(no subject)

[prepare4trouble]

I’ve got an interview tomorrow, it’s for the call centre job, I really won’t know what to do. My mum keeps going on about how much I’ll hate it if I get it, and how if I quit I won’t be able to get any money, so I’ll be stuck there unless I can get fired. Well, that’s true, but not exactly encouraging. Honestly, sometimes I think she must lie awake at night dreaming up ways to undermine my confidence. So now I don’t know if I should try my best in the interview, or be myself. And if I do get offered the job, should I take it? Because I doubt I’ll be able to go home and think about it, the agency asked me to ring them afterwards and tell them how it went, which implies that they will tell me there and then whether I’ve got the job.

Now, I could just say who case what my mum thinks, I should do what I want. And that’s true, but the problem is that she usually tends to be right about these things. So if I get the job and don’t like it, I’ll not only have to choose between having no money and being miserable, I’ll have her "I told you so-ing"

I’ll just have to go to the interview and hope I’m not offered the job, because I don’t know whether I could turn it down to someone’s face. That or hope they ring/write later.

Comments

[blackbeltbarbie.livejournal.com]

You need to look at it this way. Call centres suck. I know, I worked in one for a year and a half. But it has given me invaluable experience which has only ever worked in my favour.

I have decided you shall be my padawan. Feel free to ignore the rest of this post if you want, and please don't think I'm patronising you in any way, I just want to try use my experience to help you a little and show you how useful a call centre can be as a stop gap job.

While in a call centre, you will learn many shiny thing which look good on your CV:

- to work alone to tight dead lines
- to realise and achieve your daily/weekly/monthly targets, which also means...
- learning to prioritise and organise your work load
- you can work easily as part of a larger team, and it sounds small, but employers love it when you can give them an example of times you have helped other people within your team with their work. It shows your one of those team player types.
- your communication skills will improve vastly. And I don't care if your very chatty or very quiet, you will still get possitive improvements communication wise. This includes working with a large group of very different people within the office and putting up with twats who thing they rock, and also explaining things over the phone and learning how to...
- ... deal with pissy customers. Its an ass, but saying to any future pospective employer that you can handle nasty customers on the phone will work wonders in your favour, even if your not exactly telling the whole truth about it ;P
- you will learn to listen in ways you never thought humanly possible. And occasionally, you will be able to use this to pull one over on the customer which gives you a sense of satisfaction even chocolate can not give.

Its sounds hard, but once you get past the initial training and your first week of solo calls, you'd be amazed how easy it all is. The worst thing is the first time you get a call from someone pissy. But its seriously not as bad as it sounds. You will have your workmates to help you, and trust me, if its a worth while company, the team you work with will be more then happy to help you settle properly past your first few bad callers. If the team makes you feel crappy and excluded, do not for a second hesitate to hand in your notice the next day. The team you work with is the most important part of a call centre. It HAS to be a good team who works together and help either other out, even if its just the occasional chat between calls. If you leave suddenly just don't put it on your CV.

Also, if you sign up for agencies, they will help you spin around if you do leave the job after only a few weeks. I recommend Office Angels. The agent sat with me and helped me come up with an answer to every question possible and how to spin stuff to my advantage

Are you cold calling or just getting incoming calls?

I honestly think that even thought everyone hates call centres, if you can stick it for a few months a job like this will be very possitive. Towards the end of my time at the call centre, more and more people who started angry quickly became very nice once they realised I wasn't from India, I was just northern. The fact your in the same country will make people a lot nicer on a whole.

The most important thing to remember is its a call centre. They don't expect much from you, and they don't expect you to stick about for long. Call centres have high turnovers of employees. Try work there for at least 5/6 months before you start looking for anything else but remember its all possitive experience. No matter if its cold calling or incoming calls, you will learn to spin facts on a level with an MP.

God that was a lot of crap!

Good luck with the interview tomorrow. If you want any help with questions they might ask and how to answer them my MSN is queen_bee_marie@hotmail.com so just drop me an email and I'll log on.

xx

[prepare4trouble.livejournal.com]

Wow, that gets the prize for longest ever response to one of my posts. And not a load of crap, actually, very interessting, you've given me a lot to consider.

Sounds like it might not be too bad an idea to go for it, if nothing else, it will be something on my CV, as opposed to leaving uni and bumming around on the dole for a year or so!

It's cold calling, since you asked. Which according to everyone I know, would make me the scum of the universe, not that that bothers me too much.

I guess every job has good and bad things about it, I'll have to try to decide which outweighs the other! Problem is, if I do get the job and end up hating it and wanting to leave, I'll be stuck with no money, a last job that I quit (which doesn't look good!) and as much chance of finding another job as I have now, which judging by how well I've done, is not much!

Thanks, this helped. My mum still says it sounds awful and taking it would be a huge mistake, but I'm going to at least *try*. No guarantee I'll get it anyway, my interview track record is not great.

[blackbeltbarbie.livejournal.com]

LJ told me my first reply was too long by nearly 1000 characters >.< I got carried away:P