Outbound sales is hard. Everyone in contact centre recruitment knows it, even if nobody puts it quite that bluntly in the job ad.
It’s rejection on repeat. It’s calling people who didn’t ask to be called. And it’s hearing “no” 40 times a day and still finding the energy to make the 41st call.
Attrition rates reflect it. Outbound sales teams tend to churn faster, and cost more to replace than almost any other contact centre function.
If you’re a head of recruitment trying to fill outbound sales advisor roles, you already know the pain. The seats that are hardest to fill are also the ones that empty fastest.
But ask yourself this… is the problem the role, or is it who you’re hiring for it?
There’s a common assumption in hiring for outbound contact centre agents. You want someone hungry, competitive and target-driven. Ideally with a few years of outbound or telesales under their belt.
On paper, it makes sense but in practice, it often produces someone who’s great for three months and gone by four. That’s because the traits that make someone look good in an outbound interview (think confidence, ambition, and assertiveness) aren’t always the traits that make someone stay in a business.
When we surveyed over 100 contact centre professionals, the qualities that came up most often as predictors of success weren’t a hunger to succeed or wolf of wall street traits. They were communication, empathy, and resilience.
Resilience is the one that matters most for outbound. Resilience isn’t about being unaffected by rejection, it is about how you recover from it. It’s the ability to take a rough call, shake it off, and go again without carrying the frustration into the next conversation.
Here’s a stat from our research that should make any hiring manager pay attention: people who felt rushed during onboarding were 2.5 times more likely to leave within six months.
Now apply that to hiring outbound sales agents.
A role that’s already harder, already more emotionally demanding, and already has higher attrition. If you’re rushing someone through two weeks of training and then handing them a dialler and a script, could you be setting them up to fail?
For people without prior contact centre experience, the gap widens further. Our survey found that inexperienced hires who felt rushed were six times more likely to leave early compared to those who felt their onboarding timing was right.
Outbound sales needs more onboarding, not less. More call listening, time shadowing experienced agents, and practice handling objections before they’re doing it for real.
The three things contact centre workers asked for most in our survey were: more time before going live (mentioned 32 times), real call listening and shadowing (23 times), and a buddy or mentor who isn’t their manager (mentioned repeatedly).
All three feel especially relevant for outbound, where the emotional toll of the early weeks can make (or break) someone’s decision to stay.
Most outbound interviews are designed to surface confidence. For example, can they talk? Can they pitch? Do they seem like they can close?
But the question that predicts retention isn’t “can they sell?” It’s “what do they do after the tenth no in a row?”
87% of people in our survey said anyone can succeed in a contact centre with the right training and support. The implication for outbound is then clear, in our opinion, you don’t need to find someone who’s already hardened to rejection. Rather, you need someone who has the raw skills to build that resilience, and then you need to support them while they do.
In interviews, ask about times they’ve persisted through something difficult. Not sales specifically, just anything. This could be a difficult shift, a challenging customer or a period where nothing seemed to go right.
Listen to how they talk about it. Do they frame it as something that happened to them, or something they navigated?
And consider a live preview. Letting a candidate listen to real outbound calls before they accept the role isn’t just good for them, it’s good for you. The people who hear it and still want the job are worth their weight in gold. Trust us!
The candidate who stays in outbound isn’t always the one with the best sales track record. They’re often the one who’s resilient, empathetic enough to connect with customers, and steady enough not to take rejection personally.
They might come from a restaurant floor or from a retail shop where they hit upsell targets without anyone calling it “outbound.” They might not have a single day of contact centre experience.
But with the right onboarding, the right support, and a hiring process that screens for the things that matter (not just the things that look good on a CV) they’re the ones who’ll still be there at month six. And probably, month 12.
This article draws on findings from The Great Contact Centre Survey: research into what contact centre workers wish employers knew about attracting, hiring, and keeping the right people.
