Debt Collector Job Description for Agencies and Companies

Hir­ing A
Col­lec­tion
Agency

Debt Col­lec­tor Job Descrip­tion for Agen­cies and Companies

By Dean Kaplan

Cre­at­ing a good job descrip­tion for the debt col­lec­tor posi­tion is more impor­tant now than ever, due to the cur­rent poor econ­omy. Many job seek­ers are out there, more invoices are becom­ing delin­quent, and col­lect­ing is tougher, not eas­ier, as com­pany cash flows slow or dry up. So what type of can­di­dates should the com­pany or col­lec­tion agency look for? This arti­cle will dis­cuss how to cre­ate a pow­er­ful col­lec­tor job descrip­tion and job descrip­tions in general.

Hav­ing an accu­rate and clear descrip­tion of the job you need filled an help you find the right employee

The first step in cre­at­ing any job descrip­tion is per­form­ing a job analy­sis. The job analy­sis takes the job to be filled, and iden­ti­fies its key com­po­nents – what exactly are the duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties needed to sat­is­fac­to­rily per­form this job. For a col­lec­tor posi­tion, the duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties might include: ana­lyz­ing accounts receiv­able col­lec­tions data to iden­tify cur­rent and poten­tial future claims, research­ing all back­ground and con­tact infor­ma­tion for cur­rent and pend­ing claims, con­tact­ing com­pa­nies by tele­phone to dis­cuss claims, devel­op­ing pay­ment plans, mak­ing deci­sions on future credit for non-paying or slow pay­ing cus­tomers, inputting data into the company’s com­puter soft­ware sys­tem, pub­lish­ing monthly sum­mary reports for man­age­ment about the sta­tus of claims, and mak­ing pre­sen­ta­tions of these reports to man­age­ment on a monthly basis. There is also cler­i­cal work which must be com­pleted for each closed claim, so tol­er­ance of some busy work will be necessary.

Once the job analy­sis has been com­pleted, a detailed job descrip­tion must be writ­ten. This descrip­tion needs to answer the what, why, where, and how of the job. The job title will be the first item iden­ti­fied in the job descrip­tion. In this case, the job title will be Debt Col­lec­tor. Iden­tify what depart­ment the per­son will be a part of, per­haps the Accounts Receiv­able Col­lec­tions Depart­ment, and the per­son the job will report to, in this case the Credit Man­ager. Details about the pay scale might be included in the job descrip­tion also.

The next sec­tion will be the gen­eral descrip­tion of the job. For exam­ple, the posi­tion of Debt Col­lec­tor is respon­si­ble for all aspects of debt col­lec­tion includ­ing in-house inves­ti­ga­tions and cus­tomer contacts.

Fol­low­ing the gen­eral descrip­tion will be the spe­cific duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties of the posi­tion. This descrip­tion should include actual tasks as well as hard and soft attrib­utes that are required and any edu­ca­tion or expe­ri­ence require­ments. Here is an exam­ple of the specifics for a col­lec­tor and how this descrip­tion can be turned in to a help wanted listing.

The debt col­lec­tor will iden­tify exist­ing and poten­tial future claims by care­ful exam­i­na­tion of accounts receiv­able data. Once a claim has been turned over to the col­lec­tor, he or she will research and ana­lyze over­due invoices, con­tracts, and con­tact infor­ma­tion before any con­tact is made. When a phone call is made, the col­lec­tor will dis­cuss the out­stand­ing invoice with the cus­tomer and cre­ate a writ­ten plan for pay­ment that is accept­able to the cus­tomer and the com­pany. This writ­ten plan will be e-mailed or faxed to the cus­tomer and the Credit Man­ager. All claim infor­ma­tion will be input into the com­pany com­puter soft­ware sys­tem for track­ing pur­poses. The col­lec­tor will per­form all cler­i­cal tasks related to each claim includ­ing fil­ing of hard copies. The col­lec­tor will pub­lish monthly sum­mary claim reports which will be sent to man­age­ment and the Credit Man­ager. The col­lec­tor will present the sum­mary data to man­age­ment monthly or as needed.

Pre­vi­ous debt col­lec­tions, inter­net and col­lec­tion soft­ware expe­ri­ence nec­es­sary. Good com­mu­ni­ca­tion and orga­ni­za­tional skills a must. The can­di­date must enjoy work­ing in a team envi­ron­ment. Some pho­to­copy­ing and fil­ing is nec­es­sary. A Bachelor’s degree is desir­able. Some train­ing will be available.

The impor­tance of devel­op­ing a spe­cific, detailed job descrip­tion can not be empha­sized enough. By doing the hard work of defin­ing the job in detail, this pro­vides the man­ager and the com­pany with the exact para­me­ters of the job, a bench­mark, if you will. The newly hired employee will have a clear vision of what his or her respon­si­bil­i­ties and duties are. Con­fu­sion will be min­i­mized because the job is defined. Per­for­mance appraisals should be eas­ier because hope­fully the details of the tasks and respon­si­bil­i­ties pro­vide an oppor­tu­nity for mea­sure­ment. All of these should enhance effi­ciency and pro­duc­tiv­ity within the Account Receiv­able Col­lec­tions Depart­ment and the company.

The Kaplan Group is a bou­tique col­lec­tion agency spe­cial­iz­ing in large (over $10,000) debt col­lec­tions due from busi­nesses. Founded in 1991, the com­pany has a stel­lar rep­u­ta­tion (A+ rat­ing with the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau) and is rec­og­nized as one of the lead­ing col­lec­tion agen­cies for results on large and com­plex mat­ters.

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