3 Action Items to Landing Your Dream Job
By Mike Su
In the last few months I’ve noticed my social media feed getting flooded with mixed emotions. Half of them are exciting posts from my fellow Customer Success professionals either getting promoted or starting new roles and progressing in their careers. Congratulations to you all!! The other half are sadly on the opposite end of the spectrum. I have never seen so many profile picture frames indicating they’re #opentowork. This deepens my appreciation for the opportunities I have today. It’s hard to see so many people getting laid off especially when it’s affecting my inner circle and people I care about. In my line of work, I am constantly working with my fellow CS professionals whether it’s teaching a CSM course or coaching them through designing their customer journey maps and customer health scores. This has been nothing short of a dream come true where I’m able to use my past experience and pay it forward and help shape the future of customer success. While customer success is a relatively new field and constantly evolving, we could all use a little help every now and then; myself included. I find coaching extremely rewarding, and it’s amazing to see the people I’ve coached excel in their careers. However, I'm torn. While I’m coaching and working with amazing CS professionals, I find myself thinking of the ways I can help those who were recently laid off and trying to land their next job. Or even folks simply trying to break into this amazing world of customer success we all built and created.
Before coaching, I made a career in building and leading customer success teams around the world. I have been a hiring manager for CSMs and CS leaders for many years and have hired close to a hundred CS professionals at just one of my past jobs alone. I have peeked behind the curtains and can tell you what stands out on your LinkedIn profile and resume; for better or for worse. There is no silver bullet or secret sauce. There are so many factors that go into the decision making process when hiring for any role. Unfortunately some of these factors are out of your control. While there are endless factors within your control where you can make changes or improve, here are 3 pieces of advice I’d like to share to anyone who is job seeking or looking to get hired in customer success.
Hit me up! While I am not #opentowork, I am certainly #opentoNETwork. I love nothing more than to talk about customer success and “geek out” as a colleague of mine would call it. Reach out to your network and make some real connections. The more people you talk to in CS, the more you’ll learn about common measurable metrics people care about and any new buzz words (you’ll need these in #2). The more you talk about CS, the smoother you’ll be in your interviews. As an added bonus, you’ll make some great friends along the way. I sure have!
It’s a cruel world where entry level jobs actually require you to have experience. Chicken or the egg much? With that said, I firmly believe that just about any skill can be related to or transferred to customer success. For those of you who know me, you’ve heard me make numerous references and comparisons between parenting and leading a CS team or managing my book of business. Customer journey, journey of life… same difference, eh? Make sure to “translate” your job experience details into CS format because that’s the language we know. It’s a well known fact that recruiters spent just about 6 seconds scanning your resume. We barely read them and scan for measurable achievements and those buzz words that indicate you know the field, the lingo, and most importantly how to do the job.
Congratulations, you landed an interview! Treat your potential employer as you would a customer and learn as much as you can about them before you talk to them. You’re already thinking of the obvious things like their industry and looking up videos of their product. Don’t forget to learn about the company size, acquisitions, recent rounds of funding, etc. Not only will this help you come up with interesting and forward-thinking questions for your new boss, it’ll help you gauge whether you’re a right fit for the company. Remember that an interview goes in both directions. You’re choosing them as much as they’re choosing you.
Are you finding yourself looking for work? The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers both Leadership and CSM Certification training programs. Sign up now and soon you can boost your resume with a certification! Visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more on these and our other offerings.
Michael Su - Michael is a Customer Success innovator with over 15 years of working experience. While leading the team, he has designed, built, and successfully implemented Customer Success departments at various companies spanning from early stage tech start ups to publicly traded enterprises. He is passionate about improving processes and streamlining workflows. As a leader he loves working with people to help nurture and grow their professional careers. When Michael is not helping companies fight churn, he enjoys spending time with his wife, 3 kids, 2 turtles, and 1 dog.
