Many enter the collections area from a previous career in financial credit management, however, there is no one ideal background to guarantee success as a collector. You might come from a career in accounting, administration, finance, engineering, human resources or sales.

The work of a collector involves making demands for the payment of overdue debts. Demands can be made in writing or verbally either by telephone or personal attendance upon the debtor.

Collectors are required to enter into dialogue with individual and corporate debtors in order to achieve resolution of the delinquent account either by full or part recovery or by establishing the debtor does not have either the means to pay the account or the obligation to pay the account.

Principally collectors work in modern offices with sophisticated collection software. Some larger offices use predictive telephone dialling software so that the software dials the next debtor in a queue of accounts to be actioned ready for the next available collector to speak to.

Recovery of debts can ultimately require litigation and so some collectors are involved in assisting and/or instructing solicitors in the preparation of summonses or statements of claim for filing at court and then service by a process server.

Modern day collectors are required to strictly comply with various legislation, including the particular state or territory's civil proceedings legislation, the National Credit Code, the ASIC/ACCC Guidelines for the Collection of Debts pursuant to s 60 of the Trade Practices Act and the Federal Privacy Act.

Essentially a competent and successful collector will possess:

• Maturity, honesty, integrity and a fine sense of ethics;
• Good people skills;
• A patient and pleasant disposition;
• Strong communication skills;
• Good keyboarding skills;
• An ability to focus on desired outcomes; and
• A consistent work methodology.

Need more information? Select your State/Territory from the 'Pages Related' menu at the top of the page for specific licensing and training information.