How to Hire a Receptionist: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide

Your receptionist is often the first human contact a client, candidate or supplier has with your business, whether that is in person, on the phone or by email. A warm, organised, quick-thinking receptionist can make your company look polished and professional. A poor hire in this role can quietly cost you clients, waste your team's time and create a bad first impression before anyone even meets you. Getting this hire right is worth slowing down for.

This guide walks through the full hiring process for a receptionist role, from defining what you actually need to writing the job ad, screening applicants, interviewing well, and onboarding the person you choose. It is written for small and medium business owners and hiring managers anywhere, so wherever your local labour laws or hiring norms differ, treat this as a framework to adapt rather than a rigid script.

What does a receptionist actually do?

Before writing a job ad, get clear on what the role really involves in your business, because "receptionist" means different things in different settings. A receptionist at a busy medical clinic has a very different day than one at a design studio or a co-working space.

Common core responsibilities include:

• Greeting visitors, clients or patients and directing them appropriately
• Answering and routing phone calls, and managing voicemail
• Managing appointment bookings or meeting room schedules
• Handling incoming and outgoing mail and deliveries
• Basic administrative support such as data entry, filing or invoicing
• Maintaining a tidy, welcoming front-of-house area
• Being the first point of contact for security or building access

Some receptionist roles are almost entirely front-desk and phone based. Others blend into office administration, executive support, or even light bookkeeping. Write down the actual mix of tasks for your business before you go further, because this shapes everything from the job title to the salary you offer.

Define the must-haves before you write the job ad

A vague brief attracts a flood of mismatched applicants and wastes your time filtering them. Spend twenty minutes upfront answering these questions:

• Is this full-time, part-time, or a shared/shift role?
• What hours and days must be covered, including any early starts, late finishes or weekend work?
• What software or systems will they need to use (phone system, booking software, CRM, office suite)?
• Do they need any specific language skills for your customer base?
• Is this purely front-desk, or does it include admin, data entry or basic finance tasks?
• What personality traits actually matter for your environment (calm under pressure, chatty and warm, discreet and formal)?

Resist the temptation to demand years of experience for a role that is really about attitude and reliability. Many excellent receptionists come from retail, hospitality or customer service backgrounds with no prior office experience at all. Focus your must-haves on genuinely essential skills, and treat the rest as nice-to-haves you can train.

Writing a job description that attracts the right people

Your job ad is a marketing document, not just a list of duties. Candidates decide within seconds whether to keep reading, so lead with what makes the role and your workplace appealing, then get specific about responsibilities and requirements.

A strong receptionist job description usually includes:

• A short, honest description of your business and the team they will support
• The working hours and location (including whether any remote or hybrid phone-answering is possible)
• A clear list of day-to-day responsibilities
• Essential skills and any genuinely required experience
• Salary range or at least a band, since ranges dramatically improve application rates
• What the hiring process looks like and roughly how long it will take

We're looking for a friendly, organised receptionist to be the face and voice of our clinic. You'll greet patients, manage a busy multi-line phone, schedule appointments in our booking system, and keep our reception area calm and welcoming even during our busiest hours. No medical experience is required, but you should be comfortable multitasking, staying calm under pressure, and treating every visitor with patience and warmth.

Keep the tone conversational and specific rather than generic corporate language. Candidates can tell the difference between a template and a description someone actually wrote for this job.

Where to find good receptionist candidates

Receptionist roles typically get high application volumes, so the challenge is usually filtering for quality rather than generating interest. Still, where you post matters.

• General job boards work well for volume, especially for entry-level or career-change candidates
• Local community groups, hospitality and retail networks often surface candidates with strong customer-facing skills
• Referrals from current staff are frequently the highest-quality source, since your team knows who fits your culture
• Vocational colleges or business administration training programmes can be a good source of motivated early-career candidates

Because receptionist ads often attract dozens or hundreds of applicants, manually reading every CV becomes a bottleneck fast. This is where a structured hiring tool helps. Platforms like Hyrewell let you post a job with a simple apply link, automatically screen and rank incoming applicants against your must-haves, and let shortlisted candidates self-book interview slots, so you spend your time talking to strong candidates instead of sorting spreadsheets.

Screening applications efficiently

With a high-volume role like this, your first pass should be fast and rule-based. Look for signals rather than reading every CV top to bottom.

Quick screening checklist:

• Does their availability actually match the hours you need covered?
• Is there any relevant customer-facing experience, even outside an office (retail, hospitality, call centres)?
• Does the cover letter or application message show basic written communication skills?
• Are there obvious gaps or red flags worth asking about, rather than immediately rejecting?
• Do they live within reasonable commuting distance, or have they addressed remote/hybrid logistics?

A short phone screen before a full interview saves everyone time. A five to ten minute call can tell you a lot about someone's phone manner, which is directly relevant to the job itself. Ask about availability, salary expectations, and one or two quick scenario questions, then decide who moves to a full interview.

Interview questions that reveal real fit

Receptionist interviews should test judgement, composure and communication, not just confirm someone can list their previous duties. Mix behavioural questions with a short practical exercise if you can.

Useful questions to ask:

• Tell me about a time you dealt with an angry or upset visitor or caller. What did you do?
• How do you prioritise when the phone is ringing, someone is standing at the desk, and you're in the middle of a task?
• What does excellent customer service look like to you?
• Describe a time you made a mistake at work. What happened and what did you do about it?
• How do you stay organised when juggling multiple small tasks throughout the day?

Where possible, add a brief practical element. Have the candidate role-play answering a phone call, or handle a simple mock scenario like rebooking an appointment or dealing with a visitor without an appointment. This tells you far more than a verbal answer alone, since the role is fundamentally about how someone behaves in the moment, not just what they say they would do.

Pay close attention to punctuality and preparation for the interview itself. Someone applying to be the first point of contact for your business should show up on time, dressed appropriately, and ready to engage, since this is a fair preview of how they will represent you daily.

Checking references and making the offer

Reference checks matter more for front-of-house roles than many people assume, because reliability, tone and trustworthiness are hard to fully assess in an interview alone. Call at least one previous manager or supervisor and ask specifically about attendance, how they handled difficult interactions, and whether they were trusted with sensitive information or cash handling if relevant.

Useful reference questions:

• Would you rehire this person, and why or why not?
• How did they handle stressful or busy periods?
• Were there any concerns around punctuality, reliability, or professionalism?
• How did visitors, clients or colleagues typically respond to them?

Once you have a preferred candidate, move quickly. Good receptionist candidates, especially those with customer service experience, are often interviewing elsewhere too. Put the offer in writing, covering start date, hours, pay, probation terms if applicable, and any benefits, and get it signed before the candidate has a chance to accept somewhere else. An e-signature tool speeds this up considerably compared with printing and scanning paperwork back and forth.

Pay, notice periods, probation terms and statutory entitlements vary significantly by country and region, so check your local labour regulations and official government guidance before finalising an offer letter or employment contract.

Onboarding: setting your new receptionist up to succeed

The first week in a receptionist role is intense, since they need to learn your phone system, booking software, office layout and the names and roles of everyone they will be routing calls to, often while already fielding real calls and visitors. A rushed onboarding creates avoidable stress and mistakes in the first weeks.

A simple first-week plan should include:

• A walkthrough of the physical space, including where things are kept and who sits where
• Hands-on training on the phone system and any booking or scheduling software
• A written or shared reference of common questions and how to answer them
• Introductions to key team members and an explanation of who handles what
• A shadowing period with an experienced colleague or the outgoing receptionist if one exists
• Clear escalation guidance for what to do when they don't know the answer to something

Check in after the first week and again after the first month. Ask what is confusing, what training gaps they have found, and whether anything about the role differs from what was described. This feedback loop both supports the new hire and helps you refine the job description for next time.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Hiring purely on experience, not attitude. Software and processes can be taught. Composure, warmth and reliability are much harder to teach, so weight these heavily in your decision.
• Writing a vague job ad. Ambiguous hours, unclear duties, or no salary range leads to a flood of mismatched applicants and wastes everyone's time.
• Skipping the practical test. A conversation alone does not reveal how someone handles a ringing phone, a waiting visitor, and an urgent task at the same moment.
• Underestimating the role. Treating this as an easy, low-stakes hire often leads to under-resourcing training, support and pay, which shows up quickly in turnover.
• Moving too slowly on a strong candidate. Good receptionist candidates often have other offers in play, so a slow, drawn-out process risks losing your top pick.
• Skipping reference checks. Given how central trust and judgement are to this role, a quick reference call is worth the extra day it takes.

A receptionist hire is a small headcount decision with an outsized impact on how your business is perceived every single day. Slowing down at the job description, screening and interview stages pays off in fewer bad hires, less turnover, and a front desk that genuinely represents your business well.