How to Build the Best Call Center Recruiting Strategy

Call center recruiting is essential to building a high-performing team of contact center agents. After all, they are the frontline of your operation—the ones that your customers are interacting with every single day.

But, if you’re not hiring the right agents, you end up with low customer satisfaction scores, high staff churn, and sunk costs from hiring and training. And with the yearly turnover rate for contact centers already reaching 60%, it’s no secret how difficult customer-facing roles can be.

Thankfully, with the right strategy and QA data, you can deliver the best results from your call center recruiting process (i.e. hiring top talent and keeping your employee turnover rates low).

In this article, we’ll show you how to build that strategy, what you need to watch out for, and why the QA data you’re already using can help you find the best agents.

How to build a call center recruiting strategy: The 7 main steps

1. Build your ideal agent profile using QA data

Your call center recruiting strategy should start with what’s already working. Use quality assurance scores, call performance data, and supervisor feedback to pinpoint the traits that make your top agents successful. Look for patterns and turn them into measurable hiring criteria, such as:

• Speed

• Accuracy

• Empathy

• Script adherence

• QA data helps you define more than just these general strengths, though. It can help shine a light on the ideal profile to fit different roles.

EXAMPLE: Outbound sales agents might excel with assertiveness and closing efficiency, while customer service representatives score higher in patience, empathy, and problem-solving.

Try to frame it the way marketers define customer personas; each role has its own ideal criteria. Use QA evaluation trends to shape a clear picture of what success looks like in each position, then build interview questions and assessments around those benchmarks. Your recruiting becomes more focused, repeatable, and aligned with your goals.

2. Nail your branding right to attract top talent

Your company’s appearance is crucial to attracting the right agents. Top talent pays attention to company reputation, values, and work culture before they ever get into your call center staffing pipeline.

When your call center promotes clear values, professional growth, and a supportive environment, it signals long-term stability. According to a survey from the Job Seeker Nation Report:

• 52% of respondents are looking for career advancement

• 32% are looking for a better company culture

• 39% left a new job within 90 days due to a poor company culture

• 25% left because of limited career advancement

Make sure your job posts, careers page, and social presence reflect what your company offers—and what potential new hires are looking for, like better compensation and the ability to climb the ladder.

Your brand can also help you stand apart from third-party recruiters and staffing firms. Instead of blending in with generic listings, your message should feel direct, human, and purpose-driven. Highlight what makes your company excellent, and show them why you should be their first pick.

3. Follow a checklist for job postings

Clear, well-written job postings attract better candidates. They also shape first impressions about your call center’s professionalism and work culture. Try using a checklist like this to make each call center recruiting post as relevant and focused as possible:

• Clear job title that reflects the actual role

• Brief, enticing overview of the company and the purpose of the position

• Key responsibilities and day-to-day tasks (in bullet points)

• Required and preferred skills and qualifications listed separately

• Shift details and work environment (remote, on-site, hybrid)

• Pay range and benefits

• Performance expectations and how it’s measured

• Opportunities for development or advancement

• Simple, direct application instructions

4. Choose the best call center recruitment channels

Effective recruiting starts by using the right mix of channels to reach qualified talent. Internal referrals are usually fast and reliable, while job boards give you broader exposure. Staffing partners and BPOs can also help fill roles quickly, especially when time or volume is a concern.

However, it’s also important to match your channels to the type of roles you’re hiring for. Inbound support agents may come from different sources than outbound sales reps or multilingual teams. Use targeted platforms and networks to find candidates who fit the specific demands of each role.

Working with agencies presents another viable choice, especially for enterprise-level businesses. But if you do, keep the strategy aspect in-house. Give them QA-based benchmarks so they can screen candidates who align with your team’s expectations.

5. Standardize the hiring process for speed and consistency

Structured interviews keep your hiring fair, focused, and repeatable. Add role plays and job simulations to see how candidates handle real call scenarios. These reveal communication skills, problem-solving, and composure under pressure.

Use your existing QA scorecards to grade performance for each test. That way, you can tie your hiring process directly to how you measure success on the floor. Candidates get a preview of expectations, and you get objective data to help guide hiring decisions.

Standardizing these interviews reduces the guesswork of hiring and shortens time to hire. Speed and consistency are essential, especially for enterprises and larger teams with more demand. It helps you scale without sacrificing quality or alignment.

6. Use scenarios + simulations to predict on-the-job success

Using the job simulations and scenarios we mentioned before helps give you a clear view of how candidates will perform before they’re hired.

Build each scenario around real call center tasks that are relevant to the role you’re trying to fill, and make sure they reflect real-world pace, tone, and complexity. Try exercises based around:

• Handling complaints

• Upselling

• Tech support

Create different ones for each agent persona you’ve defined, whether it’s inbound support, outbound sales, or bilingual service. Tailor them to match the day-to-day experience of that role, allowing you to assess whether a candidate is the right fit, not just a strong interviewee.

Then, score these simulations using your QA scorecards to stay aligned with how you measure success on the job. You’ll quickly spot strengths, skill gaps, and how they line up with team expectations. In the end, it makes it easier to identify candidates who are more likely to succeed and grow in your call center environment.

7. Break down silos for a cross-functional approach

Call center recruiting often lives in its own lane, disconnected from operations, QA, and training teams. But hiring decisions are stronger when they’re shaped by input from across the entire contact center.

Your best agents succeed because of how they work with systems, customers, and teams; not just how they interview. So involve QA, managers, and supervisors early in the process. Their feedback helps refine job requirements, screening criteria, and onboarding plans.

Use cross-functional data to guide hiring decisions—whether it’s QA scores, customer sentiment, or training outcomes—creating a more complete picture of what to look for in candidates.

When teams collaborate, recruiting becomes faster, more targeted, and better aligned with operational goals.

6 sample interview questions for call center recruiting

Asking the right questions helps you uncover how candidates think, respond under pressure, and align with your team’s values. Tailor each question to the skills and behaviors that matter most for the role you’re hiring. Use the answers to assess both soft skills and job readiness.

If you need some interview questions to use, check out our list of 30 Important Call Center Job Interview Questions. Or, for now, start with these examples:

1. Can you describe a time you turned around an upset customer?
2. How do you handle high call volumes without sacrificing quality?
3. What does great customer service mean to you?
4. Walk me through how you learn a new tool or system.
5. How do you stay calm during stressful interactions?
6. What steps do you take to ensure accuracy in your work?

8 mistakes to avoid in call center recruiting

Of course, recruitment isn’t just about following best practices—you’ll also need to avoid common pitfalls that lead to bad hiring, for example:

1. Hiring with your gut and ignoring the data: Decisions based on instincts often mess patterns in performance, QA scores, and real outcomes. Let data shape your ideal candidate profile.
2. Recruiting for speed or quantity over quality: Filling seats quickly can create turnover issues down the road. Focus on matching the right people to the right roles to boost employee retention.
3. Relying too much on third-party agencies/firms: When agencies control your hiring funnel, you lose visibility and accountability. Keep strategy and standards in-house, even if you outsource some parts of the process.
4. Not using frontline supervisor feedback to refine your recruiting strategy: Supervisors know who succeeds and why. Their insight can improve job descriptions, interview questions, and evaluation methods.
5. One-size-fits-all interview approach regardless of role: Different roles require different skills. Use targeted scenarios and questions for inbound, outbound, and blended teams.
6. Ignoring culture fit and soft skills: Technical ability isn’t enough. Look for communication style, adaptability, and customer focus to ensure team alignment and employee engagement.
7. Neglecting onboarding and training: Hiring isn’t the finish line. Without proper onboarding, even strong candidates can fail to meet expectations.
8. Failing to monitor performance post-hire: Without linking recruiting to QA data, you can’t see what’s working—and what isn’t. Build a feedback loop with your QA team to improve agents as they grow and improve future hiring.

Why QA data is crucial for effective call center recruitment

QA data gives you more than just a record of agent performance, you can use it as a blueprint for smarter recruiting.

By analyzing scorecards, you can identify the traits, behaviors, and habits that sets your top performers apart. Then, you can use these insights to refine your hiring criteria and shape interview questions that target what actually drives success on the floor.

Instead of just guessing, you end up building your talent pipeline around real, measurable outcomes. And with AI-powered QA, you can analyze 100% of customer interactions across the entire organization. This gives you a complete picture of how agents communicate, solve problems, and follow procedures instead of just a snapshot.

QA data also strengthens your onboarding and monitoring process. Track how new hires perform against the same standards used in both recruiting and on the floor. Over time, you’ll be able to adjust your hiring strategy based on performance trends instead of loose guesses.

Strategic call center recruitment is the first step to exceptional customer experience

High-quality agents are key to your operation's success. Smart hiring creates a solid foundation for better customer experiences and a successful business. But that means being proactive with your hiring process, and taking advantage of the tools and data within your call center.

Use the QA data that your call center already collects and build a profile for the roles you want to fill. Keep the entire organization in the loop, including supervisors, QA, and management. Make sure your job postings stand out from the competition through strong branding and clearly defined roles.

Soft skills like empathy, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, and critical thinking are vital for great call center agents. It's tough to find candidates with these skills, but our eBook on Call Center Soft Skills can help you identify them in the hiring process and train them on the job.