---
title: "Telemarketer"
description: "Solicit donations or orders for goods or services over the telephone."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/telemarketer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Telemarketer

**Category:** Sales and Related · **SOC code:** 41-9041 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 41-9041.00

Solicit donations or orders for goods or services over the telephone.

Also advertised as: Call Agent; Inside Sales Representative (Inside Sales Rep); Telemarketer; Telemarketing Sales Representative (Telemarketing Sales Rep); Telephone Sales Representative (TSR); Telephone Service Representative (TSR); Telesales Representative (Telesales Rep); Telesales Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $35,450 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $17.04/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $27,040 to $50,350, with the middle half between $29,640 and $40,230
- **Total US employment:** 58,430
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -21.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 5,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 27/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 58,430 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $27,040 |
| 25th | $29,640 |
| 50th (median) | $35,450 |
| 75th | $40,230 |
| 90th | $50,350 |
| Mean (average) | $37,370 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| KS | $48,010 | $53,304 | Not published by BLS |
| CO | $47,670 | $46,258 | 880 |
| CA | $46,000 | $41,546 | 3,880 |
| CT | $45,200 | $43,625 | 110 |
| MA | $44,650 | $42,219 | Not published by BLS |
| OR | $42,060 | $40,692 | 420 |
| NY | $41,400 | $38,361 | 1,960 |
| MN | $39,850 | $40,407 | 650 |
| WA | $39,670 | $37,070 | 300 |
| ID | $39,400 | $41,259 | 280 |
| NJ | $39,370 | $36,184 | 410 |
| AZ | $37,750 | $37,496 | 1,550 |
| VA | $37,440 | $37,031 | Not published by BLS |
| SC | $37,090 | $39,563 | 1,060 |
| UT | $36,610 | $37,031 | 390 |

27 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 42 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/telemarketer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/telemarketer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 60,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 47,800 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 13,000 jobs, or -21.4%. Declining: -21.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 5,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 39.5% |
| Some College Courses | 37.3% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 19.8% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 3.5% |

## What the work involves

- Explain products or services and prices, and answer questions from customers.
- Obtain customer information such as name, address, and payment method, and enter orders into computers.
- Answer telephone calls from potential customers who have been solicited through advertisements.
- Record names, addresses, purchases, and reactions of prospects contacted.
- Maintain records of contacts, accounts, and orders.
- Deliver prepared sales talks, reading from scripts that describe products or services, to persuade potential customers to purchase a product or service or to make a donation.
- Telephone or write letters to respond to correspondence from customers or to follow up initial sales contacts.
- Contact businesses or private individuals by telephone to solicit sales for goods or services, or to request donations for charitable causes.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 1.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Persuasion — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Sales and Marketing — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Selective Attention — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 5.36 |
| C — Conventional | 5.07 |
| S — Social | 3.61 |
| R — Realistic | 1.87 |
| A — Artistic | 1.24 |
| I — Investigative | 1.09 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 87.4 |
| ESTJ | 82.0 |
| ESFP | 68.0 |
| ENFJ | 68.0 |
| ENTJ | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Sales Representative of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-of-services) — median $69,990
- [Customer Service Representative](https://nuecareer.com/careers/customer-service-representative) — median $44,770
- [Advertising Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-sales-agent) — median $64,820
- [Counter and Rental Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/counter-and-rental-clerk) — median $41,300
- [Receptionist and Information Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/receptionist-and-information-clerk) — median $38,010
- [New Accounts Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/new-accounts-clerk) — median $47,670
- [Demonstrator and Product Promoter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/demonstrator-and-product-promoter) — median $39,320
- [Retail Salesperson](https://nuecareer.com/careers/retail-salesperson) — median $35,410
- [Order Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/order-clerk) — median $46,170
- [Telephone Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/telephone-operator) — median $41,740

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/telemarketer