If you are an employer of a multinational call center, who will you choose? An applicant that is so skilled yet has an attitude problem, or someone who is less skilled yet is very motivated to learn?
If I am the hiring person, I will choose the latter. This is true especially in call center recruitment nowadays. There has been a lot of applicants being interviewed everyday and I noticed that most of them were classified into two types. The first type is an applicant who had a solid call center experience but has a lot of hiring demands and conditions. The other type is a newbie applicant who really needs to hone their skills (like communication and customer service skills at that) but is very much willing to be trained.
I always believe in the philosophy of attitude over skills. It is the person’s right attitude towards life and work that will bring him success. I have noticed it in a lot of people in call centers. I have noticed it in my own life as well.
When I started my career in XIC Global way back in 2001, I already set my mind that this is going to be a learning experience for me. What will I do in an industry that’s new to me? I finished a course in communication and I was immersed in media production and advertising work. I never had any customer service orientation except from what I understand a little about the work of those front liners I see like the bank tellers, customer service staff etc.
Yet I saw that as an opportunity to learn. I attended all the training, listened to everything they said, asked questions whenever I need to clarify things they discussed. In the process made some mistakes, improved on those and tried again. I even set my own assignments so I can supplement the learnings that I got from the call center training. Again, I committed some shortcomings but I never gave up on what I’m doing then.
I’ve got my pains and gains because I’m really passionate about what I do. When I got a flu while I’m here in Davao, I have all the right to absent myself from doing call center training. But when I remembered that no one else will attend to my class, I immediately consulted with the doctor, took medicines and went to class. Although I’m not feeling well at those times, I am concerned more on the learnings that they will miss if I won’t be around. I showed them how much I care, not only as my trainees but my learners as well.
That’s why it hurts me a lot when I see other people refuse to learn new things (especially if they voluntarily immersed themselves in the situation). If they have other reasons for doing so I really don’t mind, but I feel sorry for those people who displayed a different attitude yet needs to work more on their other skills. If they suddenly changed their minds about what they’re doing, expressing honesty about it won’t hurt me. But I will not tolerate an untoward attitude towards learning and work.
In the end, I hope that they will realize the importance of right attitude over skills without having to learn it the painful way.
So how about your take on this issue?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
In the past I tended to lean towards hiring attitude over skills until I saw a pattern of lost investment. We would take the time to train and mentor only to have them take their skills and run.
With the skilled yet demanding employees you may have to pay more or deal with a little bit of ego but they are up and running and productive quicker and do not require a lot of time investment.
Even if the skilled workers don’t stay long, I feel like I get more out of them in the longrun.
If ako ang tatanungin, ayoko din ng mga taong may attitude problem! Bad trip kaya kasama yun! Mas masarap kasama yung laging nakatawa parang loka loka! he..he.. Nice blog!
mas gusto ko na ang less skill pero motivated kesa sa una. for once naging ganun din ako. medyo demanding at minsan yung gusto ko ang nasusunod. dito sa office marami ang me attitude problem pero wala namang skills..
it’s better to work with people with a good attitude
pag may kasama kang may attitude problem, pati work mo maaapektuhan, nakakaloka!
hi callcentergirl, nice post. thanks for visiting my blog
Just to qualify and I think you mean the same thing. We are talking about “less-skilled” and not “no skilled”.
In my experience managing teams, performance (or lack thereof) can usually be attributed to lack of skill or lack of will. Lack of will as a continuing pattern is what becomes perceived as an attitude problem.
While both can be managed, from what I’ve seen, it is actually more time intense to overcome (if it can be) lack of will.
If the objective is short-term productivity, hiring a highly-skilled person with “baggage” may be okay but if the goal is a long-term relationship, (most of the time) I also lean towards the highly motivated individual.
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