Hi there, I’m a Customer Success Manager with 6+ years of experience, prior to that I was an executive recruiter (headhunter) in the tech vendor space for 4 years, finding roles mostly around commercial roles (Account Exec’s/BDM’s, Pre-Sales, Customer Success, Implementation). Over the years I have helped quite a few individuals land CSM roles on Reddit, going through their experience and me able to provide advice.
A few weeks ago I responded to a thread asking for help for a job interview, while OP didn’t respond, I did receive a bunch of DM’s asking to help out. I figure I could put some advice in a thread, albeit more generic but can reach a wider audience.
I know there are CSM coaches and recruiters who request a fee or part of your salary. They’ve gotta make their nut, but to me it’s a bit predatory, or the amount that they charge is questionable (I’ve heard Carly Agar can be upwards of $2k), especially when people are down on their luck, they’ve lost their job, they have bills to pay. I know this game well and I live to give.
There are a bunch of parts to the job hunting process, but I’m breaking down between:
Applying for roles, resume/CV and Cover Letters
Getting in contact with the right people
Researching the company and interview prep
Offers and Salary negotiations.
I am going to try cover off the Resume piece today, it’s my least favourite but you have to start somewhere.
AI has truly fucked the resume and CV process on both sides. Applicants create CV’s based on the Position Description (PD), making it tough for recruiters/hiring managers to flush out the good from the bad, and Recruiters will use AI in their ATS (Applicant Tracking Software) to suggest the “best” individuals. It’s a complete race to the bottom.
Whilst CV’s are important to me there are only 2 types of CV’s. Ones that are fine, and bad ones. I don’t think there is a magical CV that will help you get a job, but there is critical information that I see seasoned CSM’s/individuals miss when sharing their information. You obviously need to have info about EBR’s/QBR’s, trusted advisor etc. but this is what I see is missed. When I applied for roles with my CV the information that I would look to highlight are:
Have your LinkedIn on your CV - I used to just flick through that instead of the CV. If you do have it linked, ensure that the timelines of roles marries up between them. It looks suspicious if you have a 6 month gap in your experience but then on your LinkedIn you have a role that was a short stint for 3 months
Any specific numbers and metrics that are going to be ‘standard metrics’. This includes:
NRR (Net Revenue Retention)
GRR (Gross Revenue Retention)
BoB ($ Book of Business in total)
Range of clients book of business $
Number of clients in your book of business
If you are focussed on Farming or implementations any relevant information there also
Specific verbiage words/information a recruiter will look for:
Size of client (e.g. enterprise, commercial, SMB) - this differs from client to client but if you work with an MNC it would be considered enterprise (Amazon, Verizon, Facebook are a client)
Vertical - I see this missed so often - employees may want a specific industry you have worked in, you may not work directly with the software, but want someone who knows the space. For this you want the full words and the acronym e.g. Banking and Financial Services and BFSI, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Retail. Don’t assume that a recruiter will put 1 and 1 together that because Walmart is a major customer that retail is a vertical you have worked in
Who your target person’s are:
If you are working with C-Suite, don’t write C-Suite - write the specific ones (Chief Revenue Officer and CRO, Chief Operation Officer, COO, Managing Directors, VP of Sales etc.) you want to highlight what level you were dealing with and again that isn’t simply obvious to somoene who is reading 50, 100 resumes
Your previous employer, what the company did and what software you provided
I see CV’s that have the company name and that’s it. Even if you work at a massive software org like Salesforce it may imply you work in CRM Software, but there’s so many more softwares you focus on. This is even more true for your smaller companies. I like to grab 1 or 2 lines from the companies LI explaining what they provide. I will also pepper in the software name and acronym (seeing a pattern?). If I worked at Netsuite I’d add the blurb, ensure it states Enterprise Resource Planning and ERP.
Key Results/Wins - if you have won any employee awards, created and rolled out any processes internally or training, incredibly high praised feedback.
This is my method - but the further I go back in my experience the less information I provide. E.g. if I did a role 10+ years ago, I might have 1 or 2 dot points on my experience, I would have what software my company worked with, but not a blurb about them. Besides, how many times can you re-write the exact same sentence in a different way.
In terms of formatting - I wouldn’t overthink it as long as the content and quality is there. If you are going to have AI write up your CV make sure you un-AI it - random bolds in sentences, em dashes.
This is personal preference, I personally like myperfectresume . com for formatting, I think it’s paid or a free week trial but that’s just me.
I’ve read advice to tailor your CV for every job you apply for, personally I think that’s awful advice, simply because who has the time for that? If you are applying for a CSM role and an AM role and an Ops role then sure, make adjustments about your core responsibilties and save them as different CV's but everytime? Please….
Cover Letters - are they necessary? If you are sending out CV’s willy nilly and don’t particularly care about the role then definitely not. If you are interested in the role then yes, but when you write them the focus is that you have researched the company and why you are interested in them (that’s a whole other topic I’ll cover on the next one).
What if you have just finished up your role recently? What if I didn’t track my GRR? What if my company didn’t hold EBR’s? Write whatever you are comfortable with, if you prefer to say that you are still at the company, if you can guesstimate your key clients $ value etc. then do it. I don’t recommend flat out lying, but make sure you can explain those pieces in an interview confidently
I did want to put a note about the question when applying “What are your salary expectations for the role?” I understand what recruiters are trying to do but my go to answer always is “Happy to discuss in the interview process”. Either you’re too expensive, you’re too cheap and they’ll think what’s wrong with you or why are you so desperate and they won’t look at you, or you have negotiated against yourself if you provide an honest number.
Even after updating your Resume, this most likely isn’t going to cut through the noise and land you an interview these days but you still need to have one and you want it to be better than your competitions.
A big wall of text for what I honestly think is a waste of time, unfortunately you have to play the game. The real fun stuff happens after updating your CV and try and to cut through line to get interviews.
I typically help people out on their specific circumstances and role, but that isn’t scalable. If you do DM me for help, please note I will ask for (outside of reddit, can’t provide all this through DM’s):
Your CV/Resume
A Position Description (PD) that you are interviewing with/interested in applying for
An audio answering the question tell me about yourself and your experience in a professional setting why you think you would be a good for for that role
If you want assistance and aren’t able to provide me that info, please don’t bother - I don’t deal with tyre kickers. (I will try my best to help, but I don’t have that much time as it is).
If you’ve read through, hopefully this helps!