How To Become A Senior Collector: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior collector and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

The average senior collector salary is $85,626. The most common degree is a bachelor's degree degree with an business major. It usually takes 6-12 months of experience to become a senior collector. Senior collectors with a Professional Collection Specialist (PCS) certification earn more money. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -8% and produce -17,500 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreSenior CollectorUS Average

Salary

6.7

Avg. Salary $85,626

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.9

Growth rate -8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.49%

Asian 3.73%

Black or African American 13.35%

Hispanic or Latino 20.91%

Unknown 4.11%

White 57.42%

Gender

female 59.88%

male 40.12%

Age - 46

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 46

Stress level

7.9

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.9

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.6

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior collector

Explore senior collector education requirements

Most common senior collector degrees

Bachelor's

40.5 %

Associate

24.6 %

High School Diploma

22.9 %

Start to develop specific senior collector skills

Skills	Percentages
Customer Service	15.94%
Payment Arrangements	13.27%
Past Due Accounts	5.98%
Debt Repayment	5.03%
Loss Mitigation	5.00%

Complete relevant senior collector training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior collectors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior collector based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior collector resumes.

Research senior collector duties and responsibilities

Accomplish the above in compliance with HIPAA regulations.
Manage re-billings for third party accounts including: commercial carriers, manage care, PPO, POS and HMO organizations.
Record CPT codes and ICD-9 codes on billing forms.
Develop and pursue collection strategies to reduce the DSO.

Get senior collector experience

Generally, it takes 6-12 months to become a senior collector. The most common roles before becoming a senior collector include collector, customer service representative team lead and collections specialist.

Prepare your senior collector resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior collector resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a senior collector resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable senior collector resume templates

Build a professional senior collector resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior collector resume.