As a call center agent, you are the voice of your company. Whether you're the first human a customer has had contact with, or you’re dealing with a customer who has had an unsatisfactory experience, your goal is to reach a positive outcome by the end of the call.
Your call center resume is a great place to show that you know how to give people what they want. In fact, the key to your job hunt will be to create a resume that shows employers that you have what they want.
Resume guide for a call center agent resume
How do you craft your skills, employment history, and personality into a document that gets you that all-important interview? Resume.io is a great source of advice and practical tools to answer that question. Check out any of the 500+ resume examples and writing guides in our free library, as well as our resume builder.
This resume guide, along with an adaptable call center agent resume example, will cover the following:
- How to write a call center agent resume
- The best resume format for a call center agent
- How to add your contact information
- Advice for using summaries
- Adding your call center agent experience
- Listing education and relevant experience
- Professional resume layout and design hints
- What the call center agent job market looks like today and what salary you can expect
How to write a call center agent resume
Before you begin writing, it’s important to know what sections make up your call center agent resume. It should contain the following elements:
- The resume header
- The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
- The employment history section
- The resume skills section
- The education section
To make your resume do its best work for you, focus on the following:
- Highlight your achievements, not just your job duties. Make it clear how you’ve impacted past companies and customers.
- Tailor your tone. Successful customer service as a call center agent requires just the right tone—so does your resume. In fact, the tone of your resume should echo your tone as a friendly, helpful voice on the call. Just like you adapt your communication to each customer, you should adapt your resume to each employer.
- Convey your professionalism and poise with a resume template that’s polished but not overly formal or fussy.
- Optimize your resume with the right keywords, making it obvious to the reader—whether that’s a human recruiter or an ATS algorithm—why you’re the best fit for the job.
Your goal is to show off your excellent communication skills, while explaining to your customer (in this case, your prospective employer) how you can help.
Why personalize your call center agent resume?
Every resume should be personalized. Why? The simple answer is that every job is different. Tailoring your resume is particularly important for a call center agent position, because you need to demonstrate that you understand the company’s image, products, and style to accurately represent them to a customer.
But, that’s not the only reason to tailor your resume: applicant tracking systems (ATS) are another reason for making the effort.
What is an applicant tracking system? This software is used by human resources departments to collect and manage applications. Advanced systems may use algorithms to rank resumes based on information such as keywords and phrases tagged to the job. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to get those keywords and phrases from the job listing into your resume (if appropriate, of course).
For example, a call center agent job posting may list the following requirements:
- “Call center experience”
- “5 years of experience”
- “Multi-line phone systems”
Your resume summary could read, in part, “Experienced call center agent with over 5 years of expertise managing multi-line phone systems and resolving customer challenges.”
To learn more, check out our article covering Resume ATS optimization.
Choosing the right resume format for call center agent work
The traditional format for a call center agent resume is shared with most entry-level positions (and most jobs in general)— reverse chronological. This resume format is defined by your employment history section in three aspects:
- Your employment history lists jobs from most recent to oldest.
- This section is the largest and most prominent on your resume in terms of space and amount of text.
- Each past job has a bullet point list of duties and/or achievements written out beneath it.
However, if you are just starting out on the job market (for example, as a recent graduate) or making a career pivot, you might want to opt for the functional or hybrid (combination) resume format. The functional format puts the focus on your skills over your specific work history.
Take a look at the numerous resume templates in our resume builder and select the format that best suits your situation. You can review plenty of versions of each format available as resume examples.
When it comes to design, a call center agent resume should use a streamlined, simple, and straightforward layout, like a simple or modern one.
Include your contact information
In the same way that your voice is meant to give callers an initial positive impression when you answer, the purpose of an eye-pleasing header is to introduce yourself on the page in a visually engaging manner. This is where the reader’s eyes will be drawn first and it also makes everything else look inviting to read.
The most important part of your header is your contact information. The prominence of your name, email, and phone number also makes it easy for recruiters to get in touch with you to arrange an interview. Be sure to include the following:
- Your full name & title. List your first and last name and the title of the role you are targeting.
- A professional email address. Use a clean format like [email protected]. Avoid anything unprofessional, silly, or quirky.
- Your phone number. List a number where you can be easily reached, with a professional voicemail greeting, and a voicemail that’s able to take in new messages.
- Your general location. List only your city and state, not your full street address or zip code (sharing too much information is both outdated and unsafe). If you’re willing to move for work, you can note 'Willing to Relocate' here.
- A link to LinkedIn. If your LinkedIn profile is active, relevant, and shows your network, include it here.
Don’t include:
- Your date of birth: This isn’t relevant to your ability to do the job, so it’s not necessary— and including it runs the risk of age discrimination.
- Other personal details: Leave off details about your marital status, social security number, passport number, etc.
Make use of a summary
Your call center agent summary, sometimes called the profile or personal statement, is your chance to illustrate your helpful nature and communication skills. You won’t get a chance to write as freely in the more strictly formatted sections of your resume, so take advantage of these 2-4 sentences.
After you get the job, you’ll probably frequently ask “How can I help you today?” Now is the time to answer that question for your future boss. Use your summary to show off your biggest customer service success and choose a few strong action verbs to describe your personality and skills.
Don’t just reiterate your resume. Instead, present the overarching narrative of your career and how your unique talents and traits have led to your success. Demonstrate your unique value proposition. For instance, you might include something like, “Consistently achieved the department’s highest customer satisfaction scores while handling the highest volume of calls.”
Data and details go a long way toward making your case. If you can point to how many satisfactory customer interactions you had per day, week or month, use that! Or, tell the story of one particularly difficult case you resolved.
Need inspiration for your summary? Check out our related resumes:
You can find adaptable call center agent resume example summaries below:
Friendly and driven Inbound Customer Service Agent with 1+ years of in-person customer service experience and extensive volunteer phone banking experience. Leverages a solution-focused mindset to address customers' needs with confidence and professionalism.
Friendly and proficient Inbound Customer Service Agent with 6+ years of exceptional customer service experience. Proven track record as an effective liaison between companies and their clients, with a solution-focused mindset in addressing the needs of callers in a confident, poised, and professional manner. Consistently outperform quotas, maintaining a +90% or higher customer satisfaction rate and acing new product knowledge with 100% accuracy.
Seasoned and personable Inbound Customer Service Agent with 12+ years of exceptional customer service experience. Proven track record as an effective liaison between companies and their clients, with a solution-focused mindset in addressing the needs of callers in a confident, poised, and professional manner. Consistently outperform the team average by maintaining a 90% or higher customer satisfaction rate and acing new product knowledge with 100% accuracy. Adept at training and mentoring new team members to help them succeed.
Outline your call center agent work experience
Whether you’ve had one previous job or many, you’ve honed your customer service skills along the way. Your employment history section should be a record of that growth. Use concise bullet points under each dated employer heading to give hiring managers an idea of what you will bring to the job based on your past work experience.
If you’re using the reverse chronological format, list your current or most recent job first and work your way back. Only go back the past 10-15 years, as anything older is likely to be less relevant. Keep the experience on your resume as related to call center work as possible.
Don’t simply list job duties and responsibilities; anyone can look at a call center agent job description and understand the general day-to-day work. For example, consider these statements:
- "Solved customer problems.”
- "Entered customer information into the database.”
- "Received high customer satisfaction scores.”
While these are standard parts of a call center agent position, there is nothing in them that shows off your ability to make an impact. Instead, think about specific details to incorporate into results-based statements: the number of customers you served, the specific customer satisfaction score, or how much data you entered.
Watch how that can transform your resume bullets:
- "Leveraged proactive, problem-solving mindset to determine the needs of 80 customers on average per shift, effectively responding by researching, locating, and relaying information.”
- "Maintained the call center database by collecting and recording information for all 14 customer service agents assigned to the shift.”
- "Received monthly customer satisfaction ratings averaging 90% to 96%.”
Take a look at the call center agent employment history resume sample below:
Customer Service Agent at EMS Call Center, Los Angeles
September 2015 - Present
- Adopt a proactive, problem-solving mindset to determine the needs of 80 customers on average per shift and effectively respond by researching, locating, and relaying the correct information.
- Maintain the call center database by collecting and recording information for all 14 customer service agents assigned to the same shift.
- Collaborate with manufacturers and vendors to provide answers to customer questions, with monthly customer service satisfaction ratings averaging 90% to 96%.
- Named agent of the month 12 times since being hired.
Customer Service Agent at Xylo Corporation, Santa Barbara
October 2013 - September 2015
- Helped to maintain and increase customer loyalty by placing follow up calls and expressing consideration for customers.
- Achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 97% within 8 months of employment.
- Named “Outstanding Customer Service Agent” award five times.
Front Desk Associate at Hilton, Arizona
August 2011 - October 2013
- Managed a group of four associates, helping promote the Hilton brand by providing outstanding customer service.
How to write a call center agent resume with no experience
If you are entering the job market for the first time or making a career change into call center agent work, congratulations! It may seem daunting to land that first job with no direct experience on your resume, but if you showcase the right education, training, and transferable skills, you’ll do great.
List any volunteer work, casual jobs, or positions of responsibility at school or in clubs and organizations. Call center jobs require communication skills, problem solving abilities, fluency with software and phone systems, and a passion for customer service. You might have gained these skills in restaurant work or retail.
If you have relevant education, like a degree in communications, marketing, or business, make sure it’s prominently featured on your resume.
How can I assist you today?
Call center agents need a cache of polite phrases to use with customers. Here are some recommended phrases you should add to your work repertoire:
- That’s a great question! Let me find out for you.
- I understand how frustrating (upsetting, worrying, etc.) that is!
- Can you give me a few more details?
- Thanks for your patience.
- I completely understand why you’re making that request.
Include the relevant key skills that make you a great call center agent
The skills section on your resume is designed to give a highlight of your abilities so that busy recruiters can scan to see if you have what they’re looking for. As a call center agent, you need many more skills beyond just a friendly phone voice or the ability to listen.
A secondary reason your skills section carries weight is that it tells hiring managers what attributes you believe are important to highlight.
Both hard and soft skills are important for call center agents. Hard skills are those that are measurable and demonstrable, like fluency manning a multi-line phone system or experience with specific database software. On the other hand, soft skills like customer service, issue resolution, and the ability to communicate with difficult customers are also of utmost importance.
Resume.io’s resume builder includes several skills to choose from, but you can also write in your own skills.
Here’s what the skills box looks like in our call center agent resume template.
- Excellent Communication Skills
- Patience
- Fast Typing Skills
- Resourceful
- Bilingual
While this section is important, it’s not the only place your skills should appear. In fact, they should be sprinkled throughout your resume, especially in the experience and summary sections. Display your skills by adding context and results, making it clear how you used the skill and the impact it had.
For example, you might choose to highlight your:
- Customer service skills by quantifying customer volume or sharing your high customer satisfaction scores
- Attention to detail and accuracy by describing the number of records you entered and maintained, or listing the types of software you used to track customer data
- Communication skills by noting how you contributed to departmental increases in customer satisfaction scores or how you transformed unhappy customers into loyal ones
Scan the job listing to confirm what is important to your potential employer and make sure you list all your matching skills.
Detail your education & relevant call center agent certifications
Your education section should list the educational credentials you’ve achieved. For call center jobs, this section is fairly straightforward. Much of your call center agent training will come on the job, as each company has its own system for handling customers. You will also need to learn about the products and services offered. Therefore, call center jobs don’t typically require any higher education. A high school diploma or equivalent will get your career off the ground.
But don’t stop there. If you do have education above high school, be sure to add it. With a bachelor’s degree or above, there's no need to include high school at all.
And don’t forget about other important knowledge you’ve gained. For example,
- Training and certifications. Courses, webinars, or workshops that have enhanced your call center skills.
- Professional development. Memberships in groups like NACSMA: Call Center Contact Center Membership Association or NCSA, the National Customer Service Association.
B.S. in Communications, Arizona State University, Tempe
August 2008 - May 2012
High School Diploma, Tempe High School, Tempe
September 2004 - May 2008
Pick the right resume layout and design for a call center agent resume
Just as you are a representative of the company for which you work, your call center resume is a representation of your professional self. What impression do you want to make? Clean, neat, organized, detail-oriented? Yes!
The best way to make this impression is to use a call center agent resume template that is simple, avoiding graphics, pictures, or multiple colors. Be sure to leave a good balance of text and white space so your resume doesn’t appear either too cramped or too empty. Using clear section headings helps organize your resume and make it clear what the reader should pay attention to next.
Try one of our expert-approved resume templates to take the guesswork out of formatting.
Call center agent text-only resume example
Profile
Friendly and proficient Inbound Customer Service Agent with 12+ years of exceptional customer service experience. Proven track record as an effective liaison between companies and their clients, with a solution-focused mindset in addressing the needs of callers in a confident, poised and professional manner. Consistently outperform the EMS team average by maintaining a +90% or higher customer satisfaction rate and acing new product knowledge with 100% accuracy.
Employment history
Customer Service Agent at EMS Call Center, Los Angeles
September 2015 - Present
- Adopt a proactive, problem-solving mindset to determine the needs of 80 customers on average per shift and effectively respond by researching, locating, and relaying the correct information.
- Maintain the call center database by collecting and recording information for all 14 customer service agents assigned to the same shift.
- Collaborate with manufacturers and vendors to provide answers to customer questions, with monthly customer service satisfaction ratings averaging 90% to 96%.
- Named agent of the month 12 times since being hired.
Customer Service Agent at Xylo Corporation, Santa Barbara
October 2013 - September 2015
- Helped to maintain and increase customer loyalty by placing follow up calls and expressing consideration for customers.
- Achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 97% within 8 months of employment.
- Named “Outstanding Customer Service Agent” award five times.
Front Desk Associate at Hilton, Arizona
August 2011 - October 2013
- Managed a group of four associates, helping promote the Hilton brand by providing outstanding customer service.
Skills
- Excellent Communication Skills
- Patience
- Fast Typing Skills
- Resourceful
- Bilingual
Education
B.S. in Communications, Arizona State University, Tempe
August 2008 - May 2012
High School Diploma, Tempe High School, Tempe
September 2004 - May 2008
Call center agent job market and outlook
Unfortunately, the demand for customer service representatives is expected to drop by 5% between now and 2032. This is largely due to the advent of various technologies, including automation, mobile apps, and other tools that allow customer self-service.
- About 373,400 openings for call center agent representatives are projected each year over the next decade.
- The largest employers hiring customer service representatives are retail (18%), insurance carriers (11%), and business support (10%).
- On the lower end are wholesale trade and professional, scientific, and technical services, both at 6%.
What type of salary you can expect as a call center agent
Even without any higher education, a call center agent can earn a salary higher than the minimum wage. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median pay for customer service reps (there is no subcategory for call center agents) is $36,680 per year (or $19.08 per hour for those earning an hourly wage).
Key takeaways for building a call center agent resume
Call center agents are a key part of the team and the voice of the company, so they must adjust their tone and style to project the right image. Your friendly nature and excellent communication skills will help you craft a winning resume. Personalize your call center agent resume to show you understand the company’s image and are ready to help tackle whatever challenge comes your way.
Use our online resume builder with your choice of resume template as a way to make your life easier and the job application process faster!