How To Recruit High Potential CSRs
With Rachna Singh, Managing Consultant - Contact Centres at Madison Recruitment
Show Notes
Rachna Singh is a Managing Consultant at Madison Recruitment. She manages the team who recruits CSRs for Auckland contact centres.
Today, she shares what to look for when recruiting high potential CSRs, who have the talent to step up to a Team Leader role.
The 6 attributes Rachna looks for in high potential CSR candidates (02:21)
Willingness to learn.
Clear and effective communication.
Sees the bigger picture, of how their work relates to the vision and goals of the organisation.
The ability to positively influence others.
Firm and confident.
Open to feedback and new ideas.
You'll Learn:
The vital characteristic which leaders need, but is often forgotten (03:25).
The 3 attributes which are critical for Team Leaders (04:11).
The 3 steps CSRs can take to step up to a Team Leader role (05:53).
The 2 top areas of development which most people need to excel as a Team Leader (08:54).
The key actions people can take to progress towards their first leadership role (12:12).
Connect with Rachna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachna-singh-a7b97a127/
Transcript
Blair Stevenson (00:00)
Welcome to the Secrets to Contact Center Success podcast. I am Blair Stevenson, founder of BravaTrak. Our Sales Leadership System enables contact centres to increase revenue and achieve their sales growth targets.
Today I'm joined by Rachna Singh, who's a Managing Consultant at Madison Recruitment, and she's responsible for contact centre recruitment there. Today she's here to talk about what she looks for when recruiting CSRs (Customer Service Representatives), who have the potential to step up to a Team Leader role.
So Rachna, welcome along. Great to have you.
Rachna Singh (00:32)
Thank you. Great to be here.
Blair Stevenson (00:34)
Awesome. So as a starting point, I know you've been with Madison Recruitment for about five years, as I recall. Tell us a bit about your background and your experience.
Rachna Singh (00:44)
My journey at Madison initially began as a job seeker when I finished university. I was placed by Madison in a support and administration position, which was in a contact centre.
And over a couple of years I grew into recruiting for the contact centre. And I think that's when I actually found my true passion for recruitment, as well as placing people that don't have as much experience into roles, and see them really grow and flourish.
A couple of years later, I started at Madison as a consultant recruiting for some of the best contact centres in Auckland. And about a year and a half, two years ago, I started managing the Auckland contact centre volume team.
And I definitely am an advocate for contact centres. I truly believe most contact centres offer great career pathways, and are a breeding ground for talent for a lot of companies.
Blair Stevenson (01:42)
Indeed. You've mentioned to me previously that by your estimation, around 70% of people who are recruited into Team Leader roles are actually recruited internally within contact centres. I imagine that means that some of your clients are coming to you asking you to recruit for them CSRs who have the potential to step up into those roles.
What are the attributes that you look for in CSRs who have the opportunity, or might have the opportunity, to step up to a Team Leader role?
Rachna Singh (02:21)
I think attitude and willingness to learn. Attitude is one of those things that definitely isn't something that you can generally teach. So that's key. Clear and effective communication.
And I think one of the other things is the ability to see the bigger picture. So what you're doing now and how that relates to the vision and the goals of the organisation. And that's quite important for a Team Leader, because I think sometimes we work in such isolation. We do our job, but we don't really know how that relates to all the different parts of the company. And that's quite important for somebody in a leadership position to understand and know that.
And then I think as well, somebody who can engage and take their people on a journey with them, and also be quite firm and confident in their approach. And definitely someone who's open to ideas.
Blair Stevenson (03:16)
Yeah. Cool. So you mentioned attitude right up front there. Just tell us a bit more about that. What sort of attitude are you're looking for?
Rachna Singh (03:25)
Just the general willingness to learn and be open to ideas and take feedback on, I think that's key. And I think we always emphasize how all the CSRs and everybody need to be able to take feedback on, but we forget that it's really important for people in leadership to do that, because you can't actually give your people what they want, if you're not actually willing to take that feedback on yourself.
So I think that attitude and that willingness to learn and be open to ideas and feedback is really important.
Blair Stevenson (04:00)
Yeah. Agreed. You mentioned a number of attributes. What are the top three in terms of what you'd regard as critical for a Team Leader and why would you pick those top three?
Rachna Singh (04:11)
I think leading through influence, definitely. So the ability to engage your team, and to communicate effectively. Because at the end of the day, you can't achieve your goals or your company goals in isolation. So that's absolutely key.
And leading by example and not being afraid to make mistakes and giving the opportunity to your team as well, because we all learn and grow from mistakes, right? So within reason, I think it's really important that you provide that opportunity, and that your team are comfortable and confident knowing if they did make a mistake, that you can talk about it and grow and learn from it.
And I think one of the other things is humble confidence, definitely confidence, but humble confidence. Because humility is the foundation. So we strive to be, and we want to be good people to do business with. And here at Madison, one of the things we say is that, "We want to strive to be good to do business with", and that comes within first. You have to demonstrate that internally in your teams and your organisation, and then that projects externally as well.
Blair Stevenson (05:20)
Yeah, and I understand why you select humility because without it, you're not really open to ideas. You're not really open to feedback.
If you've never managed someone before, which obviously is going to be the case for many CSRs, you're probably going to have an incomplete understanding of the role and the responsibilities of a Team Leader. So what would be your advice for CSRs who already work at a contact centre, who are interested in future opportunities as Team Leaders?
Rachna Singh (05:53)
One of the first things is, especially in bigger organisations, it's easy to identify talent, but you don't actually know who wants to go down a certain pathway. So it's important that you make it known to your Team Leader that "This is something that I am potentially considering", and find out more information.
And I think one of the other things is actually finding out if that opportunity is available to you in that business. Because it could be something that's not available. And so you might want to reevaluate your options and attach yourself to something - or find another pathway - which will get you there.
And then secondly, if the opportunity is there, you need to meet with your manager and seek more information. Ask about what that pathway looks like. A lot of people definitely think that being a manager, because they've not been one before … being in a leadership position is quite different to what your perception is. So until you actually are in that position, it's hard to know exactly what the job entails.
So I think that's quite important as well, getting an insight into the role and what are the different facets of that role and what that actually involves and means. Because it could be that there's things that are there that actually don't play to your strengths, and the people management side of things has certain aspects that you absolutely don't want to do.
It's better to find out early on, than for you to put in all that time and effort and then get to this point and then be like, "Actually, no, that's not for me. I didn't know that was what was involved."
And I think thirdly, and the most important thing, is being open to feedback and actively seeking this feedback. You really need to go in with an open mind that you're not being targeted, or you're not doing something wrong, but if I actually want to get to a certain position, I need to be quite open to feedback and the guidance that I'm offered.
So having these as part of your one-on-ones, or having a separate conversation around the key competencies and how I fit in to that, and what are my areas of development. Once you can identify what your key areas of development are, then actively seeking feedback around things that you do that relate to that.
Blair Stevenson (08:22)
So you're really talking about development and being open to feedback, and it's almost like there's two areas there. One is personal characteristics, or attitude, for example, you talked about earlier. The other is based around development in terms of skills and competencies required to do the role.
So I was just thinking about the latter, the skills and competencies. What would you regard as the top two areas of development most people need to excel in a Team Leader role, and how could they get that development?
Rachna Singh (08:54)
The first thing would be conflict management skills. So as a leader, you're faced with various forms of escalations and conflicts on a daily basis. People look up to you to be able to resolve the issues in any escalations. The buck stops with you, at the end of the day.
So it is definitely a key part of your role to diffuse and resolve such situations, whilst also minimising negative repercussions. You learn on the job and you have to do it yourself as well, but I don't think you should discount learning from others in situations that have occurred around you. Hindsight is a great thing.
So if you're faced with a similar situation, you can always think of, "What did somebody else do in a similar situation?" And I think one of the key things that you can also do is to always remain objective, and don't be reactive to that situation.
Because most of the time, these sorts of situations can get a bit personal or emotional or there's a lot of different things that are going on. And there could be people in your team that are involved and you naturally are quite protective.
So I think one of the key things is to take a moment and evaluate and understand the full picture, and tailor your approach to the individuals involved in the situation. And one of the ways you can learn from it is just being in that situation. And say your colleague or somebody else is faced with quite a difficult situation, just monitoring how they've reacted to that situation, what options were available and then what was done.
So I think that's something that you learn as you go along, but there's ways to be able to better yourself at it.
Blair Stevenson (10:41)
This really calls to key communication skills, doesn't it? Your ability to communicate well, to handle conflict with others well.
Rachna Singh (10:50)
Yeah. And as I mentioned previously, one of the key attributes of a leader is to be able to effectively communicate and remain objective. So I think it goes back to that.
And the second one is, and it ties in as well with this, is the ability to make an inclusive yet firm decision. And I think this definitely comes with the willingness to listen and do the right thing for your people and the business.
Blair Stevenson (11:17)
I like that idea, I've always believed it too, that as a manager or a leader you're responsible to two groups. You're responsible to your people, because they're the people doing the work. They come to work for you for seven and a half hours every day. But you're responsible to the business, because they're employing you to get that work done.
Rachna Singh (11:40)
Yeah. And I know we all want to be liked. But unfortunately, at times there will be situations as a leader you're faced with, that you can't always immediately make everyone happy. So you just need to see the value in what you're doing and trust the process.
Blair Stevenson (11:56)
Yeah, agreed. So let's summarise. As a recruitment professional, what would your advice be to someone who's early in their career, who has aspirations to work towards their first leadership role?
Rachna Singh (12:12)
I think I'll go back to the attitude. Attitude is key, have a good attitude, be open to all the learning opportunities around you, and do something now that matters. No matter how small it is, do something every day that takes you closer to your end goal.
At the end of the day, we are a product of what we do consistently, not occasionally. So I think you just always have to make sure that you keep the end goal in mind and do something every day that helps you get closer to that.
Blair Stevenson (12:42)
Fantastic. Rachna, thank you very much. Well, that's it from us today. For listeners, you'll find the link to the show notes in the episode description below.
And if you'd like to connect with Rachna on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachna-singh-a7b97a127/), you'll also find the link to her LinkedIn profile in that description too.
Also, if you'd like to follow me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensonblair/) or connect with me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/blair.stevenson.980), you'll find links to my profile there as well.
Well, that's it from us today. Have a productive week.