How to hire a collections specialist

How to hire a collections specialist, step by step

Here's a step-by-step collections specialist hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a collections specialist job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new collections specialist
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a collections specialist do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a collections specialist, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a collections specialist to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a collections specialist that fits the bill.

   This list presents collections specialist salaries for various positions.

   Type of Collections Specialist	Description	Hourly rate
   Collections Specialist	Bill and account collectors, sometimes called collectors, try to recover payment on overdue bills. They negotiate repayment plans with debtors and help them find solutions to make paying their overdue bills easier.	$12-21
   Medical Collector	A medical collector deals with collection of bills related to medical services. They handle healthcare-related debt, collect patient insurance information, and develop repayment plans to accommodate debtors that are unable to settle their accounts... Show more	$14-20
   Debt Collector	Debt collectors are also known as collection agencies and are responsible for recovering past due debts. Most of them are hired by companies to collect debt either for a fee or a percentage of the total amount recovered... Show more	$12-20

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Customer Service
   • Patients
   • Customer Accounts
   • Payment Arrangements
   • Delinquent Accounts
   • Phone Calls
   • Past Due Accounts
   • Data Entry
   • Collection Efforts
   • Credit Card Payments
   • Patient Accounts
   • Customer Payments
   • FDCPA
   • Outbound Collection Calls

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage university A/R processes and enforce tuition payment policy.
   • Manage accounts for healthcare clients, review detailed patient information for payment resolution while abiding HIPPA privacy and security regulations.
   • Review denied Medicare and Maine Medicaid insurance claims for accuracy.
   • Analyze hospital insurance claims of individual patients for errors and contact major insurance carriers for claims dispute resolution.
   • Analyze accounts for patients ineligible for private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid and indicating inability to pay balance.
   • Possess effective persuasion and negotiation skills, excellent interpersonal and communications skills with the ability to deliver quality customer service.

   More collections specialist duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your collections specialist job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A collections specialist salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a collections specialist in Iowa may be lower than in Connecticut, and an entry-level collections specialist usually earns less than a senior-level collections specialist. Additionally, a collections specialist with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average collections specialist salary

   $35,164yearly

   $16.91 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level collections specialist salary

   $27,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 28, 2025

   Average collections specialist salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	Massachusetts	$45,241	$22
   2	California	$42,195	$20
   3	Washington	$39,650	$19
   4	Oregon	$38,806	$19
   5	New York	$38,118	$18
   6	Pennsylvania	$37,463	$18
   7	Maryland	$37,392	$18
   8	Colorado	$36,934	$18
   9	Minnesota	$36,649	$18
   10	North Carolina	$35,701	$17
   11	Wisconsin	$35,549	$17
   12	Illinois	$35,329	$17
   13	Arizona	$35,224	$17
   14	Texas	$35,073	$17
   15	Georgia	$34,569	$17
   16	Florida	$34,378	$17
   17	Missouri	$33,955	$16
   18	Nevada	$33,821	$16
   19	Virginia	$33,693	$16
   20	Utah	$32,643	$16

   Average collections specialist salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Kent Daniels & Associates	$54,324	$26.12	8
   2	Goldman Sachs	$53,109	$25.53
   3	Clear Channel Airport	$49,019	$23.57	4
   4	Seneca Foods	$45,461	$21.86
   5	Altec	$44,627	$21.46
   6	Univest Financial Corporation	$43,161	$20.75	1
   7	Cozen O'Connor	$43,130	$20.74	2
   8	University of California-Berkeley	$42,828	$20.59
   9	Cottage Health	$41,186	$19.80
   10	New York Life Insurance	$41,146	$19.78
   11	Oklahoma's Credit Union	$41,021	$19.72	5
   12	iHeartMedia	$40,950	$19.69
   13	JPMorgan Chase & Co.	$40,746	$19.59	14
   14	NOV	$40,713	$19.57	11
   15	Ent Credit Union	$39,773	$19.12	2
   16	Masimo	$39,526	$19.00	1
   17	Protect My Car	$39,217	$18.85
   18	Discover	$39,187	$18.84
   19	Western Flyer Xpress	$38,951	$18.73	1
   20	UW Credit Union	$38,885	$18.69

4. Writing a collections specialist job description

   A job description for a collections specialist role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a collections specialist job description:

   Collections specialist job description example

   A career with OneMain offers you the potential to earn an annual salary plus incentives. You can steer your career with access to a variety of robust training programs and opportunities to advance toward leadership roles such as Branch Manager and District Manager. Other team member benefits include competitive pay, variable incentives tied to business performance, medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid time off, paid volunteer time, tuition reimbursement and more.

   Sign on Bonus: Sign on bonus of $1500 will be paid in 1 installment after 90 days of employment. Team member must be active at the time of the payout. Part Time positions: Sign on bonus will be prorated based upon the scheduled biweekly hours. Not applicable to current OneMain team members.

   IN THE ROLE

   • Responsible for high volume collections (via phone) activities to achieve delinquency goals for an assigned branch

   • Work with customers in a consultative manner, negotiating (including renewing the loan) to resolve account matters

   • Commitment to excellent customer service with the ability to prioritize and manage multiple responsibilities

   • Ability to overcome objections and utilize strong negotiation skills to resolve customer delinquencies

   REQUIREMENTS

   • HS Diploma/GED

   PREFERRED REQUIREMENTS

   • Collections or Customer Service experience

   • Bilingual (Spanish)

   WHO WE ARE

   OneMain Financial is the country's largest lending-exclusive financial company, a trusted name in lending for over 100 years. Since 2005 alone, we have looked beyond customers credit scores to lend more than $152 billion to 16.2 million people looking for simple, affordable loans.

   With branches across 44 states, we're proud partners of the families and communities we serve. They turn to us to help meet important financial needs, including debt consolidation, medical expenses, household bills and auto purchases. It's all about doing the right thing - a mission that hasn't changed for more than 100 years.

   KEY WORD TAGS

   Collections, Delinquency, Sales, Retail, Loan Sales, Customer Service, Customer Care, Business Development, New Grad, Newly Graduated, Finance, Full-time, Career, Benefits, Customer Experience, Financial Representative, Credit

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find collections specialists for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any collections specialists they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level collections specialists with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your collections specialist job on Zippia to find and recruit collections specialist candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as efinancialcareers, financialjobsweb.com, careerbank, financial job bank.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   During your first interview to recruit collections specialists, engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. During the following interview, you'll be able to go into more detail about the company, the position, and the responsibilities.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new collections specialist

   Once you have selected a candidate for the collections specialist position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a collections specialist?