Career Advice

Stefanie Wood

Following a fairly extensive career in hospitality management, I joined a small startup software company in 2018 who's product was a hospitality profitability platform.  For two years I enjoyed the experience of a growing startup while continuing to build our client base in a Customer Success role.  Unfortunately, the pandemic was not kind to us, with many laid off back in March, myself included.

Since March, I've been searching for my next opportunity in Customer Success as it was something I really enjoyed and felt I excelled at, especially given my prior work history in hospitality and working with a variety of internal and external stakeholders at all levels.  Not only is it a tough time to be job hunting, I can't make up years of experience I don't have working directly in a formal Customer Success role (although my previous roles lent very well to this).  

What advice or suggestions would you provide to improve my visibility and marketability in this amazing discipline?  Or...would you be willing to provide me with 15-20 minutes of your time to chat about your experience in Customer Success, likes, dislikes, areas of continuing education. leads to opportunities if you know of any.

Thank you in advance for any and all suggestions, advice, encouragement!

Best,
Stefanie

Anastasia Magnitskaia

Stefanie, 

I am currently in transition to Customer Sucess roles myself and would love to share some of the resources and information that I found valuable. 

Feel free to email me at [email protected] or connect with me on LinkedIN. 

Thanks!

Anastasia

Jared Orr

Hi Stefanie,

Very sorry to hear about your layoff and I wish you all the best with your search. I'm currently reading the LinkedIn playbook by Justin Welsh. I can't recommend it enough. It gives you a step by step guide on how to stand out on LinkedIn. And if you want not to make a name for yourself in the CS world, LinkedIn is the place to be. Here's the link to it: https://gumroad.com/l/linkedinplaybook

One thing I did to land the job I have now is setting up job notifications on LinkedIn. So whenever a "Customer Success Manager" job in the Phoenix area was posted, I immediately got an email and a smartphone notification. This allowed me to apply right away and ultimately stand out from the rest of the applicants. 

I'm always happy to chat more. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. 

Cheers!

Ashton Liu

Hi Stephanie, 
I'm very sorry to hear that. I know a few people who have worked at Kalibri Labs and am familiar with some of the work the team was doing. I'll just note that even though you mention you don't have a lot of direct CS experience, the travel and hospitality industry is specialized enough that CS and account management positions often require several years of industry experience. As a result, it's typically easier (or more common at least) for most to go directly from a hospitality position to CS than for others. This along with the outreach and effort you're doing now should position you well for when CS positions with travel and hospitality open back up (assuming that's what you're interested in), but of course we don't know when that will be. I'm more than happy to help in any way I can, although I may not be as experienced as others in the thread. Feel free to add me on LinkedIn. While we don't have a lot of positions open in CS at Duetto at this moment, I'm happy to chat if you see anything of interest. 

Best,
Ashton

Brian Hartley

Stefanie - would be happy to chat!  Let me know of the best way to get in touch and will get something set up.