110. How to Nail a CSM Interview Presentation (3 Things Companies Are Grading You On)

Real quick, we talked to 1,500 customer success professionals about why they're leaving their jobs and the results were surprising. Turns out the vast majority are leaving because they're unhappy. Not because of money, not because of layoffs, they're unhappy. So if you're a CS leader worried about keeping your top CSMs or if you're a CSM feeling stuck and wondering if it's just you, we just released a free report called why CSMs leave the growth crisis in customer success. Go to CarlyAgar.com/tallantreport to get your free copy right now. What if the only thing standing between you and your next big career milestone is just a strategy you haven't heard yet? I'm Carly Agar, customer success veteran award-winning career coach and you're go to for getting hired and promoted in customer success. Whether you're breaking into the field or ready to level up into leadership, this podcast is your shortcut to real career growth. Every episode is packed with practical takeaways, data-back strategies and zero fluff advice that actually works. So you can start making moves towards your goals immediately. If you're ready to take control of your career, well then you're in the right place. Welcome to the customer success career coach podcast. Today's episode is for you. If you've ever been asked to do a presentation as part of a customer success interview and thought, what the hell are they actually grading me on? Maybe it's because you just feel overwhelmed by it or because you've done so many and you keep coming in second place. You keep hearing all this great feedback but then not getting a job offer. Stay tuned because I'm going to break down exactly how hiring teams are grading you and how to stand out and be that number one candidate at the end. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome, welcome. So glad that you're here. If it's not your first time, of course, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for coming back time and time again. So hiring is an off to a very busy start in 2026. Let me just say we've had I think close to 30 clients except job offers already this year, which is absolutely wild. And despite all of the quote unquote stuff happening in customer success right now, like AI taking over the push to everyone being more commercial driving expansion, all that good stuff. Companies are still relying really heavily on presentations in the interview process. In fact, it's incredibly rare that we see a CSM go through a full interview cycle without having to present something. And just so you all know the reason that I'm talking about this today is I got a lot of messages on LinkedIn about interview presentations. So I feel like sometimes I forget to say this, but please message me on LinkedIn and tell me what questions you have or tell me what topics you want to hear on the podcast because most of my ideas come directly from you. Like I want to create content that you want to consume. So if you have questions and topics and requests like just shoot me a message on LinkedIn, I will more than likely respond to it. It's been a lot better at responding to DMs lately. And yeah, you'll probably hear a whole 15 20 minute episode on the topic and just a couple weeks. Now that that's out of the way, I'm excited to talk about interview presentations specifically one I'm a total weirdo. I recognize that, but I love interview presentations. The other reason I'm excited to talk about it is I used to be the person who made the criteria for the presentations. I used to be the person who designed what the presentation prompt was going to be the how people internally were going to grade candidates. So I have a lot to say on the topic. And the third reason I'm excited is presentations or maker break. Hands down maker break part of any interview process. So they're just really important in the context of job seeking. I want to give you some piece of advice like really, really early on this episode. And it's one thing that will immediately make your presentation better than I'd say 80% of candidates is you should be treating the prompt that the company sends you like a literal scorecard. Most people skim the prompt, get a general idea and then don't go back to the prompt when I say prompt. I'm talking about like either the email or the Google Doc where the company is explaining exactly what they want you to do. Don't do that. You should be reading and dissecting that prompt like 10, 20 times. I'm not even exaggerating. Everything that they want you to hit on everything that they are going to grade you on is in that prompt. And lots of times it's purposely kind of hidden or convoluted, especially if like if you're reading a prompt and you feel like there's information in there that's irrelevant. And you're like this doesn't really fit in the context of like the story I'm telling or the rest of the prompt. It's probably not irrelevant. It's there for a reason. So nine times out of 10 like whatever is in that prompt is something that they literally have in their scorecard in front of them and they're grading you on it. So that's your quick piece of advice is use that prompt as your like I don't want to say Bible because I don't know if like that's not dated but use the prompt as your checklist. And that alone I promise you will put you ahead of most candidates. All right, so that's your immediate tip. Now let's talk about what hiring teams are actually grading you on. Before we go deeper first actually I want you to understand something. If you take nothing else from this episode, please let it be this. Companies love interview presentations because everything else they learn about you during an interview is based on your word. Whereas presentations let them see if you can actually walk the walk if there's validity in the things you say you're good at. So when they're grading you they're not just looking at whether you can make a decent slide deck, although that is absolutely something they are grading you on. They're literally testing whether you can do the job whether you're someone they want to put in front of customers. So I'm going to break this down into three big categories. These are the buckets that most companies are scoring you on and also the biggest gotchas that I see candidates miss time and time again. Starting with our first category is the basics. Essentially what I'm saying here is don't lose points on stupid shit. This is stuff like following directions being detail oriented managing the meeting well. When I say following directions I already gave you a tip there use the prompt as your scorecard hit on everything they asked for. When I talk about being detail oriented this is where I see so many people lose points for like laziness basically spelling mistakes ugly slides either slides I have way too many words on them. Slides I have zero formatting no transitions in your slides like these things matter if you wouldn't present that slide to the CEO of your biggest account you should not be presenting it to your potential new manager. The simplest way to stand out here is to like my favorite tip because it takes 40 seconds email the recruiter or whoever's kind of like coordinating interviews and ask them for a slide deck template just say like do you have a branded deck template I can use for my presentation. If not use the company's colors it seriously takes like five minutes and it shows that you give a shit like such an easy way to gain extra points. Then when I say managing the meeting a few things number one do not run over time if you have to skip slides skip them you can say something like oh to be cognizant of time I'm going to jump to what I'm going to do. Have an agenda takes 30 seconds to make an agenda just do it and for the love of God please have next steps at the end don't just end your presentation and sit there and like smile awkwardly. Okay that concludes don't lose points on stupid shit second category also apologies for cursing today just I guess I feel really passionate about this topic I don't know. Okay second category is show that you know customer success prove that you can do the job this sounds obvious but there's little specific things that a lot of you are missing. This is probably the best example the one that I see time and time again so I'm going to use this as my example. When I say show that you know customer success I mean show that you know customer success at the most strategic level. So when you're asked to present something like your plan for driving adoption in an account If you say something like I'm gonna drive adoption by hosting training sessions That's not good That's really really bad in fact and if you feel triggered by hearing that then good because I know that you need to hear this specifically The most strategic customer success organization would never say our approach to driving adoption is training sessions They would talk about leveraging champions getting top-down support enabling their champions to Influence others in the organization embedding the product in New employee onboarding real change management not I'll train them how to use the product Next example, this is another one that I see time and time again Don't go into a mock QBR with an at risk customer. This isn't a mock setting Right like the company has sent you this contacts on a customer. They say host a QBR the customers pissed Don't go into that QBR and not acknowledge what the customers pissed about that should be the first thing you talk about also Definitely don't pitch some sort of expansion before you acknowledge the thing they're pissed about Would an extremely strategic Consultative pro-active CS org say that that's how they handle upset customers They avoid the hard topic and pitch them expansion. No So show some nuance like make sure you're operating at the most strategic level of CS Another thing I'll say here What do the best CSM's Display a lot of people would say like they're consultative right there. They're consultants. They're trusted advisors What do consultants do in every conversation with customers? They ask questions they ask their customer questions the number of you that are going flying through these mock QBRs and not asking the customer any questions blows my mind You better be doing some questioning into the customers business goals the KPIs Challenges does not matter you need to be asking some questions And now I know some of you are thinking like but I don't want to ask questions because in the prompt They already gave me all the context I needed so I didn't really need to ask any questions That's a lame excuse. Here's a question you can ask. I know from our last conversation you said your goal was to I don't know improve revenue this year. I'm curious by how much? How are you going to measure that? Okay easy easy Oh, and while we're talking about being consultative another part of being consultative is using data To back up recommendations that you make So instead of in a mock QBR or whatever kind of presentation you're doing Instead of saying like hey customer you should use this feature we have because I think it's gonna help you achieve your goals Which is what a lot of us default to spend I don't know five minutes on the company's website Find a relevant case study and share that when you make your recommendation So instead of saying like hey Amazon you should use this new feature we built because we're excited about it And it's my job as a CSM to get you to use it You could say hey Amazon Walmart used this new feature It improved their revenue 5x in a matter of 90 days are you open it to Hearing how we can maybe do something similar for you Yeah, they're gonna be like hell yeah tell me right now what's been taking you so long I'm dying to hear about this new thing our competitor got these amazing results Yes, tell me more So even if you have to like make up some data this is a mock situation if you have to make up some data do it You can just tell them at the beginning or end of the meeting like by the way I'm extremely consultative so I did take some liberties I created some fake data because whenever I present a recommendation I need data to back it up Do you know how much that's gonna that sentence alone is gonna make you stand out Okay I said very passionate about this let's move on to the third category So first category just to recap we talked about the basics Following directions being detail oriented owning the meeting time Second category we talked about was showing your CS chops being a strategic CSM being consultative Using it more advanced CS strategies asking questions using data Third category is executive presence aka the team is judging you and they're saying Can we put this person in front of our top customers and feel confident knowing they're gonna do a good job Can we put this person in front of our top customer executives and feel confident that they're going to represent us well This is where they're judging you on your communication skills your presentation skills and your emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence When it comes to communication the biggest thing here is pay attention to the flow of your presentation Don't give me recommendations on how I can get ROI from your product before you've asked me some questions about my goals Don't pitch me any expansion until you've addressed the thing I'm pissed about On presentation skills they're looking at things like your overall demeanor do you sound confident What happens to you when you're under pressure and feeling nervous? Do you just like crumble and get really small and awkward and quiet or are you able to hold your own Listen, I know that this especially can be challenging because You're gonna feel way more under prepared for an interview presentation Then you wouldn't actual customer or conversation first of all it's not a real scenario It's not real people you're like playing apart so that makes it awkward You probably know next to nothing about the product So I get that What you need to understand is like worry less about having all the answers and worry so much more about showing off how you actually are with customers If they ask you something you don't know just be honest and say I don't know but I'll get the answer from so and so and come back to you later That's it super easy. They don't want you to have all the answers. They want to know how you're gonna behave in front of customers Then on emotional intelligence Read the room empathize with the audience Connect with the different stakeholders on the meeting Before you present look at the list of attendees You have the they'll usually say like oh Sally is gonna play the VP of sales Mike is gonna be from the marketing team Joe is brand new to the team look at that info and come up with one question or one statement directed at each mock customer throughout the presentation So if Sally is my VP of sales and I'm presenting to her she's my customer. I might say Sally I think this will particularly peak your interest We helped the Amazon sales team improve their close rates by 40 percent So it's just like directing one sentence or one question at each stakeholder that's on the call Do another example if they say that someone is new to the customer team You could say like Joe since you're new do you want me to do a quick 101 on what we do and how we work together I want to like make sure that you can follow along with today's discussion All I'm doing is taking the role that they're playing on this mock Meeting and using it to direct one thing at them. That's it one thing one sentence one question I am also a really strong believer at people Don't always agree with me on this, but I am a really strong believer that if you're on a mock Interview You're doing a mock QBR mock kickoff call or what have you If someone's on their phone or clearly not paying attention I would call them out. I might call them out. So consider it. I think that that shows A level of emotional intelligence, but also like hey, I'm confident. I'm not going to be afraid to challenge my customers now You have to do it in a tactful way. So just be weary of it, but I'm not afraid to do that Okay, I'm gonna stop here because I fear that I can keep going forever and ever and ever. What I want you to remember today is when it comes to interview presentations, don't lose points on the basic shit. Follow directions. Read the prompt. Be detail oriented. Make nice slides. Manage the meeting while don't go over time. Next thing. Show that you know customer success at the highest most strategic level. Be consultative. Use data. Ask questions. And then lastly, prove your executive presence. Make sure the meeting has a nice flow. Make sure that you're staying calm and confident and speaking loudly. Read the room. Direct things at different stakeholders to keep it relevant to them. And perhaps my biggest piece of advice, which I've saved till the end strategically, is do not try to apply all of this at once. My best advice would be pick two or three things from this episode that you're like, oh, I'm so guilty of doing that or I'm so guilty of not doing that. Just two or three. Try them next time and then add two or three into the next one and so on and so forth. I promise if you spend a little extra time and energy on these three major categories we talked about today, you are going to be ahead of 98% of candidates and that's really the whole point. All right, that's it for today. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you in the next episode. Please be a good friend. If you have past colleagues, current colleagues, friends, what have you, that you know our job seeking right now, send them this episode. Chances are it will help them and then, you know, you'll gain some points in their eyes. It's a win-win-win.