On this month’s episode of The Customer Success Channel Podcast, brought to you by Planhat, I chatted with Julie Reader, Customer Success Coach at Dooly about landing your first CS role without any SaaS experience.
Julie Raeder is a Customer Success Coach at Dooly who likes winning and working on teams to help people smash their goals. Outside of work, she’s passionate about writing, enjoys fitness, and loves listening to music.
Taking the first step into your customer success (CS) career is something we all have to do once. But how do you apply for your first CS role without having any SaaS experience? And what are some of the transferrable skills you can bring from your previous role?
Before entering the CS world, Julie was a basketball coach and special education school teacher for over five years. Without any SaaS experience, she managed to transfer her skills from teaching children to helping customers. So, what are some of the first things you did when you decided to break into a completely new industry and role?
In our discussion Julie helps answer some of the tricky questions when it comes to transitioning into customer success:
- There are a lot of people looking for jobs right now, what is the first thing you did when you decided to transition into tech and look for a job?
- What are some transferrable skills that you think come from teaching to tech/customer success?
- How did you tailor your CV/approach to land the interview in the first place?
Some key takeaways from this discussion:
- I made a list of ten companies that I wanted to work for and started following them. I read a ton of books on CS and attended webinars – took notes and started learning in that way. I networked with people in the space that would answer my questions and they introduced me to other people as well which was very helpful
- Once I gained my knowledge in CS, I started understanding how it’s all connected and also relates back to teaching. That’s when I could start telling my story during job interviews.
- Find ways to navigate the system in a little different way. Be able to tell your story in an effective way. And then make a plan, reflect on it, and revise as you go.
Make sure you listen to the full episode and let me know your thoughts in the comments!