#WFU Episode 9:

In this episode, we TRY to tell you how to make each application go further:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:04 - Stino’s frustration with AI-generated resumes

00:02:33 - ChatGPT fails: authenticity is key

00:05:06 - The power of personalizing applications

00:07:09 - Highlighting relevant, accurate experiences

00:11:54 - Transferable skills vs. exaggerations

00:16:31 - Red flags: too much self-focus on applications

00:21:00 - How DMs can hurt your application

00:25:56 - Respect goes both ways

And hey, we want to hear from you! What topics do you want us to tackle next? Reach out and let us know. Remember, we’re here to share how We Fucked Up So You Don’t Have To.

Reach out to Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-faye/

Reach out to Stino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stijn-smet-%F0%9F%90%B3-330435a9/

[Melanie] (0:00 - 0:14)

She went through a boot camp of like how to become a CSM, paid almost $2,000 for this advice to have that on her resume. And I said, I don't know why you're doing that because how will you speak to that role in an interview?

[Voiceover] (0:15 - 1:00)

Welcome to another exciting episode of We Fucked Up So You Don't Have To. Get ready to dive into the wild world of customer success with your hosts, Chino and Melanie. Join them as they peel back the curtain on their own mishaps and triumphs, sharing candid insights and practical advice along the way.

Chino, a charismatic head of customer success, brings his unfiltered wisdom to the table, while Melanie, the seasoned customer success manager, offers invaluable career insights. Together, they'll laugh, learn, and navigate the twists and turns of the customer success journey. So buckle up and let's dive in.

[Stino] (1:04 - 1:38)

Welcome again in a new episode of the We Fucked Up So You Don't Have To show. Yay! Well, I know that we promised a menage a trois in our next episode, but I'm not ready for a menage a trois.

Not yet, though, not yet. I'm here because there needs to get something off my chest. There is something that's been bugging a little bit of shit out of me, if I'm really being honest.

[Melanie] (1:39 - 1:41)

Okay, tell us more.

[Stino] (1:42 - 2:27)

It's all about applying for a job. And it's not necessarily my fuck ups, but maybe like the fuck ups that I've seen while scanning through a zillion applications for a job that we've put out here at Whale. So I want to get into that, like the nitty gritty on how you should apply, because in all honesty, the job market is very cruel.

But we had over 210 applications, which is, I'm grateful for that, don't get me wrong. But that was a lot. Your girl needed a drink after scanning through all of those resumes.

A few drinks. Are you ready? Pour in a shot of tequila, or I don't know.

But let's take a shot together. And let's get cracking.

[Melanie] (2:27 - 2:28)

Let's do it.

[Stino] (2:29 - 2:31)

It's five o'clock somewhere in the world.

[Melanie] (2:32 - 2:33)

Okay, let's talk.

[Stino] (2:33 - 4:14)

So the first thing that literally bugged the flying shit out of me, literally full on pissed me off, is the way on how Chachapiti is being used as of today. Don't get me wrong, use Chachapiti because it does make our job a lot easier. Like it helps, like for me, it helps like building those add-ons, those Google, how do you call extensions?

Sorry, C Tequila does that with me. But you make those Google extensions for me, like you can leverage Chachapiti to a whole new extent. But like we discussed in a previous episode, you need to be personal.

Like I've received like 30% of the applications were like, I'm interested in the job at usewhale.io. That is not a company name. That is our website. That is insane.

The thing is, if you use Chachapiti in your day to day job, I think you are well aware to spot on when something is Chachapiti influenced and why not. Don't get me wrong, you can use it for an application, but like the effort or the first impression starts with the application. I do know that a lot of people are like, yeah, if I get an interview, then I can show my authenticness.

It starts at the application process, especially when you know there are a shit ton of applications having something like, Hey, I'm interested in usewhale and want to know and usewhale this and usewhale that. And like, yeah, no, if you did a little bit of research, like your research starts at the very beginning, you see the job post, don't go in blindly, right? Or am I wrong here?

[Melanie] (4:15 - 5:06)

No, I so you're saying your experience was that there was a lot of AI generated content that wasn't looked over and just kind of sent to you and hoping to get an interview based on that. Yeah. I can see how people are tempted to do that and use AI to generate a cover letter and help you articulate like why you want the job maybe.

But I also think you have to go from there and tweak it. It needs to be in your voice. It needs to have what AI is not going to pick up on.

So why do you want the job? Why are you interested in whale? Those are things that I think need to be detailed there.

Otherwise you're in this massive applications. Yeah, what's going to make you stand out? What was the reason why you chose certain applicants over others?

Like when you were looking through those resumes, what stood out to you?

[Stino] (5:06 - 7:08)

The thing is, I don't have any time whatsoever to look up like if you have the thing is like it depends from hiring manager to hiring manager, of course, and the team that you have to scan through those, but I don't have the time to look at the other resume. So I was more looking towards cover letter slash the email, like how you would present yourself, like an email already says a lot about you, right? And again, you can use such a PT.

But like you said, Melanie, is that if you tweak it and still put your own voice in it, it comes across authentic, like I am I was looking for not any longer, but I was looking for customer success associates, meaning that wanted someone to handle me from a customer success associate position, right? Like, I think authenticness is super important. And as a customer success manager, that is a skill that we leverage and that we can use.

Like I've been preaching on that on LinkedIn on podcasts for like as long as I can remember that authenticness gets you very far. And you just know, like, you can read from an email if it's authentic or not, especially if you use chat PT and some sorts, and don't personalize it. And again, I don't say that from a point of view that you need to be loud, flamboyant, whatsoever, you don't need to mimic my my tone of voice or because again, part of my team is super rational are at the rear end of the spectrum that I'm at, and they're smashing it out of the park.

So that's the thing. They're authentic, because they do stuff, strategies, what feels authentic for them. Not necessarily for me.

Yeah. Like, it's just a five minutes effort to look it up, go to our website. If it's I'm keen to know more about will.

I'm not here to teach you about what I am, if you get the job, like how the product works. But the mission statement, the solution statement is literally at the top of our website.

[Melanie] (7:09 - 8:53)

I mean, I've said this a lot, many times before to like, how you apply for the job and how you put your words onto your cover letter, or even how your resume reads is an indication of how you're going to do the job. This is how you're going to be in the roles. So why wouldn't you want to showcase what your skills are, and how you can word things how you can be a little bit creative, how you can go beyond what other people are doing.

And this is how you're going to be talking to customers in this role. So, you know, showcase your true skills so that they come across in your cover letter and your resume. One thing that I've noticed with a lot of the people I talked to who are looking for work is that their resume does not.

It's not an accurate picture of their experience. So for example, I met with someone a few months ago who was looking for a CSM role. And she had experience on her resume that detailed that she was a former CSM.

But when you kind of drill down into what she had actually done, it was a support role, which is great. I think there are definitely transferable skills there. But she was not a customer success manager for a year and a half.

And she paid somebody to tell her this. She went through a boot camp of like how to become a CSM boot camp, paid almost $2,000 for this advice to have that on her resume. And I said, I don't know why you're doing that.

Because how will you speak to that role? In an interview, you might get the interview because your resume shows this experience. But how are you going to speak to?

It's not an accurate portrayal of what you did in a past role.

[Stino] (8:53 - 11:53)

Girl, girl, you hit a nail on the head. That is something also that I like just facepalm across some of the resumes that I got, or like in the interviews that I've took. There are a lot of transferable skills, but be honest and open about it.

Be like, this is the skill that I got. And I do believe it could help me x, y, and z. Like, I'm the first in line.

I'm the first to say I applaud you. Because again, I do know customer success doesn't have a school. I'm the first one to admit that there are super important transferable skills, whether you come from a teacher background, a sales background, health background, there are a lot of.

And I'm the first one, if it's a junior position, if you get the guidance that you will develop those skills into real tangible CS skills. But indeed, don't misportray. Like, I've been a customer success manager, because x, y, and z.

Like, girl, please, who are we kidding? Sit your ass down, because this is just a transferable skill. So indeed, in that sense, and also, now we're getting into it.

There are a lot of some, and that's also what I hate, is that I managed to book a business of 2 million. And I'm like, how? Like, how?

Because if you dig deeper in the resume, you know that it's not a customer success job. And it's also okay, you managed to book a business of 2 million, is it like, you supported them with like, support questions. And again, there is nothing bad about it.

But it's like, literally misconstruing the reality. And again, overall, like we're customer success managers, like, good for you that you manage a book of 2 million. Everyone does.

Like, nowadays, everyone puts it on its resume. Like, I want to know on how you, customer success, like, customer success managers are not lone wolves whatsoever. We are the centerpiece of a company.

We are the glue between different departments, whether that's product, whether that's development, whether that's marketing, whether that's sales, we need to work across departments. That is just a given. So if you're like, okay, I managed to book a business of 2 million, did you do that alone?

Or I made a strategy that like, decreased the contraction or churn with 5%, or I expanded my portfolio with 30%. Again, good for you. I like, I applaud you.

Literally, this is the stuff that I want to see. But it's you're very individual. I don't want to see that.

I like, how did you do that contraction? Did you work together with sales? Was it a marketing effort?

That was it together with the team that you did it? Yeah, that literally, I can hear the frustration in my voice, right? That's the thing, though.

Shop, shop.

[Melanie] (11:54 - 12:17)

Okay, so that's a really good point. So, so rather than seeing all these stats and metrics on a resume, you would prefer to see like, how they collaborated with sales for upsells, cross sells, that type of thing, how they worked with engineering or product team on collaborating on features that made an impact, that kind of thing, like writing playbooks.

[Stino] (12:17 - 12:55)

Yeah, and that's the thing, you need to celebrate your accomplishments. So indeed, like a decrease of churn or an improvement of upsell, cross sell, mentioned that I mentioned that number, but there is a way on how you construct that one sentence. I have managed to pull up a strategy that had a retention, like increase of 50%.

Or due to collaboration with sales and marketing, we pulled together a strategy that resulted in a 50% increase of expansion. It's the same sentence. But it tells me a lot more on how you are within a team.

Right?

[Melanie] (12:55 - 12:56)

Yes.

[Stino] (12:56 - 12:56)

Does that make sense?

[Melanie] (12:57 - 14:05)

That makes sense. Yeah, this is really good perspective from someone who's hiring, right? These are things that you are looking for.

It may not be across the board, what every hiring manager is looking for. But this is, I think, really good info for people to keep in mind. It's not all about, it's not all about metrics.

And, you know, for a lot of us, like, where are you getting those metrics from? I don't have those at my fingertips of how I've increased, like all of these numbers that I see on resumes on a regular basis. I'm like, where did that come from?

How are you calculating that? Because these numbers are not that easy to calculate unless you have access to this data internally. I don't have that right now.

I know a couple of key metrics, but I don't know, in relation to the business, how much I contributed to decrease in churn or increase in whatever. So I think like being careful with the metrics and not necessarily pulling these big numbers out of somewhere. Because don't forget, if you get an interview, these are things that you have to explain and you have to speak to and you have to not, just be prepared to back up what you're saying.

[Stino] (14:06 - 15:23)

Yeah, 100%. Plus, also, the thing is, again, and I do get it, it's a cruel job market. I don't want to take that away from anyone.

And I do get that you get at some point that you get a little bit desperate and that you're like blindly applying. But in all honesty, the effect that it has is that you're taking the opportunity away from other people. Also, at the other end, the more resumes, the stricter, basically, the hiring managers are going to be because it's basically scanning.

We don't have the time. We don't have the time to sit down to every resume. We don't have the time, if it's like over 200 resumes, that we have a couple of key points that we're looking at.

The first time that I was hiring within Will, that was more like the European-based role, because then we didn't have that many applications. Then I had the time to literally scan through a resume, have a conversation, schedule in those calls. It really depends from time to time that you are hiring as well.

Again, ask yourself, do you want to put in the effort? Because stuff like, I'm keen to know more about Will, no. Having also the wrong job description, I'm super excited for the account executive.

Fuck.

[Melanie] (15:24 - 15:27)

Yeah. Okay. That's an obvious, don't do that.

[Stino] (15:28 - 16:31)

Yeah. The thing is, if you don't want to put, ask yourself this, if you don't want to put in the effort for five minutes, you just look at the website, look at the LinkedIn page of Will. Just for five freaking minutes, it will already tell you a lot.

It's not only about Will, I think it's for every company. If you go to HubSpot, it is on the company page. If you go to Keeper, it is on the company page.

If you go to client success, it is on the company page. That's the thing though. There were so many people pulling away opportunities from other people.

That is something that I think is very sad, to be honest. I know it's a strong opinion. Again, I don't want to take it away from anyone that it's a competitive job market, but it only takes five minutes to stand out.

It's only five minutes to make your own authentic self shine through. It shouldn't be a book. Also, what is it with a chapter in an application?

It's seven paragraphs.

[Melanie] (16:31 - 16:32)

Too many details.

[Stino] (16:33 - 16:34)

Girl, seriously.

[Melanie] (16:35 - 16:48)

Okay. When you came across someone that you said, okay, I want to interview this person, what stuck out to you? What were the reasons why you were pulling that out of the pile and saying, this one's good?

[Stino] (16:50 - 18:17)

The people that did research. For example, there was one application that stuck with me, and it was full of whale puns, which I loved. That was very good.

Then also someone who checked our feature page and was like, oh. Also, hey, I love working with small companies that want to scale. Whale is indeed like SOP management is something that's very important to me.

I've done that in previous jobs. For my company, I was an admin over there, so I know how SOPs work. That's the thing, linking back.

That's, again, also about your experience, but you know what our product does. It's as simple as that. I don't want you to explain to me on how the product works, but at least the amount that I saw that, okay, you took the time to look up some stuff and put effort, and okay, I link what I see on the whale page back to my own experience, you were good to go.

That is not a hard task to do, but 80% of the people didn't do that. To be frank, it was all about me. I did this, I did that, I did this, I did that, I done this.

Again, good for you, and I don't want to take away those accomplishments, but you're applying for a job at a company. The least that you can do is link it back to what the company does, right?

[Melanie] (18:17 - 19:04)

Right. Yes, I think from an individual contributor perspective, I can see why people do that. They want to try and highlight what skills they have that are relevant to the position and get that on the cover letter so that when you're seeing it, you'll say, okay, great, this person seems like they have the right experience.

Let's move them forward. I get that. I've been guilty of that too, trying to almost bullet point your experience and show how it matches the job description.

I think that's where it's kind of hard to determine, well, what do I do with this? Do I just list my experience and hope I get an interview or do I do something a little bit different and do my research and tie it back to the company and then include a little bit of experience? You can almost overthink it to the point where you send it in and it's still not right.

[Stino] (19:05 - 20:59)

No, I can totally see that. However, the landscape has changed where we, in the past, easily got an interview because people were like, oh, they sent a resume. It looks kind of okay.

Let's do the first interview because again, recruiters, hiring managers, at the time, the landscape wasn't so hard as it is as of the last two years since COVID hit, right? In the past, no one was talking about it and nowadays it's only thing that we hear. Basically, the focus has shifted to the initial application.

It's basically a college application, right? If you want to go through Harvard, it's also you need to put in the effort, right? The effort now happens before you press on that application button.

It doesn't happen anymore in the first interview. It's not sending it out, I will get an interview and I will do my preparation before my first interview. No, times have changed.

You need to do it before you press on that application button. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with listing your experience, but link it back also to the company that you're applying for. Indeed, I have done this because you are looking for this and I think I can contribute to this.

Again, that is not a hard thing to do in my head because the person that we hired did that in all honesty. I love Will because of this. I have this experience and I think I can leverage or I hope I can leverage this because I do understand that this and this is what Will's mission is.

To indeed have great documentation, train easier, manage the people, scale the business, bring in more revenue for the people.

[Melanie] (21:00 - 21:38)

So takeaway from that point is stop making your cover letter all about yourself. That's hard to do, but that's a really good tip because that can change. You can change that from today.

Anyone applying for jobs, maybe try that and see if that gets you interviews. One other thing I wanted to mention was, did you get a lot of DMs from people or emails from people? And did that work?

Because I used to recommend to people, like reach out to the hiring manager or the recruiter. I think that's changed since I was looking for work. I don't think I recommend that anymore, but how do you feel?

[Stino] (21:39 - 23:11)

No, because I saw Christy hiring and she was also, don't send me a DM. And then Jeff Kushner was also hiring, I think, also said, don't send me a DM. The thing is, if we have various channels, just pick one channel and stick to it.

That's the easiest way to keep everything centralized. And I also did it in my post, please, just send me an email. But then again, that also sucked the shit out of me.

I did it in the post. I did it in the carousel thingy with all the information in there. And the last thing was, please don't send me a DM, send me an email directly.

So it was mentioned twice, like 10% from the applications came from LinkedIn. That already tells me that you're not an active reader. And again, so sorry, you could have the best experience, but if you don't even have the time to read the post, that already tells me that you didn't read the job application.

You were just like, job application, let me send my resume. No, sorry. There is a reason why there is an official channel.

There is a reason how they say in their job opportunity, how to apply. You don't apply via DM. If you're like, Hey, Stino, I sent an email to you.

I know that you are maybe overwhelmed. Did you get it? That's a different story.

That is a complete different story. And something like that, I would appreciate because that shows you that you're totally invested. Right?

[Melanie] (23:12 - 23:46)

Yeah. But so did you reply back to those emails and say, sorry. Okay.

Cause I think that's what I would expect. And I've heard this from like other hiring managers recently that said, if you got that first interview and there was no thank you. And there was no follow-up and they were just kind of waiting for next steps, like for the hiring manager to email them, then they thought twice about moving them on because it meant that they were not hungry enough.

They were not interested enough to show their level of interest in the role. And I was kind of surprised by that.

[Stino] (23:46 - 23:53)

Maybe some other, I don't care about that. I felt, I really appreciate if people do that, but that doesn't have any sense of my judgment.

[Melanie] (23:54 - 23:55)

No, no.

[Stino] (23:55 - 25:55)

It's not the way that I hire. Again, I hire based out of authenticity because that is something that I need to work with. So that is my main gut feeling that I go for when I need to make a decision.

But other than that, no. Maybe it helps. Yeah.

I will not contest that. But a message to the hiring managers, you're not queen bee. You are not in a powerful position.

Get off your throne. Don't be so arrogant. Sit your ass down.

Take several seats because you are not that important. The company needs an additional CSM. Don't be like the mean girl to be like, Oh my God, he didn't send me a follow-up email.

He's not hungry. You're not that important. If they showed interest in the interview and you had a good gut feeling, who the fuck cares that they didn't send.

Please. Or maybe that's a cultural difference. I don't know, but please, you are the one that is in need of hiring.

The thing is you need to have the additional help, right? And I also say that whenever we hire someone new, there is a reason that we hired that person. So you don't need to prove anything anymore.

I needed to convince you as well to join Rail. If you already expect someone to send up a follow-up email, you're toxic as fuck. Sorry that I say that.

That is toxic. That is a toxic relationship. The authenticity needs to come both ways, right?

Because someone is looking for a job, but you as a hiring manager are looking for someone to do the job. Looking for a kiss-ass because you have the power over that person, because you make them dance like little monkeys or jump to hoops, that makes you toxic AF. That is no.

How did they say it? The pendulum swings both ways. Please, come on.

We're living in 2024. Get that stick out of your ass.

[Melanie] (25:56 - 25:58)

We've got strong feelings about that.

[Stino] (25:59 - 28:20)

Sorry. Yeah. No, that gets me a little bit frustrated because again, we expect maybe indeed how we want to be approached as hiring managers, but God, please be the same.

The thing is when I needed to send out those rejection emails, literally it broke my heart. From the people that I saw were also super qualified. All of them would deserve a spot within Will.

I would have loved to work with all 10 of them and it literally broke my heart. I also said it in the email. Hey, this is literally the hardest email that I got to write because again, it literally breaks my heart.

Again, it's not only my decision to make. I need to also think about company interests, of course, but especially for two people, literally my heart broke in 2000 pieces. That's the thing though.

That is also the real and the raw thing about hiring. You need to also show up as a hiring manager that you care. Don't just send out, nah, rejection.

Try again next time. If you had a connection with someone, be open, be as authentic. You want to be a leader and a hiring manager that sets an example for anyone else, any amount.

Okay, maybe not to toot my own horn, but I got some emails back like, oh my God, this was a breath of fresh air. Thank you so much for being open, for being transparent. That is also something that people need, even if it's a rejection, but it had nothing to do with their skills to say it.

Don't leave people hanging as well. Again, pendulum swings both ways. We should be lucky that a lot of people want to apply because maybe there will come a time that we need to literally search and steal people from other companies and beg them to join a company like ours.

We need to be grateful. Again, don't get me wrong, I am grateful, but the pendulum swings both ways. If you do the application right, I need to do the hiring process right.

Don't forget that. If they put in the effort to do the application right, you better step your fucking game up and make sure that the hiring process is the best that they could expect. Because they're putting in the effort, we should put in the effort as well.

[Melanie] (28:20 - 28:20)

Yeah.

[Stino] (28:21 - 28:26)

The fuck up. Anyway, can you tell that I'm like super passionate about it?

[Melanie] (28:27 - 28:44)

No, I think those were really good tips for people searching or for people who are about to be searching or people who just need to rethink about how they're applying for jobs. Maybe they're not getting anywhere. Hopefully these tips will help and make them, I don't know, try something new with how they're applying.

[Stino] (28:44 - 29:45)

Yeah. And let me know. And if you hate me after this episode and you're like, I don't want to hear Stino anymore, please let me know.

I just, I'm super passionate about this. And again, I do have my own fuck ups in the hiring process as well. Like I am not maybe all the time giving the best experience and I acknowledge that and I want to get better at it.

So again, the pendulum swings both ways. Don't have any mal-intent for anyone applying for a job like whatsoever. Like I don't want to take that away from you.

Like I know it's a hard job market. Like what I'm here to help. Melanie is here to help.

So if you have any questions, any tips, tricks, like our inbox is open on LinkedIn. Come to mommy and daddy. We are more than happy to take you in and help you out.

And again, every hiring manager is different. Every person that applies is different. Like what would they say?

It's like these views maybe are not the same views that you're having, which is completely fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. So in that sense, I want to thank everyone for listening.

[Melanie] (29:45 - 29:47)

As always. Thank you.

[Stino] (29:47 - 30:05)

As always, we do appreciate it. And I hope there was a lot of nuggets of information for you. And next time there will be a menage a trois.

I'm ready. I'm ready to open up the relationship for sure. Yes.

[Melanie] (30:06 - 30:09)

We're ready for the throuple.

[Stino] (30:09 - 30:14)

We're ready for the trouble. Like Charlie's angel, like the Charlie's angels movie troubled.

[Melanie] (30:15 - 30:21)

We already, we already been in this relationship long enough. You know, we are open it up.

[Stino] (30:21 - 30:28)

We are, we need to take a shot of tequila because I never was with two ladies before.

[Melanie] (30:29 - 30:30)

It's the first time for everything.

[Stino] (30:30 - 30:51)

First time for everything. No, I need to open up the bottle of tequila for sure. No, but okay.

On that note, everyone, I think everyone just stays for like our outro because they are so chaotic and they're so unhinged. People that start at the end of this podcast, I do think they are thinking it's like a sex podcast or something like that, but it's not, it's all about customer success.

[Melanie] (30:52 - 30:54)

But again, It does go a little off the rails.

[Stino] (30:54 - 31:42)

We do just like our careers. We often go off the rails, but we will, we're here to get you back on the rails people. We're here to, okay.

God, I rambling all the tequila guys. Thank you so much. Ladies and gents listen to that.

We fucked up so you don't have to podcast Melanie. I love you. I adore you.

I am in love with you. Special shout out to really make these episodes pop every time of the Lifetime Value Media. So big shout out to him.

If you don't follow him already, he has a big player with player. He could play. No, he has a big player within the customer success game as well.

So if you don't follow him yet, please do. He has some amazing podcasts of his own as well. And again, thank you so much for listening.

And if you have any questions, you know where to find us. Bye bye.