In comparison to employing inbound call center agents, hiring B2B telemarketers, or also refereed to as inside salesman is hands down one of the most difficult types of recruiting in the industry. There are a number of reasons this difficulty exists:

1. Unlike customer service positions that take inbound calls, a telemarketer usually is trying to make cold calls and sell business owners their products or services. Selling a business owner requires that the caller speak very professional and have strong closing skills. That fact is, whether we like it or not, people do judge us by the way we speak and are not quick to make a purchase from someone that does not sound intelligent, even though they probably are.

2. Most people with a degree are not willing to endure to pain that comes along with telemarketing. The position lends itself to tremendous amounts of harsh rejection (much of which is not warranted) and requires extremely high volumes of cold calling.

3. While well spoken people do apply for these positions, a good portion of applicants speak poor or broken English or are overly aggressive and rude. While most of these applicants may potentially be qualified for inbound services they are rarely able to perform in direct business to business sales.

4. When top companies are able to attract professional, well spoken educated candidates they then have the challenge of keeping them financially satisfied so that they remain with the firm.

There is an art to building successful a business that provides call center services and outbound telemarketing, but you'll need a few tips to do it right. One thing is for sure, you can not use the same procedure used for hiring administrative positions as you would for sale. Further, you can't look at a resume and just know who is or is not a candidate. Many recruiters would do well to consider these tips:

1. You can not limit yourself to hiring college graduates. In fact, some of the best inside salesman are all too often those that have no college or higher education.

2. Especially in the call center industry, when an employment ad is run you can expect a huge response. Rule one; do not make the candidate send you his resume first. Make him call you, or call him yourself. While a resume is important you'll be wasting your time if he or she speaks poorly. You're better off with a non college graduate that speaks very well then you'll ever be with a bright graduate that speaks or uses poor grammar. This means you are going to take a ton of calls and try to find the needle in the haystack, so have three or four questions ready and if the caller speaks poorly you should end the call as quickly as possible so that you don't waste your time and wont miss the few good calls that come through. A word of caution, make sure you do not violate any laws by telling candidates that the position is filled when its not. If you're not interested simply tell them you have their information and will call them should you decide that they are a good fit. No further explanation is necessary and you may avoid an unnecessary law suit.

3. One you have located the ones with the best phone voice it's time to move on to the second filter and that is finding people that are not accustomed to earning more that what the position can realistically pay. Be realistic with them. If the position might pay a top caller $14 per hour and your interview is accustomed to earning $20 per hour don't hire them. They may tell you they can work for less but remember, at that point they probably just need a job and anything will do. In the end you will invest your money and time only to lose them to a higher paying position in the near future. If you meet their financial needs they are far more likely to be happy and stay with the company.

4. Look for people that have made high volume calls and/or have done door to door sales with a company for at least three consecutive months. This is enough time to realistically assume that they can endure the difficulties of selling and cold calling. Do not be too critical if they didn't last a year or longer as most inside sale positions have impossible to sell products or pay wages that are not worth the service provided.

5. Make sure the candidate has at least one previous job where he or she has been employed for twelve months or greater and don't be too concerned as to where it was. The fact is some people just can't keep a job and will bounce from job to job their entire lives, but others are seeking long term employment and a job that offers fair compensation and satisfaction. Unless you want to spend every waking moment hiring and training you need to find people that you can retain and that can grow with your business.

There are many other considerations for hiring a telesales team for your call center services, such as where to run employment ads and how to write them, but if employers use the above procedures they may find that they will spend far less time hiring and more time building their core business.