centre jobs with the trend set to continue throughout 2009.

“As we see further company restructures, organisations will increasingly focus on process improvements and management of costs. Employers are looking for individuals who can demonstrate significant business re-engineering and change management experience,” said Lorna Shakespeare, senior manager at Hays Contact Centres.

Employers are looking to bolster recruitment within their support functions, where the demand for resource planning and forecasting jobs for senior managers remains steady. Other areas of focus for call centre employers include performance management, workforce management, dialler management and MI management, which is reflected in the demand for experienced professionals.

“These specialist skill sets are harder to source and all play a key role in improving efficiencies and reducing costs. Salaries for these support roles have remained pretty competitive,” continued Lorna Shakespeare.

Although jobseekers for senior roles will typically have five years’ experience, coupled with a strong technical knowledge of industry systems such as Total View, Blue Pumpkin and Avaya, organisations are also placing great emphasis on people management skills.

The public sector is creating opportunities for more traditional call centre jobs, particularly for senior customer service manager and operational manager roles. Jobseekers with previous private sector experience are a major plus for many organisations. “Skills are very transferable and the public sector welcomes applications from those with private sector backgrounds, particularly given that many of them will already have experience driving cost and efficiency savings. Salary and benefits packages are also enticing,” explained Lorna Shakespeare.

Applicants do, however, need to apply additional effort to make sure that their CVs are tailored to specific job requirements. Providing a detailed picture of their experience is imperative to emphasise suitability for the role.

However, as long as jobseekers maintain a positive and realistic outlook, applicants with the right set of technical and personal skills, particularly in the change and people management fields, can excel in the current marketplace as evidenced by the steady demand for interim and permanent contact centre jobs in both the public and private sectors.

Hays Contact Centres is part of Hays plc and specialises in contact centre jobs including customer service jobs and collections jobs. It is market leader in the UK and Australia, and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe. As on 30 June 2008, the Group employed 8,872 staff operating from 393 offices in 28 countries across 17 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2008, the Group had revenues of £2.5 billion, net fees of £786.8 million and operating profit before exceptional items of £253.8 million. The Group also placed around 80,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 300,000 people into temporary assignments. The temporary placement business represented 49% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 51% of net fees.

Via EPR Network
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