In episode 168 of the Teacher Career Coach podcast, Elizabeth chats with Emily Gossett, a former teacher who transitioned to a thriving career in customer success after the COVID-19 pandemic.
They dive into Emily’s journey from the classroom to becoming a top-performing manager, highlighting the importance of leveraging transferable skills, networking, and self-reflection.
Emily shares practical tips on interview preparation, finding career clarity, and achieving work-life balance.
Her story offers inspiration and actionable advice for teachers looking to make a successful career change, emphasizing that passion and confidence can lead to new, fulfilling opportunities.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Mentioned in the episode:
- Use code “TCC” to get 50% off of everything at Aspireship
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth: Hi everyone, and welcome back. Today, we get to speak with Emily Gossett. She’s a former teacher who left teaching after COVID to pursue customer success. She is now a top performing manager of customer success, who focuses on building relationships to provide the best customer experience. She also wants to pay it forward to those transitioning teachers out there, and believes that your transferable skills Really do transfer.
You just have to make sure the language on your resume and in interviews Connects with the job that you want to have. I hope you enjoy this episode as we learn lots of tips on making sure your skills translate and we also learn about Confidence and believing in yourself throughout the search. Hope you enjoy
Well, welcome back everyone today. I’m super excited to have Emily Gossett with us. So thank you so much for spending some of your afternoon with us. Welcome, Emily.
emily: Thanks, Elizabeth. I’m really happy to be here and with Teacher Career Coach. It was the first purchase that I made when I was a transitioning teacher, and I’m really glad to be on the other side as a transition teacher. And hopefully whatever we talk about today can be encouraging to your listeners.
Elizabeth: Well, we’re so excited to hear about your journey and we’d love to start off by learning a little bit about how you got into education in the first place.
emily: Well, it was a really easy career choice for me as my mother and my grandmother both have education degrees. I knew it was going to be a great fit for my family as well because anywhere I moved in the United States was going to need teachers. There’s always a teacher shortage and I was really looking forward to having a job.
So I wanted to pick a career where I knew that I was needed and I could make an impact.
Elizabeth: That’s such a good point. It reminds me as well, a little bit about nursing too. I’ve always thought, you know, like, Everywhere needs nurses. Everywhere needs teachers. So it really has that job stability. what did you teach? What kind of school were you in?
Was it public or private?
emily: I’ve taught at a couple different states, and it was always public school. I did pre k, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and I was going to be teaching fourth grade until I took a break and had a child. But I, I really loved the younger grades. I’d say pre k was probably my favorite. And during the pandemic, I also taught in a completely online virtual academy that was a public school, and it was in response to the pandemic and parents being cautious, not really sending their kids back to the brick and mortar school.
So in order to capture those learners, we created this incredible online virtual academy. So I taught kindergarten on Google meet for about eight hours a day. I really felt like a YouTube star, thought maybe I should start making a YouTube channel. Um, it was really, really fun. And it was actually part of the reason why I decided to transition away.
Not because it was a challenge to teach online, but because it opened me to some new opportunities that really stuck with me.
Elizabeth: That’s so interesting. And I love right now, I just have this image in my mind of these little kindergartners and you online. And I mean, what a wild experience having to go through your kindergarten year. Online. So what a unique experience.
emily: Oh, extremely unique. I would say there’s a lot of singing and dancing. Um, that happens because nobody can sit in a chair or at a computer for that long. Definitely not adults and most certainly not five year olds.
Elizabeth: That’s such good point. And what was, I know you touched on this a bit, but when did you really start thinking about leaving and starting, you know, those actions to where you were working on your resume and looking for other opportunities? What was that turning point?
emily: Well, like for a lot of people, it was really during the pandemic. When I was working at the virtual academy, I was part of a team of about 15 that created and launched this academy. And part of the job was not just to be a classroom teacher online, but I also worked, of course, with those students parents.
I got to onboard them to our learning management system and work really closely with them. And that’s when I fell in love with working with adults and working virtually. And I knew that that fueled me. So that was the beginning of my jump away from teaching and education and into something else that could offer me the ability to work virtually with adults.
Elizabeth: Thank you for sharing that. And now you are a manager of customer success and you entered the customer success coordinator role, got promoted to a CSM, got promoted again. So I’m really excited to dive into what you do in customer success. But before we do, I know you mentioned you found teacher career coach and some other resources.
So can you talk a little bit about that initial, um. Transition where you were just kind of exploring how did you narrow it down to customer success?
emily: Oh, that is a really good question. And of course with that question, there’s a lot of background. Well, first I wanted to identify within myself, what are my strengths? What are my natural giftings? I need to know what I can lean into because my entire career has been teaching and I could identify where I was strong with that.
But I wanted to know What are my strengths that I can take and apply to another job somewhere else? So I got a career a coach for the gallop the clifton gallop strengths And dove deep into what are my natural competencies and giftings and then from there I, I networked on LinkedIn and found Teacher Career Coach.
I really wanted some resources to help me understand where I am as a teacher that is looking to make a transition. And then I found Aspireship, which was really incredible. But in between Teacher Career Coach and Aspireship, which I’m sure I’ll talk more about because I’m a huge fan of Aspireship, and I believe that was really pivotal.
And for me getting into CS, I made some connections on LinkedIn with a recruiter, and I just had some very open, honest and vulnerable conversations with that recruiter. I wanted to know what is even out there. I feel like a lot of teachers that are leaving the classroom might not even know. What’s out there?
What could I go for? And so I didn’t know about customer success roles when I left the classroom, but I quickly learned that my individual competencies and skill sets and the experience I had as a teacher would pivot beautifully into customer success. I also looked at recruiting and believe it or not, I did some interviews around recruiting and I eventually decided customer success was where I wanted to land.
And like I said, that’s when I found Aspireship, which was a great program that helped me learn what customer success actually looked like, what the day to day roles of a customer success manager were, and how to be successful in those roles.
Elizabeth: I love to hear what you said kind of regarding, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. So you, you know, reaching out to the recruiter and just learning about the different career paths is a great starting point because like you said, there is so much out there, so many different industries and job titles.
So I love to hear that that kind of supported you in narrowing it And you ended up landing a role as a customer success And I know you’re not in that role now, but you’re, you’re with the same company. Can you tell us a bit about is that job and how did you end up getting that role?
emily: Sure. So, that job was, uh, was something that this company was offering, but not every organization has customer success coordinators. So at the time I didn’t even know what that was. I was just focused on customer success manager. But when I learned about a customer success coordinator, I wasn’t worried about the title.
I just wanted to be sure that it was going to be a really good fit for me. And what made that one a good fit for me was that that was working very closely with the CSMs. And that role would allow me a line of sight into the career that I eventually wanted. But knowing that I had a lot of skills that I could apply to becoming a CSM, but I hadn’t sat in that seat yet.
The coordinator role was going to give me experience working right alongside the more senior CSMs and was going to give me that line of sight that I really wanted and needed for me to know that this is a career I can do. I know how to add value to this company and to my clients in that role. So I was really happy to actually start.
Start as a coordinator and then eventually move into a CSM role.
Elizabeth: I love to hear that. And I think it’s important, like you said, to get your foot in the door. You, you know, you have aspirations and goals of, of where you want to be, but when you are switching industries. It is sometimes is a big jump. So getting your foot in the door and like you said, and learning from those senior members of the company sounds really helpful.
And also, um, you got promoted, I think in the, within the first two months. So tell us a little bit about kind of what growth looks like, um, how you went from a coordinator to a CSM so quickly.
emily: So that would look different within every organization for sure. But within my organization, it was a result of a reorg company wide reorg. And I was really excited to have worked along some very strong CSMs to get. a full understanding of what the role of CSM looked like. And when the reorg happened, I was promoted to a CSM and I was able to enter that job with so much confidence and with experience knowing exactly what it takes to become really successful there.
So, I highly value that, that job that I had as a coordinator. I view it. A little bit more as an entry level role, and I was okay with that because I really wanted to have that kind of confidence that I knew that I was carrying with me into the CSM role where I was going to be in my organization.
The coordinator role is an internal role where I’m supporting the CSM. The CSM role is client facing. And in my organization, we are the face of the organization to our clients. And it’s very important that we are subject matter experts with our organization and what we offer. And it’s very important that we are professional.
And that gave me the confidence that I needed to be able to be a really good partner to our clients and then continue to have success as a CSM and then become promoted to a manager of customer success.
Elizabeth: So I love, thank you for explaining the difference. So coordinator internal, you’re supporting CSMs, your client facing, and now you are a manager of customer success. So can you tell us a little bit about the difference between a CSM and a manager of CS?
emily: Yes, and I know those terms can get confusing because it depends upon where you put manager manager of customer success or customer success manager. In my organization, they are not the same, but the CSMs are very important. They are individual contributors. They are the client facing roles in the manager of customer success role.
I’m in a leadership role of a team and I am no longer client facing solely. I lead the team of client facing CSMs. I do support and attend meetings with my managers that are directly purporting to me, and I do work with clients, but the day to day, Uh, is different. I drive the direction that we’re going in.
I do a whole lot of looking at data and taking a look at the overall book of business for all of my CSMs, and then I give us direction on how we’re going to go. Then I support those CSMs with their individual books of business and help them solidify their connections with their clients, especially if we wanna take something to our leadership team.
And reported up the chain. So I I’m a liaison in some ways between the CSMs and our senior management. And I’m also utilizing my leadership skills to help guide those decisions of our CSMs and drive revenue. Absolutely.
Elizabeth: That’s so I love hearing that. And I feel like we’ve gotten like a little crash course on the different types of positions within customer success. And I know it varies from company to company, um, but that’s really helpful, just Um, and it’s really nice to hear those and learn kind of the differences between them. And when you were talking, you mentioned, you know, you’re analyzing data. And in my head, I’m thinking of some of these parallels. to teaching, you know, looking at report card data, reading goals. And so I’d love to hear a little bit about how you stood out during the job search process. And then we’ll kind of get into what thoughts you have about how teachers can really translate their skills to show that they are fit for a customer success position.
emily: Well, although I’m not sure I can tell you exactly how I stood out during the many interviews that I had for different roles, I can tell you one thing that stood out to me was encouragement that I had to be myself and to not apologize for the fact that I have a teaching background instead of a customer success background.
Or even a corporate background that I was going to understand the skill set that I have and very confidently connect those dots to what that job was asking me to do. So I became really good at understanding What it is that I did in education and I had to strip away all the edu speak from it. I needed to talk about the things that I did in a way that the people, the hiring managers and the people in corporate America.
could understand And see that I can drive business. I can realize revenue growth, or I can realize growth with clients because I have done that already as a teacher. So I think one of the things that made me really stand out was my ability to speak specifically about my accomplishments and really paint the picture for the hiring managers of what I did.
As a teacher in a way that they could understand it.
Elizabeth: So I love hearing that, especially that you brought out, you know, staying yourself, being confident, because I do think It can get disheartening sometimes when teachers are out there applying for jobs and they’re not getting interviews and it becomes frustrating because they’ve got all of this experience. the education system. So where did you kind of learn? Was it kind of by trial and error when you were learning how to translate your skills to connect the dots? did you work with someone? How did you kind of hone in that to get better and better with your resume?
emily: Oh, that’s a great question question and I did work with somebody and I also took that aspireship course in order to translate one language of teaching into another language of teaching. In the corporate world, being a CSM, I needed to learn how to speak both languages. I already knew the teaching language.
I didn’t yet know the customer success language. So I was encouraged by that amazing recruiter that we really connected with to learn how to read a job description and understand what the job description is asking me to do. And then I needed to think about my past very specifically in teaching and know how what I did met those points in that job description.
Then Aspireship taught me, going through the, the customer success course, taught me a lot of what’s important in the world of customer success. So I could speak intelligently towards that. And I could even use some of their jargon that understand when I’m translating something from teaching. into this new language of customer success.
Elizabeth: So it sounds like you were very specific and I think that’s helpful because you I’ve read somewhere that maybe recruiters, if, if your resume goes through the applicant tracking system and they see it, it could be, you know, 7 seconds where they’re looking. And so they want to know immediately and clearly how it connects.
So it’s, that’s helpful to hear just for those listening. How do you. Make it very clear to where someone in the business world can look through and say oh, hey That’s that directly relates to this job.
emily: When hiring managers are reading a resume, they want to know, can this person get this job done? So it’s our job as a person applying for it to show them we absolutely can get this job done because we got a job done previously. So if we write in generalizations and we don’t have data, we don’t show them that we drove growth.
then how are we letting them know that we can drive growth at their company if we’re not showing them how we drove growth previously. So one phrase that I like to use in talking about this is that resumes are Need to make an impact because you’re right. They only have a few seconds where they’re going to review a resume.
And if we’re talking about in our resume, really just kind of listing job duties that a teacher had. We sound the same as everybody else. But when we break it down into specifics and we use data, and we all know that in education, we are data driven. We have to collect data on our students so we know that they are growing.
Well, guess what? It is the same thing in corporate America. We know how to collect data. We know how to speak in terms of data. And corporate America wants to hear that on our resume. So in corporate America, it’s really important that we can, you know, work cross functionally. Well, what does that mean? It means we collaborated with people on other teams that weren’t necessarily working on, in our same division.
Well, we do that in teaching all of the time. So we can talk about how we collaborated with cross functional teams to create growth plans for. X number of clients. How many students did you have? Was it 25? Was it 40? Was it 150 that you created growth plans for your 25 clients? And then you realized 40 percent growth while you targeted individualized needs.
You absolutely did that as a teacher, but now you just talked about it in a way that a business person can understand.
Elizabeth: I love to hear the parallels. That’s really helpful It can get teachers thinking about you know, if they’re in the classroom now and they’re working on their resume at night You know, how can they directly rate, relate what activities they’re doing to this. So that’s super helpful. And would you say it was helpful once you found career clarity?
Because I know a lot of teachers right now are kind of struggling with, with narrowing down the path. So that’s one thing I think is kind of important topic. How would you address career clarity and if it was helpful or not in your situation?
emily: 100 percent helpful. Um, sometimes before I had career, career clarity probably one of the heaviest questions somebody could ask me is what do you want to do? Cause I didn’t really know what I wanted to do cause I couldn’t relate it to a job that did those things. The clarity came in looking at real job descriptions.
And understanding what day to day would look like, what kind of impact could I have if I do this job day in and day out? And when I considered recruiting, I really loved portions of that. I knew that that that was going to utilize parts of my experience. personal strengths that really light me up. When I considered being a CSM, the same thing.
Then I picked a road and went down that road based on what those job descriptions were, and then I could get really clear to myself on how I knew I could make an impact. Teachers always want to make an impact. That’s why we do it. We certainly don’t do it just for The paycheck. I mean, isn’t that, you know, the, the joke for everybody, if you want to get rich, you don’t go into teaching.
We go into teaching for many reasons. And one of those is because we really want to make an impact on students lives. You can make an impact as well. Incorporate America, depending upon what kind of role that you are in that matches. Things that light you on fire on the inside. So when I had that clarity for what I wanted to do and I could identify ways that I knew I could make an impact, then it helped me understand how to talk about my experiences in the past.
And I, I could, I just got fired up when I was in an interview. Because I brought a passion rather than, you know, maybe like the sad defeat of like looking for a job. It can be hard. It can be overwhelming. There is not one magic bullet that’s going to make a teacher jump from here to there really quickly.
But when you find that passion within yourself, that career clarity, it definitely comes across when you are talking with hiring managers. And don’t they want to hire somebody that is super excited to be there that has passion? I mean, it’s not just a line on the resume, but it comes through when you’re having a conversation.
And that is something you can’t teach. And that is something that will set you apart every time.
Elizabeth: And you’re exactly right. Employers see that when you interview, they see that on the resume, like the metaphor with, you know, your fire and your passion coming out, because when you are interviewing and you’re not excited about the role or you’re just going through it, they absolutely can tell.
emily: That’s right. You want to make sure that you choose something that you love. And everyone wants to know how they can stand out in an interview. Everyone wants to know how they can land the job. You will find the right one that’s the right fit for you if first you can get really clear on what you want.
What is, what is right fit for you? You know, what are you passionate about? What are you excited about? And, and then go for it. And then be really confident that you really do have what it takes to get that job. That your transferable skills really do transfer. And if you find yourself as a teacher in a position where you feel like.
I don’t know yet. Well, that’s okay. That’s a perfect starting place because you have some introspection to do and then you get to get to know yourself. And I think that is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself when you’re starting to choose another career is take some time to get to know who you are.
Take some time to remind yourself of your strengths. Take some time to consider what it is that you really want to do, and then invest in yourself and invest in other programs that are going to help you get some strong clarity around what success means, what success looks like in that new career, because then you’re going to be fired up.
You’re going to be passionate. You’re going to know you can make a difference, and you’re going to know for sure that you can do this job and you can do it well. And then from there, it’s just kind of a natural pathway.
Elizabeth: I love to hear that. And it’s to take time to reflect, take a step back and observe, um, to really think about that because that is your career, what you’ll be spending your time on every day and you want to
emily: That’s right.
Elizabeth: in a good spot. And so
emily: Yes.
Elizabeth: hear a little bit. Now that you’ve transitioned from teaching, a manager of CS.
What is your work life balance now that you’re out of the classroom?
emily: Hmm. Oh, it’s beautiful. To be honest, Elizabeth, it’s just beautiful. The fact that my role is fully remote, I get to work from home and I love it. That has made me much more available to my kids when they need me. I’ve been able to take care of things during the daytime without having to write substitute plans and without having to have that added pressure of if I’m not in the classroom, are my students actually making gains, you know, all of the things that we carry on our shoulders.
I have wonderful leadership that I work for. They are also work from home. People and individuals that understand that life doesn’t have just one kind of flow. It has several kinds of flow. Communication and trust is very high within the company that I work for and with the leaders that I directly report to.
And that has allowed me to kind of exhale a little bit. And remember that I’m human and not a machine. And if I need to take off a little bit of time for a doctor’s appointment midday, I can do that because I have that freedom. I have discipline as a professional adult to be able to get my work done.
And it doesn’t. Have that same kind of added stress or strain that I felt before maybe not everyone feels it, but I definitely felt it for sure Um, you know, there is another side to it I am a very outgoing person and I need to have regular Interaction with people in order for me to feel energized and fueled So I work from home.
I’m not in an office setting. I’m certainly not in a school setting where there’s a bajillion people, but this gives me the ability to be able to go work in an area where there are people. If I need to be, you know, if I need to go to a coffee shop and work, I can I can take a lunch break, a real lunch break and go have lunch in the middle of the day with, you know, like a friend or.
and I’ve gotten really good at the discipline of cutting off work when it needs to be cut off because I work from home. I’m not going to a certain building. That means work starts now and then getting in my car and leaving meaning work. Ends now. But, you know, as teachers, that really wasn’t anything that was our reality.
Anyway, most of us, I would say, would take our work home with us. So, learning how to create work life balance doesn’t just happen automatically because you change careers. It is something you have to be very intentional about. But I will say that for me, finding out what the culture is of the company that I joined was very important.
And working for leaders that encourage work life balance was also really important. And it, Honestly, it makes me a good leader to my team as well. I can encourage them to have a good work life balance. It’s okay to take a step away from the computer. If you need it,
Elizabeth: That’s so good to hear. me happy. Like I can see the light in your eyes the brightness, and I’m so glad to hear about the company culture and just. Like you said about figuring out boundaries once you’ve left teaching and what that looks like if you work from home. And we kind of love to wrap these up by hearing about what you learned about yourself during this journey from changing careers.
What did you learn about yourself during this big move?
emily: I would say Elizabeth, I started the journey with a lot of self doubt. I wondered if anybody was going to want to hire a teacher because teacher. Didn’t have any corporate experience. I wondered if they were going to see the value that I brought, because I knew I had value. I just didn’t really know what that value was.
So during the whole journey of transitioning careers, I took time to learn what my value was, and I also learned to stop apologizing for experiences that I don’t have, but start standing solidly on experiences that I do have. So what’s changed in me is a whole lot of confidence knowing that I do have transferable skills and transferable skills really do transfer.
I can speak about that very confidently and know for sure that I can bring value to the company. And I can drive growth that I can pour into other people and that I can love doing something other than teaching.
Elizabeth: I love to hear that. And I’m so excited for our teacher community to listen because there’s so many good tips in here. So Emily, thank you so much for your time today.
emily: Thanks, Elizabeth. It’s great being with you. I appreciate the opportunity to give back and encourage the Teacher Career Coach community.
