Life after the Call Centre?

Suzkin

Just wondering what people think: without doing yet another further / higher education course to retrain into another new field (and so accruing even more debt..), can anyone possibly suggest other jobs / positions that might follow experience in a call centre?

In my experience, call centre work, wherever one goes, seems to be very clerical, and tends not to lead anywhere (hence large staff turnovers).

I've worked in quite a few in the past, and have noticed very little opportunity for progression into supervisor roles - are there any other avenues to other kinds of (fairly well paid) work, after having worked in a call centre?

Liz_the_Whizz

Hi Suzkin,

The problem with call centres in terms of progression is that they are high volume flat structures, so very few chances to progress.

But your transferable communication skills should be useful for any other office based admin job. Working in a more normal office environment will give you the chance to apply your skills into new areas and develop a specialism, either in terms of a professional area (eg finance, HR, legal etc) or a business sector (eg banks, education, public sector). Your route to promotion is either by developing an expertise (guru) or by proving yourself as an effective supervisor/manager - and often one leads to the other.

Your career direction will partly be determined by what is available at the time - the important thing is to be flexible. You may have aspects of your education which were vocational, which might give you a particular interest you want to develop.

But any experience is better than no experience, provided you are prepared to learn from it.

Good luck !

applecharlotte

Civil Service contact centres are quite good for progression. You could try and go down that route.

Oldernotwiser

If you're a graduate with good call centre experience, you could consider moving into training. This could either be as a trainer with a private company or teaching on call centre courses at a College of Further Education.

flutterbyuk25

applecharlotte wrote: »

Civil Service contact centres are quite good for progression. You could try and go down that route.

Not always! I have just left a civil service contact centre and there was only one promotion board in the whole 5 years I was there!

You may get chance to deputise up a grade when required but again this is only to cover sick/holiday/other duties of a manager so not permanent.

If they offer any training courses then do them all as it showing that your willing to learn at work.

x

littlestar1981

Your title says it all:

There IS life after the call centre... there is NO life IN a call centre!!

I work in one also and hate it am trying so hard to get out into something totally different. Where I work there is very little opportunity for progression (except occasionally trainee management programme, but if you don't want to be a manager there's nothing). Posts that become available seem to get given to someone preselected temporarily (like an unoffical secondment) and then the temporary period lasts so long they have to make them permanent.

What kind of work do you want to do?