You might think telephone switchboards are a thing of the past, with all the automated and computerized processes going around, but the position of telephone operators still exists in our day in age. Perhaps not plugging calls into a cord board, but telephone operators still help customers use telephone company services, place calls, and reach the desired receivers.
Working for large corporations, hospitals, hotels, or universities that have their own internal phone systems, telephone operators manage multiple lines to route calls quickly and efficiently. Telecommunications companies, logistics services, dispatch centers, or call centers are places where today's telephone operators may find employment.
No matter how addicted we have become to efficiency and productivity, sometimes a human voice just remains irreplaceable. You can become a telephone operator with on-the-job training, so if you love talking to people and have great organizational skills, contributing to people making connections with each other could be the rewarding job you have been looking for.
How to Become a Telephone Operator
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a telephone operator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.71 an hour? That's $30,600 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 59,300 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Telephone Operator Do
There are certain skills that many telephone operators have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, computer skills and customer-service skills.
How To Become a Telephone Operator
If you're interested in becoming a telephone operator, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 26.0% of telephone operators have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.8% of telephone operators have master's degrees. Even though some telephone operators have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a telephone operator. When we researched the most common majors for a telephone operator, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on telephone operator resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a telephone operator. In fact, many telephone operator jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many telephone operators also have previous career experience in roles such as customer service representative or receptionist.
Telephone Operator Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a telephone operator can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as office assistant, progress to a title such as executive assistant and then eventually end up with the title office manager.
Average Salary for a Telephone Operator
What Am I Worth?
Top Skills For a Telephone Operator
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 13.8% of telephone operators listed emergency on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and computer skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Telephone Operator Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Telephone Operator templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Telephone Operator resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Telephone Operator Demographics
Telephone Operator Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among telephone operators, 77.6% of them are women, while 22.4% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among telephone operators is White, which makes up 60.4% of all telephone operators.
- The most common foreign language among telephone operators is Spanish at 70.6%.
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Best States For a Telephone Operator
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a telephone operator. The best states for people in this position are New York, Michigan, New Jersey, and New Mexico. Telephone operators make the most in New York with an average salary of $42,577. Whereas in Michigan and New Jersey, they would average $42,526 and $42,392, respectively. While telephone operators would only make an average of $41,309 in New Mexico, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. New Jersey
$42,392
Avg. Salary
2. Iowa
$40,403
Avg. Salary
3. Kansas
$38,956
Avg. Salary
How Do Telephone Operator Rate Their Jobs?
Top Telephone Operator Employers
Most Common Employers For Telephone Operator
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verizon Communications | $47,228 | $22.71 | 23 |
| 2 | Qwest | $46,284 | $22.25 | 17 |
| 3 | AT&T | $45,072 | $21.67 | 183 |
| 4 | T-Mobile | $37,012 | $17.79 | 29 |
| 5 | Mayo Clinic | $32,559 | $15.65 | 36 |
| 6 | Target | $31,541 | $15.16 | 37 |
| 7 | Frontier Communications | $31,274 | $15.04 | 13 |
| 8 | ManpowerGroup | $31,272 | $15.03 | 17 |
| 9 | GTE Corporation | $31,216 | $15.01 | 50 |
| 10 | LifeBridge Health | $30,687 | $14.75 | 13 |
Telephone Operator Videos
