From Applicant To Hired: 5 Tips When Writing Your First Customer Success Manager Resumé

Writing your first Customer Success Management Resumé

Becoming a Customer Success Manager isn’t easy. It takes time, effort, and dedication to get there. However, once you do, you’ll get to work proving the value is attainable and growth isn’t too far-fetched.

A CSM should be able to quickly identify frequent churners and take corrective actions; monitor marketing campaigns’ effectiveness; understand the sources of friction among users; seek emerging patterns in user behavior; analyze user feedback; create user personas; develop retention strategies; and a lot more. They are experts in the entire post-sales journey that ensures customer loyalty and retention.

In the digital age, customer experience reigns supreme. The way you interact with customers directly impacts their loyalty to your brand. Even if you’re new to the world of Customer Success or want to pivot into this role from another department, you’ll need an excellent CV and resumé to land the job. With so many applications and cover letters being rejected, your resumé needs to stand out to get noticed. There are plenty of tips and tricks when writing a CV and resumé as a Customer Success Manager, even more so if you have limited work experience. Here are some expert tips for writing your first CV and resumé as a Customer Success Manager:

1. Ensure your CV or Resumé is up-to-date and accurate

Before writing or updating your first Customer Success Manager resumé, it is advisable to consider whether the company is asking which of the two. Most companies look for a resumé to quickly identify whether you’re a fit rather than the lengthy Curriculum Vitae (CV). You can see it on the job post itself, and then you can move into writing.

It is part of the Customer Success Manager’s responsibility to ensure that customers are always kept up-to-date and adjusting well to any changes that may affect their experience. Hence, having a resumé with missing or incomplete information that fails to deliver its purpose will simply not meet the cut. So go ahead and start writing at least bulleted points showcasing your KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude), achievements, organizations, and certifications such as the Certified Customer Success Management Professional we offer here in Practical CSM.

2. Write for the reader, not yourself

Writing a resumé is not blindly putting words into paper; it must let the reader know precisely what you wish them to think – that you are perfect for the role. Hence, you won’t write, “Worked as Customer Support for 3 years, answered their calls, and documented”. Those words, though undeniably true, won’t make the hiring manager see any potential of you being able to do what a CSM does: providing value to customers that promote loyalty and prevent churn.

You may write, “Delivered excellent support experience for three years and achieved an X% of satisfied customers, prevented escalation and boosted sales, and awarded X-of-the-Year.” In this example, you are telling them what you have done and showing your potential to turn negative situations into opportunities that even lead to them buying more. Keep in mind that you must be clear and concise in writing your resumé and use “resumé action verbs” while edging the hiring manager to learn more (that will lead to an interview).

3. Present your History in the context of CSM

Your resumé should reflect your talent for the job you’re applying for, if not your skills and potential. By this, we mean that you don’t need to have direct Customer Success experience as this is still a relatively new field in the market. You can be from other departments however, you should be able to show how those experiences relate to and be advantageous once you start working as a Customer Success Manager.

The job of a CSM is not just finding solutions and solving problems; it’s also providing support in a way that is not condescending or patronizing. You should be able to communicate clearly with customers and understand what makes each customer unique so you can customize your responses accordingly. You’ll want to be able to respond when needed quickly — and do so without making anyone feel like they are being ignored (or worse). Even better, proactively connect with the customers and address their problems before they even find out they need help.

As you write your first CSM resumé, it’s important to remember that hard and soft skills are involved. Hard skills can be learned on the job, but they are often tricky to understand and more challenging to transfer as you move from job to job. On the other hand, soft skills are not as easily acquired by a person who has just started out in their career or even after several years of experience at another company (although they may still be valuable). In general, soft skills tend not to come naturally; rather than being taught in classes or through experience alone – like hard skills – it takes more time before you get good at them too.

The two skills are equally important in your resumé; you don’t want to overlook any expertise that could help you land an interview! The best CSM resumés will demonstrate both qualities so that employers can see how well you can perform in the position for which you’re applying.

4. Mention Key Skills that Customer Success Managers need

We mentioned earlier that even without a previous work experience as a Customer Success Manager, there are skills that are transferrable, skills that can or have been developed from working in other departments. However, you can’t be a Customer Success Manager without understanding how to be a Customer Success Manager.

You can’t barge into an interview telling you’re going to apply for a job you don’t know the role of. Hence, if you don’t have the key skills a CSM must have such as, but not limited to: preparation, commitment, onboarding, adoption, value realization, and engagement evaluation, a great step before writing and even applying for CSM jobs is to learn it. You can check out the Practical CSM Framework: Practitioners Guide to learn more about necessary skills.

5. Get Feedback and Proofread

Once you think you are good to go and have written your resumé quite well, it’s time to ask for a professional’s opinion. Connect with people within the field of Customer Success, talk to CS Managers and Leaders and inquire what helped them land their current job or what are they looking for when hiring one. Don’t hesitate to reach out and proofread your work until you are satisfied that it is the best.

To sum up,

The resumé is one of the most important things in applying for a Customer Success Manager’s position. It’s a combination and a summary of all your experience and skills that proves your expertise in Customer Success and provides valuable information to the hiring manager. With a good resumé, you can quickly attract the hiring manager’s attention to what you can offer and be one step closer to beginning your CS professional journey. However, a poorly made one would not even cut for a second look.

When working on a Customer Success Manager resumé, it’s important to remember that this is your first opportunity to prove yourself in an industry where other employees have been doing it longer and more successfully. Think about your skills and what they might be worth in any position with a customer-facing role.

Afraid of making mistakes when applying to a Customer Success Manager position? Check out The 7 Worst Mistakes When Applying For Customer Success Jobs… and How to Avoid Them. 

Should you want to learn more about transitioning to Customer Success, check out our How to Get a Job in Customer Success course.