With any interview you have preparation is the key. Even if they don’t ask you the questions you expected preparation will help you be less nervous.

First you should study the call center company and the company the contract will be for.

This will help you develop intelligent questions for when they ask you for questions.

Now you should prepare for some general interview questions.

1. Tell us about yourself.

Whenever someone asks me that I think that isn’t really a question now is it. It is so open ended you could answer almost anything and it would be OK. The question is what would be the best thing to say or not to say.

I would mention any interests that are related to the contract. A good example would be if it was a technical support job and you have a hobby of building computers. That would be a good subject to mention. If the contract was for selling vacuum cleaners I don’t think it would hurt you but I also don’t think it would help.

I would not give them a list of all your interests or talk about how busy you are. They might think you are too busy to make the job a priority.

Volunteer work can also be a good thing to mention especially if it involved working with the public or dealing with difficult people.

If I were you I wouldn’t give out many details about my personal life. In your area it may be illegal for them to remove you from consideration because of things like; religion, political affiliation, sexuality, marriage status, if you have children, ect., but I think we all know that it does happen from time to time. I’m not saying to lie or hide anything I’m just saying in an interview they need to know that you are a skilled employee who they want on their team. They don’t need to know too much about your personal life.

Sometimes I think this question is asked to see if the interviewee will panic, talk themselves into a corner, and say something really stupid. It should be obvious that you shouldn’t talk about things you may have done that are unethical or illegal but people have done it. I heard about someone getting blackballed from a very large company for talking about something like that in their interview.

2. Tell us about your past jobs

Normally people will start with the most recent and go back a couple. It is best if these jobs have some relevance to the job you are applying for. If you don’t see the relevance because they are not call center jobs. Think about all the different things you did in those jobs. Now look for parts of the job that were related to customer service, computer skills, teamwork, problem solving, or dealing with difficult people. Emphasize these areas when talking about the previous jobs. If they have your resume or application in front of them then you will want to mention all of the jobs you listed.

2.1 What did you like and dislike about your past job(s)?

Question two maybe a setup for question 2.1. Once again this may be a question to see if you will say something stupid. By that I mean the thing you do not do on this question is speak badly of a previous employer. You may think that your previous employer ran their call center like a sweatshop and management was full of idiots but under no circumstances should you answer with that.

Stay on a positive note.  Emphasize what you liked about it especially if they are things that your old and new job will have in common. Downplay the things that you didn’t like, don’t list very many, and try to find things that will not be part of the new job.

3. Why do you want to leave your current employer or switch careers

4. Describe a problem you have with a customer and what you did

5. Describe a time where you went above and beyond for a customer

6. Strengths weaknesses

7. What experience do you have with customer service

8. Plans for the future

9. What would former co-workers say about you

10. Why do you want to work for this company

11. How do you handle stress

12. What are your computer skills