Here is a thread from slack 4/4/23

Question:

Hi all! For those who have already made the switch to customer success, what have you found really made you stand out during the interview process? I’ve had several interviews, but can’t seem to impress them enough to land the job! Most employers are saying it’s because of no CS experience. Any advice would help. Thanks in advanced!

Answer:

Hi

• I have interviewed people for CS/account manager jobs and can chime in. There are some really good Carly Agar posts on this too, like this one

"Not enough CS experience" is a pretty generic piece of feedback. It might literally mean that -- this job market is f*cked and you're likely competing against people with CS experience. However, you can position your experience so the interviewer can see you in the role regardless of that.

Reasons I have passed on candidates without CS Exp and how I recommend you get around these

1️⃣ Did not demonstrate a solid understanding of what CS does beyond support, training, and other "soft" things. Basically, they saw CS as a well-paid support position and framed their experience accordingly. Now more than ever, CS is a strategic role that is tasked with retaining revenue. Understanding how CS impacts the business (and your part in that) will go a long way.

• Learn about how CSMs can impact customer business outcomes and how they align with metrics you are responsible for as a CSM (revenue retention, revenue growth, etc.)
• When preparing for the interview, learn about the SOLUTION the company offers to buyers and think about these things: what is the BUYER of this solution and what METRICS would indicate to that buyer that the solution is working? How will you get buyers and their teams to change their behavior to align with this solution so it sticks? How can you leverage your healthcare background to influence these people (assuming you are interviewing in health tech)?
• When given the opportunity to ask questions, ask about this stuff. What metrics are you responsible for, how are other folks on the team trending towards these metrics, what feedback do customers have re: the solutions your company offers.

2️⃣ Did not map their current experience to CS at all or in a way that made sense (sort of aligns with the first one - this indicates to me that the person does not understand what CS is and how they fit into the role)

• I am going to include a screenshot of something I made that explains this way better than I can, but you need to be able to frame all of your experience against the objectives I'm talking about here. As a therapist how do you set expectations for patients and guide them to success? And how can you quantify the impact of your work? Not just productivity (that's helpful but a bit junior for CS) but outcomes you drove.
• How did you improve processes internally, drive adoption of new tools and processes, create resources to better drive the outcomes you have mapped out for patients or teammates?
• Here is a detailed writeup  on solutions with an example and a couple screenshots mapping it to your work as a therapist