The purpose of this paper is to show that the quantum inverse scattering method for the so-called q-boson model has a nice interpretation in terms of the algebra of symmetric functions. In particular, in the case of the phase model (corresponding to q = 0) the creation operator coincides (modulo a scalar factor) with the operator of multiplication by the generating function of complete homogeneous symmetric functions, and the wave functions are expressed via the Schur functions s_λ(x). The general case of the q-boson model is related in a similar way to the Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions P_λ(x;q²).