5 Tips for Hiring CSMs When the Job Market is Hot

By Kristen Hayer

It is definitely a CSM’s job market right now. After a year of a pandemic, layoffs, hybrid work and now a heated economy, companies are desperately looking to fill customer success jobs. This is great news for those of you who were impacted by COVID and are seeking work, but not so great for those of you who are hiring managers. The past 3 months have been especially tough.

If you’re a hiring manager or CS leader who is looking for team members, what can you do? How do you tackle the challenge of hiring when it seems like everyone else is? Where can you go to find candidates? Most importantly, how do you make sure that you’re still hiring top performers? Here are 5 approaches that can help you hire right in an employee’s market.

Clearly define your ideal candidate

There are still major differences in customer success programs from company to company. You need to be crystal clear about the kind of candidate that is right for you. This will keep you from wasting time interviewing the wrong candidates. This is important, because time is not on your side. Determine your must-have skills and strengths versus your nice-to-have specific experiences. Get very detailed on what you’re going to ask this person to do, and the background that they need to have in order to be successful. Once you have created your model, share this with your recruiter so that they understand what you’re looking for and are able to recruit outside of a candidate’s title.

Write a compelling job description

Your job description just turned into a sales pitch. You need to convince a CS professional with a lot of other options that your program is the right choice for them. Be sure to include answers to the following questions:

  • Why should they work for your company?

  • How will your CS program boost their career?

  • How will their role contribute to the company’s mission?

Consider that the perks that used to be meaningful (cool office, ping pong tournaments, beer Fridays) may no longer matter in a hybrid environment. Employee needs have changed and things like flexible work hours and home office budgets have a higher value. Early career candidates are most attracted to meaningful work and career progression opportunities.

Source candidates proactively

You can’t depend on candidates coming to you. Candidates are being actively pursued by recruiters. In order to compete, you need to be proactive in your hunt for new team members. Start by calling on your network. Reach out to the CS leaders you know to see if they know of any great candidates. Then, leverage your social network and other community tools. There are tons of options in customer success. One of my current favorites is the Customer Success Leadership Network slack channel. There are areas for posting jobs and areas where candidates can indicate that they are seeking work. Be sure to also seek out people who aren’t actively looking. When the job market is hot, passive candidates can be your best bet for hiring a strong performer.

Conduct strong interviews

Of course, you should have a great interview process all the time, but when the job market is tight there is no room for inexperienced interviewers or sloppy interviews. Every interaction with the candidate is a chance to make a great impression, or a terrible one. Choose interviewers who can speak enthusiastically about your company, and who understand the details of your CS program. Be sure that everyone who is interviewing candidates is trained on your ideal candidate model and knows what they are looking for. Plan the questions you want them to ask in advance, so the process looks organized and well-executed to the candidate. If you decide to include a homework assignment in the process, don’t make it so intimidating or time-intensive that candidates choose to drop out.

Be willing to make tradeoffs

When you have a lot of candidates, you can afford to be very selective. Right now, you can’t be as picky, but that doesn’t mean you have to bring on mediocre hires. If you’re clear on your must-haves, that is where you should focus your screening interviews and stick to your model. This will remove more candidates, but that’s OK because what you’re left with should be the best and this smaller pool allows you to focus your time and move quickly. Outside of your must-haves, be creative and flexible. While, during a normal hiring period, you might only want candidates with a CSM title, be willing to consider that Account Managers or Professional Services reps might bring similar experience to the table. If your must-haves generally center on strengths and skills, consider less experienced CSMs who show great enthusiasm and drive. Several of my best hires have been brand new to customer success but had such a strong work ethic that they ended up performing better than more experienced CSMs.

One last tip: Move like lightning. You cannot afford a long, drawn-out hiring process right now. You are competing with every other company to find amazing CSMs. If you think someone is great, move them to the next stage within hours or days, not weeks. When you’ve decided to hire a candidate, get them an offer that day. Put time limits on your offers so that if they say no you can move on quickly. Look at your current hiring process and comb out anything that slows the process down.

If you have other tips on hiring in a tight job market, we’d love for you to share them. Good luck!

The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers custom CSM and CS leader hiring kits that include a role model, job description and interview questions. For more information visit our consulting page.

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Kristen Hayer - Kristen believes that customer success is the key to driving renewal and expansion revenue, and delivering exceptional customer experiences that produce referrals. Over the past 20 years Kristen has been a success, sales, and marketing executive, primarily working with growth-stage tech companies, and leading several award-winning customer success teams. She has written over 100 articles on customer success, and is the host of 2 podcasts about the field: Strikedeck Radio and Reading for Success. Kristen serves on the board of the Customer Success Leadership Network and the board of the Customer Success program at the University of San Francisco. She received her MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and now lives in San Francisco.