miss candace mackerel yes welcome to the interview have a seat how are you doing today um i'm a little nervous but i'm doing great how are you doing well couldn't be better and thank you for your interest in our company i'm olivia by the way and today i'm going to ask you a series of questions about yourself and throughout this conversation i want you to feel free to ask me anything about the industry and the position that you're applying for are you ready yes perfect so why don't you start by you telling me something about yourself sure i graduated from a computer programming course but i ended up working in customer service for a milk tea store for two years i worked there alone as both as a cashier and a service crew which means that i was responsible for everything in the store from organizing it preparing the food interacting with a customer and processing the payments it was a demanding job but i loved it and when i saw that you're hiring for customer service reps and that's highly related to my experience i just knew that i had to apply why do you want to work in our company well i've heard a lot of good things about your company but one that interests me the most is your ascend program where you help or you train your employees to learn new skills useful skills that you can use in the workplace like public speaking leadership training and i think that's very impressive for a call center company i think that you place high importance high importance on learning and growth right and i think that it's not something that one can easily find in any call center company so i definitely want to be a part of your company because of that okay you said that you loved your previous job but why did you quit i left for two reasons first i want to upgrade my skills i have been handling customer service locally it was a great experience it was helpful but i think it's time for me to explore on an international level second for someone in my situation i think i would have a better shot financially and career-wise if i joined this industry okay in what way would working in this industry be beneficial to you career-wise well career-wise i know that it'll sharpen my communication skills that is a huge plus to anyone because wherever you go whether you're in a high or entry-level position a great communication skill is something that will always be useful to you and i think it's a prerequisite to anyone who wants to have a career and i want to have a career and i think i can achieve that by joining this industry okay some people say that working in a bpo industry in a call center industry is a dead-end job do you agree no absolutely not this job has disadvantages just like any other but i don't think this is a dead-end job i know some agents who were promoted to a higher position and they started off as agents i also know some who are no longer working in this industry and are now working for higher paying jobs in a related industry like online freelancing for example and a lot of them told me that they don't think that that they would have gotten to where they are now had they not worked in this industry so that doesn't sound like a dead-end job to me because there is progress i definitely agree i have plenty of friends who started out as agents and they are currently thriving in in this industry but may i ask why didn't you pursue computer programming i see here that you finished it successfully why did you work in a milk tea store after graduation it's a long story but um i only finished a two-year course a vocational course technically and i'm not saying that it's impossible to find a job with this level of education but it is definitely a struggle i experienced it firsthand when i was competing with degree holders and at that time my funds were already running out and i was only left with two choices either to go back to the province and be jobless or to find a job immediately and i and i chose the latter because i wanted to stay in the city and explore other opportunities and so it just so happened that a multi-store was hiring and i managed to get in and ended up liking it do you have plans to pursue computer programming in the future not really i love programming i loved programming and i think i was decent at it but i don't think i'm going to pursue it any longer my interest now lies in the bpo industry and where do you see yourself five years from now it's hard to tell and i don't want to sound too ambitious but i would love to be in a higher position where i can specialize in one area and then i can use that skill to impact the company positively but as to what that expertise is i am not sure i cannot really tell for now but i definitely see myself in the bpo industry five years from now within those two years of working as a cashier and service crew what was the hardest experience you had with a customer and how did you deal with it um okay okay uh so there's this one customer who insisted that she already paid even if she didn't um i remember when i asked for the payment she just replied what are you talking about i already gave you a 1 000 peso bill where's my change and of course i was taken aback because she didn't give me any money i was 100 percent sure of that and so i told her firmly but respectfully that ma'am you haven't given me any money and after that something strange happened she she turned red she stared at me wide-eyed and she said how dare you accuse me of not paying do you know who i am do you know who i am and she was repeating that and the customers were already watching her we're already staring at her and i for a moment i didn't know what to do because it was something that i hadn't really experienced with another customer but the good thing was i realized that there's a cctv in front of us so i told her ma'am i don't want any trouble i am not accusing you of anything how about we have that cctv checked so we can confirm whether or not uh a bill was handed to me and all of a sudden she just gave me the exact amount and she walked out without a word wow did this happen on a regular basis with your job fortunately no i i find that filipino customers are usually reasonable and they're they're patient but i i heard and and feel free to confirm or deny but i heard that um western customers aren't so patient is that true well i would say that it's still a case-to-case basis and ultimately it depends on the individual but yes generally western customers do tend to be less patient or more accurately i would say that they have higher standards of customer service but what do you think do you think you can handle irate western customers i am confident that i can yes i have dealt with customers face to face and i believe i can also handle them over the phone i am not downplaying the difficulty that comes with talking to people who don't share your language and your culture but i believe that my experience in customer service is a solid foundation for that confident i like that and how do you usually de-stress i'm sorry when you're stressed what do you do to de-stress oh well i read fiction novels specifically fantasy books um it just helps me de-stress it feels like a mini vacation for me and i don't have to pay for a vacation but it's a vacation and another thing is i also do cardio every other day you know it just helps with my mood overall and what is your greatest weakness well i'm terrible at making small talk and i used to convince myself that it isn't really a weakness and that small talk is superficial anyway but of course i realized that it's an essential part of communication and so now every chance i get i interact with strangers i try to smile at them and interact with them at parties so i'm still not the greatest at it but i am improving even if it's just little by little and was there ever a time when making small talk yielded a positive result for you yes definitely um i got to meet my best friend joy three years ago at the at a party because i made the first awkward step to talk to her the thing about us is we're both introverts so we're not so talkative and so the chances of us connecting effortlessly was low but because i made the first step i now have a friend a best friend who shares my interest i can sense that you have a you're you're very enthusiastic about this industry and you seem to be very open to new experiences and that's a good thing but what do you know about the tasks of a call center agent do you have an idea based on my research because i have done a lot of research on this call center agents talk to customers about products and services it could be inbound where the customers are calling the call center the agents to ask for help about something for example the other day i called globe about a missing prepaid load and an agent helped me recover it i think that was inbound and there's another setup which is outbound where the ones doing the calling are the agents and they're calling the customers to either sell something or to conduct a survey so that's outbound and lastly i know that being a call center agent is not an easy job that's all i know okay that pretty much sums it all up are you amenable to working the graveyard shift yes absolutely okay and how about shifting schedules you could be working the day shift this month and night shift the next are you okay with that yes i am great okay this is an unusual question but why do you think manholes are round i'm sorry but i don't know what a manhole is could you explain for me okay um manholes are basically underground holes where a human could enter so he could access the the sewer system of a city for instance it's used to access the sewer system and you would usually see them on sidewalks and pavements oh i think i i see i see what you mean i think i have an idea yes and they're usually round not triangle not square not not rectangle why do you think is it that they're around can you can you give me a moment to think about it sure of course take your time i think i think that to answer that question you would have to ask one would have to ask what would happen if manholes are built as squares or rectangles as opposed to round and i think the answer to that is if they're built as squares then the cover would fall off easily into the hole if it's it's placed in a wrong position whereas if you build a manhole cover with a round shape then i don't think that problem happens if it's a perfect round so i guess they're building it round for convenience that's my opinion and how would you describe color red to a blind person since birth okay um i think i would describe it in a way that a blind person could relate to um he couldn't see he doesn't have a sense of sight but he could feel my description by you by me using the other functioning senses like the sense of taste uh touch smell you know just an as an anchor to help him understand a color okay pretend that i am that blind person describe red to me right now okay so think of red as something warm and nourishing it's the warmth you feel when you're sipping a hot tinola on a rainy day okay it could also be the warm kiss of someone you love or the warm hug by a lover you know it's it's passionate it's warm it's red and why should we hire you okay aside from my job experience and my intention to stay in this long in this industry long term i do not shy away from irate customers i never shy away from them even if it's uncomfortable i have experienced hand handling them i know how to handle them and i have the mental strength to do it well our interview is about to end and my last question is do you have any questions for me about the job yes anything related to the job and the industry um well you said a while ago that you have plenty of friends in this industry and they're thriving what do you think do they have in common in terms of that one factor that contributed to them being successful in this industry because i seriously would love to know well that's a good question and i think that it has something to do with them being able to be willing to go above and beyond in whatever it is they're doing whether for the customers the clients or the company you know they just don't put in their bare minimum they work harder and you know it's only a matter of time before these types of people get noticed and offered higher positions i think that's it going above and beyond in whatever it is you're doing that makes so much sense i will definitely keep that in mind for inspiration all right that concludes our interview for today thank you so much candace for your time and could you wait outside and tell the others that i'll be there in let's say 10 minutes i will be announcing the results sure thank you thank you so much for your time olivia i really appreciate it it's my pleasure okay bye