How to hire a phone sales representative

How to hire a phone sales representative, step by step

Here's a step-by-step phone sales representative hiring guide:

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

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a phone sales representative, 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 phone sales representative 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 phone sales representative that fits the bill.

   This list presents phone sales representative salaries for various positions.

   Type of Phone Sales Representative	Description	Hourly rate
   Phone Sales Representative	Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives sell goods for wholesalers or manufacturers to businesses, government agencies, and other organizations. They contact customers, explain product features, answer any questions that their customers may have, and negotiate prices.	$11-28
   Sales Development Representative	A sales development representative qualifies leads at the sales funnel's initial stages. Sales development representatives need to conduct research for prospective clients and qualify the leads before handing them to the sales team... Show more	$16-37
   Sales Representative Internship	In a sales representative internship, an intern's duties depend on the directives of a supervising staff or manager. Typically, they are responsible for gaining industry insights while performing clerical tasks such as preparing and processing documents, greeting visitors, disseminating and organizing files, and running errands as needed... Show more	$12-20

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Customer Service
   • Excellent Interpersonal
   • Outbound Calls
   • Inbound Calls
   • Cell Phones
   • Telephone Calls
   • Credit Card Payments
   • Computer System
   • Customer Accounts
   • Customer Orders
   • Customer Sales
   • Sales
   • Sales REP
   • Outbound Sales

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Contact medicare eligible recipients to sell medicare advantage plans through in-home meetings, community seminars and direct telesales.
   • Perform telemarketing duties for online advertisement/marketing
   • Perform telemarketing duties for online advertisement/marketing

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your phone sales representative job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A phone sales representative can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, phone sales representatives' average salary in hawaii is 49% less than in alaska.
   • Seniority. Entry-level phone sales representatives 62% less than senior-level phone sales representatives.
   • Certifications. A phone sales representative with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a phone sales representative's salary.

   Average phone sales representative salary

   $38,105yearly

   $18.32 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level phone sales representative salary

   $23,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 19, 2025

4. Writing a phone sales representative job description

   A good phone sales representative job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a phone sales representative job description:

   Phone sales representative job description example

   **Overview**
   
   **Inside Phone Sales Representative - 100% Work from Home**
   
   **Remote Positions Across the US**
   
   **Senior Living Advisor**
   
   **What you will do:**
   
   + Work in a growing, fast-paced industry to help educate families on senior care options and find the right communities to meet their needs **while working remotely from your home office.**
   
   + Take inbound, pre-screened leads and help guide families from initial consultation, to touring of facilities, and ultimately moving into a senior living community.
   
   + Act as the liaison between families in need and the senior housing communities or care providers.
   
   **Who you are:**
   
   + A selling machine!
   
   + Highly empathetic
   
   + Excited to work in the unique industry of senior living
   
   **What will make you successful:**
   
   Success is measured by reaching daily call benchmarks, scheduling tours at communities, and converting leads into move-ins resulting in achievement of a monthly quota.
   
   + Passion to learn - We offer an extensive new hire training program to prepare you to assist the families as well as ongoing feedback to help you improve performance over time.
   
   + Competitive by nature - You need to be self-motivated and have the drive to win and hit your sales goals
   
   + Technically proficient - You must be proficient at both Microsoft Office as well as have the ability to learn and use our internal CRM systems.
   
   + Flexibility - Youneed to be available to work evening, nights and weekends. We are a consumer facing business and we need to be available when our families need us.
   
   **Who we are:**
   
   A Place for Mom is an online platform connecting families in need of senior care services with a team of experienced advisors providing insight-driven and personalized solutions. Our mission, as the leader in senior care advisory, is to be a trusted destination for families and our community customers. We are a quickly growing organization with over 400 advisors connecting more than 300,000 families every year to one of our community customers.
   
   Living by our values and working to achieve excellence on behalf of our customers is integral to success at A Place for Mom. Employees who thrive at A Place for Mom live our values every day and are an important part of our hiring practices:
   
   + Focus on Excellence
   
   + Act with Integrity & Assume Positive Intent
   
   + Drive Outcomes Every Day with Passion and A Sense of Mission
   
   + Make the Lives of our Families and Customers Better, Easier and More Successful
   
   + Realize the Full Potential in Each Team Member. Work as a Single Supportive Team
   
   **Qualifications**
   
   **Required Skills and Competencies**
   
   + Bachelor's degree preferred
   
   + History of exceeding sales quota
   
   + Ability to multi-task; simultaneously talk on the phone and take notes on the computer.
   
   + Strong computer and typing skills necessary, including Word and Excel.
   
   **Compensation**
   
   The position is a salaried, non-exempt position. The position earns a base salary with uncapped bonus potential. Working hours are scheduled at 40 hours per week that include some nights and weekends; overtime is paid for time worked over 40 hours per week (or as applicable by state law), which should be approved in advance by the manager.
   
   **You will work with your Regional Manager to establish a full-time, 40 hour work schedule.**
   
   \#LI-Remote
   
   **Job Location(s)** _US_
   
   
   **\# of Openings** _20_
   
   **Category** _Sales_

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find phone sales representatives 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 phone sales representatives they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level phone sales representatives 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 phone sales representative job on Zippia to find and recruit phone sales representative candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as salesjobs, salesheads, allretailjobs.com, sales trax.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting phone sales representatives requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   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 phone sales representative

   Once you've found the phone sales representative candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   You should also follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that you've filled the position.

   To prepare for the new phone sales representative first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

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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