Telemarketer
| Median wage (USD) | 35450 |
|---|---|
| Projected employment growth (%) | -21 |
| AI exposure (%) | 53 |
| Maximum exposure (%) | 83 |
| Source | eloundou |
| What AI changes in this occupation | Scripted outbound calling, capturing contact details and entering orders, logging prospect reactions and follow-up are moving to voice agents and automated CRMs BLS projects a 21% decline in employment from 2025 to 2035: the pressure comes not only from AI but also from call screening and tighter telemarketing rules Adapting the pitch to a sceptical listener, securing an appointment and running a client survey remain human — that is where the transition happens |
| Key skills | AI-assisted phone prospecting · pitch, objection handling and closing · CRM and automated follow-up · telemarketing compliance (do-not-call registry, consent) · active listening and negotiation · reading call metrics (conversion rate, handle time, callbacks) |
| Courses to get ahead | Customer Service Fundamentals · Coursera · 1 week at 10 hours a week · 90 · The most direct way out: keep the phone, lose the cold calling. The same moves — capturing information, explaining, answering — but for a customer who called, not a stranger you interrupted. Sales with AI · Coursera · Self-paced · 86 · What selling becomes when AI holds the script: you learn to tool up qualification, follow-up and tracking instead of doing them by hand — the skill that sets a telemarketer apart from a voice agent. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills · Coursera · 2 weeks at 10 hours a week · 84 · The part of the job a voice agent does not do: understanding what the person actually wants, answering an objection and closing. That is what carries over into services sales. Introduction to Customer Service · Coursera · 2 weeks at 10 hours a week · 82 Retail Customer Service · Coursera · Self-paced · 78 Generative AI for Customer Service Automation · Coursera · Self-paced · 74 |
| Occupations to pivot toward | Customer Service Representative · 44770 · -5 · 70 Sales Representative of Services · 69990 · 3 · 57 Retail Salesperson · 35560 · 0 · 36 |
| Skills to acquire for the pivot | Eloundou measures this occupation's exposure at 53% (human β) and up to 83% (human ζ): outbound calling, capturing contact details and entering orders, explaining products and prices, logging prospect reactions, keeping records, delivering the scripted pitch, answering inbound calls, follow-up and building prospect lists are largely delegable to AI; adapting the pitch to a specific listener, booking appointments and running client surveys remain human. The β of 53% puts telemarketers level with insurance sales agents (53), above retail salespersons (36) and cashiers (36), but far behind customer service representatives (70) and translators (84): this is not a long-relationship job, it is a short, repeated-contact job — exactly what voice AI attacks first. Method note: O*NET (41-9041.00, "Telemarketers") lists twelve scored tasks and no emerging ones; the most important are calling to solicit a sale (94/100), capturing details and entering orders (92/100), explaining products and prices (92/100) and recording prospect reactions (90/100), and the exposed/resistant split follows those importance scores. The GPT-4 self-rated series (β 81, ζ 100) is kept in expositionGpt4 and is not displayed, in line with the decision of 21 August 2026. BLS projects a 21% decline in telemarketer employment from 2025 to 2035: the 60,900 jobs of 2025 would fall by about 13,000. The occupation has no dedicated Occupational Outlook Handbook page: the figures come from the same OOH's "Data for occupations not covered in detail" page, under the sales occupations section, with no formal educational credential required, no work experience and short-term on-the-job training. This is the steepest decline in the repository, ahead of cashiers (-10%) and general office clerks (-7%); for comparison, this card's three pivots decline 5% (customer service representative), show little or no change (0%, retail salesperson) or grow 3% (sales representative of services). The fall does not come from AI alone: call screening, caller ID and telemarketing rules already weigh on the volume of calls that get through, and the voice agent is landing on an occupation that was already weakening. The telemarketer's median salary is $35,450 a year, the May 2025 figure from the BLS OEWS survey published on the occupations-not-covered-in-detail page (code 41-9041); O*NET reports the same amount for 2025, which cross-checks the value. This is one of the lowest salaries in the repository — only fast food and counter workers, cashiers, waiters and waitresses, maids and housekeeping cleaners, retail salespersons and home health and personal care aides sit below it. The core skill, holding a sales conversation on the phone, is worth 26% more as soon as it applies to an inbound customer (customer service representative, $44,770) and nearly double when it covers selling a service to a business ($69,990, +3%). The page publishes neither an hourly rate nor percentiles for this occupation: the card therefore shows no 10th and 90th percentile, and no value was estimated to fill that gap. |
| GPT-4 exposure — beta / zeta (%) | 81 · 100 |