Erin Hoerr taught middle school science for 16 years and now works as a customer success manager for a global telecommunications company. Listen to her share her story of incredible tenacity and how she stood out in a saturated job market.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
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 (If you are a Teacher Career Coach Course member, you can also sign up for our one-on-one Career Clarity calls.)
Elizabeth:
Hi, welcome back to the Teacher Career Coach Podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Suto. Today, I interview Erin Herr. Erin is a customer success manager for a global telecommunications company with a strong background in education. Prior to her role as a customer success manager, she taught middle school science for 16 years.
She transitioned from teaching to the corporate world in 2023 ─ at a time when the tech market was very unstable. Her adaptability, perseverance, and tenacity helped her stand out in a saturated job market. Join us today to hear about Perseverance in Erin’s job search and journey. Hope you enjoy! Welcome, Erin.
Erin Hoerr:
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Elizabeth:
We’re super excited to get to know you today. And we like to start this off by Hearing about how you got into education, what drew you to teaching in the first place?
Erin Hoerr:
So I would say teaching something that I always knew I wanted to do, ── even really, ever since I was a little girl, I would play, you know, teacher with my siblings, and it was just the direction I always wanted to head. ── And I started teaching right out of college, you know, age 21, ─ teaching was all my professional experience up till my career change.
Elizabeth:
And what was the point where you decided you wanted to leave education?
Erin Hoerr:
I would say probably the last four years I’d kind of contemplated it. I’d started to get burned out. I just wore a lot of different hats as a teacher, you know, planning field trips, being the RTI coordinator, doing all the different extra tasks that are required of a teacher. ── But my burnout really accelerated when my husband and I had our second son, and I just found it harder to juggle The roles of being a mom and a teacher.
And I just always felt, you know, on the date, some days I’m a great mom and other days ─ I’m not a great teacher. And it was this constant juggle. ─ My last year in the classroom was one of those kind of perfect storm years where ─ you just get every once in a while where there’s a lot of behaviors and not as much support. ── And I just knew that. For myself, for my family, I needed to make a change, ── and I always kind of like that sentiment of bloom where you’re planted, and I just started realizing more and more, the conditions I’m in are not helping me to bloom, ─ and I need to change, change my setting, and so then I set out to look to see, you know, What’s next? ─── And because I had defined myself as a teacher for so long, ── it took me a little while to get clarity on what my next direction would be. I
Elizabeth:
Thank you for sharing. I think that’ll really resonate with a lot of parents, you know, with the juggling career and motherhood. And you talk a little bit about narrowing it down and finding career clarity. So how did you know after, after teaching for 16 years, you know, and knowing since you were a kid, how did you narrow it down to customer success?
Erin Hoerr:
I stumbled across the Teacher Career Coach Podcast, and so it is a full circle ─ moment to now be featured on this today. ── Um, and with Daphne Gomez’s course, She really kind of described different buckets of jobs that teachers tend to go to. ─ And so I backwards kind of engineered, designed what aspects of teaching I liked and what I wanted my day to day to look like. ── I knew I Still needed to feel like I was helping people every day because that was a part of education that I loved working with kids. ─ I knew I couldn’t just sit behind a computer. I needed some people interaction ── and after 16 years in the classroom, I had, you know, gotten used to ── a set salary. I wasn’t entry level anymore.
And so I knew this was kind of the threshold. ─ That my family had grown used to me making. And so that really all led me to customer success. ──
Elizabeth:
And then you mentioned a little bit about the Teacher Career Coach Course and how that helped you. And we love to hear that. Tell us a little bit about, I know you took some other courses as well. Would you elaborate a little bit on how those resources helped you stand out?
Erin Hoerr:
Yeah, I, the Teacher Career Coach was really like therapy for me ─ because it’s people who are in the same boat of wanting to make a change and kind of not knowing how and where to go next. And so I often felt uncomfortable talking about, you know, leaving teaching with my teacher friends. Like it was a great resource of getting clarity on my next steps, but then Aspireship, once I really kind of settled on, all right, CSM is what I’m interested in, Aspireship and taking the courses to learn about what customer success means and what that job entails.
Elizabeth:
What does the typical day to day. look like for a customer success manager?
Erin Hoerr:
─ just filled me even more to know this is what I want. This is the right direction. And it gave me a lot of power to know, all right, I’m headed in the right steps. ─ And. I can make this, I can make this move.
Then I would say, about March when contracts came out, I made the bold move not to sign my teaching contract, even though I did not have a next job lined up, which is very scary.
And that same week, Silicon Valley Bank crashed and it really upended the tech market. And so. It wasn’t too long before I realized, okay, I’ve sent out 250 resumes and it’s April. Um, I’m going to need a career coach. And so then I found Carly Agar on LinkedIn and she really helped me to just perfect my interview skills and to know how to network on LinkedIn. Because teaching’s what I knew, you know, you interview with the principal, and maybe the district kind of signs off with an approval. For corporate America, there’s a lot of competition. And in my current role, over 2, 000 people applied in one day for the role. And so, Carly Agar’s course really helped me to know what do I need to do to stand out in a very hard market right now.
Elizabeth:
That’s so good to hear and especially how you utilize those resources to your advantage and to help you stand out and ─ as we further go into this, I’d love to hear a little bit more about this job search process. You mentioned the bank crashed over 2000 applications were for some of these roles you were applying for.
So, how were you able to stay mentally clear and persevere during this tough time?
Erin Hoerr:
It really was hard. Honestly, there were so many times I just felt like, I’ll just go work at Costco, like this is too hard. But I think because I put all my chips into the middle of the table, put, you know, all cards were in. And I said, I’m not coming back next year that I didn’t really have a choice in failing.
My family depended on two incomes. And so I knew I had to keep. And so throughout the whole 11 months, I really would take a step back after each interview and say, all right, what can I do better? Like, why am I not getting to, I got a first round. I’m not getting to a second round. What do I need to do different? Um, and just analyzing every step of, of what I was doing to make it more systematic. I think also I tried to. Prevent myself from burnout by using a lot of Carly strategies by submitting. She calls it, um, supported resumes, supported applications where I’m not just spraying out all these applications all over, I’m following up with the recruiter, I’m sending loom videos to say, this is why I’m a good candidate for this role. And that really helped me stand out from my current role now.
Elizabeth:
And were there any things, I love hearing the problem solving approach, you know, looking at why did this not happen or why did this happen? Were there any things outside of that that you focused on, um, like physically or mentally that you did with your family or friends to recharge as well? I know in our teacher community, um, a lot of people are struggling with just the, Amount of time it takes to apply to these positions if they’re working full time or even when they’re not working full time.
Erin Hoerr:
It’s just so consuming it’s a full time job. To get a job. It really and truly is. And so, you know, I’ve got two little kids. They’re both real active in sports. I was still teaching. Um, I, I knew, I mean, I finished out my year and my last day as a teacher was May 31st. So I was still working full time for a good portion of my job search. ─ And so I knew I had to cut time from somewhere. And so I like cut out TV almost totally just to take different courses and listen to podcasts cause I knew I needed to level up. Um, I relied also so heavily on my family and my friends and my husband and my mom, just because the whole job search process is overwhelming, and you know, t’s so hard not to take it personal when you get rejected from an interview or to seem like, why are they not picking me? Why am I not good enough? I’m more than just a teacher. And so leaning on your support system and just mentally trying to take care of myself.
Elizabeth:
Oh, that’s so important. Um about the support system. I’m glad you had those support family members and friends and then if you don’t mind sharing, I know you had a couple different numbers and data about how many jobs you applied to. Kind of what that looked like if you wouldn’t mind sharing
Erin Hoerr:
Yeah, so my first role outside of the classroom actually wasn’t the role I’m in now. It was a customer support role. And, um, it’s because it took so many, so many applications to get where I’m at. It was close to 500 applications that I applied for. And I think it was 480 something. Um, I think 11 first round interviews and, and only a couple then second round interviews for my, for this current role as for my customer success role, it took six interviews to get here. And so I’m not sure that that’s always standard, but it’s a lot.
Elizabeth:
That is. Well, I’m excited to hear a bit more about the interview process for your current position. But also I have a question. Um, so you went into customer support right after teaching. So do you feel like that helped propel you into the customer success role at all. Was that, was there a correlation there?
Erin Hoerr:
Yes. And no, um, I think a lot of people that I’ve met trying to get a role in customer success struggle because they want the perfect job. And there’s a lot of avenues into being a customer success manager. You can work as customer support first. You can work in sales. And once you’re in a company, then you can kind of move around to the department you want to be in. For me, um, So I still got paid through the summer through July. July 31st was my last teaching paycheck and August 1st, I started a customer support role, and I knew it was a temporary position. They were looking for, actually for a teacher who knew the Canvas learning management system that I had used and it was, it was a temporary role. In that role, I tried to prove, okay, if this could become a long term role, like it, this would open up doors for me. And it just, there just wasn’t a spot at the time I needed it to but it gave me eight more weeks of still getting paid something. And I got to try out working fully remotely and knew that that’s awesome. That gave me so much flexibility that I didn’t have as a teacher. And so it almost fueled my search even more because I knew I was getting really, really close.
Elizabeth:
And are you currently remote in your position now?
Erin Hoerr:
Yeah, my position now is a hundred percent remote. It’s actually 20 percent more pay than a 16 year teacher with a master’s degree. Even though my position is entry level, there’s a lot of room for advancement. Um, someone on my team has moved up already in two years time to customer success level two. And so I think, you know, given another year. I’ll be right there also with a bump in pay for that too. Um, the benefits this job has are the health benefits have been better. I have unlimited paid time off, which I have to like ask, what does that even mean? I don’t know what that means. The other side is very green is all I have to say.
Elizabeth:
That’s so great to hear. And I’m so happy for you. Before we get in, I’m excited to hear about, you know, a day in the life, kind of, you know, what that looks like. Would you tell us a little bit about this six process interview situation?
Erin Hoerr:
So the further on you go, The more invested you are, I was in it. And so it, it, the first round was a screening with my boss. No, the first round was a screening with HR. The second round was with my boss. The third round was with a, with a higher up. director. then there was a panel with a lot of my peers.
So there were six people asking questions. Then, um, there’s kind of two more like checkoffs sort of speak to sort of speak, but I was competing with other experienced CSMs. And so I knew that I knew I had to really prep and prepare. Honestly, it was scary and exciting all at the same time. Um, I think one of the rounds was even a sales presentation, which I didn’t know anything about that, but you know, if you look at it, I looked at it as a lesson plan where, okay, how would I make this exciting? How would I pitch this just as a teacher would. And so when I finally got the call back that it was me, it was like just tears of joy because I could finally stop looking after 500 applications.
I can finally stop looking. But in all the 11 months time, I really only went without a paycheck for eight weeks. So I have promised my husband, I will not bankrupt us. I will land on my feet. You know, if I got to work two other jobs to make up for it, I will do that. But I need a little space to, to grow and to see what I can land outside of teaching.
Elizabeth:
That motivation right there just makes my heart so happy. You, you know, you put in your, didn’t sign your notice in March, you know, it’s kind of this risky thing, but you had the confidence, you built the confidence, you’ve learned, you grew and you successfully made the transition. And
Erin Hoerr:
It was scary because I’m not a risk taker. Like we don’t even buy lotto tickets. I’m not a gambler, but I knew I had to bet, I had to bet on myself that I have a lot of transferable skills and when I started this process, I didn’t know that because teaching was what I had done and it took a lot to decompress and dissect all those emotions and beliefs about myself to even feel worthy of this role.
Elizabeth:
I love to hear too. I noticed you mentioned, um, this correlation between when you were planning your sales presentation, thinking about Oh, I’ve done this in teaching. You know, how do I make it engaging and clear? Um, precise. So I love to hear that you’ve, went back and deep and you were able to like connect all of those skills and those things.
And sometimes when we move forward into new careers, we forget that there are these like soft skills that we inherently know that are applicable to new careers.
Erin Hoerr:
Yeah, there’s so much that overlaps. It’s just hard at first to see the connections, but I knew if I couldn’t make the connections a future boss. I shouldn’t expect a future boss to do that. And so it helped a lot to do mock interviews. And I did that with Carly Agar’s program. I even did a mock with Aspireship. And I’m in some different CSM groups on LinkedIn. And I just said, Hey, will anybody interview me? I’m on round four, you know, and I met some One of of the most, you know, one of the biggest GOATs in the CSM industry from that. And it just kept giving me more confidence that I can do this. I can compete with other experienced CSMs because the market. The market was saturated at the time I was looking because there were so many tech layoffs from the bank crash.
Elizabeth:
And you can do this and you did do this. And, uh, tell us a little bit about. a day in the life, of a CSM.
Erin Hoerr:
It’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. I set my own schedule. So there’s typically three to four hours of meetings with customers. Um, sometimes. Once a week, there’s a meeting with my boss just to sync on my accounts. Um, there’s about four hours of admin work or logging game site notes, but I make my schedule, which means it’s flexible to what my family needs it to be. If my kids have a doctor’s appointment, I’m not panicked that a sub won’t pick up for this set time. Um, The flexibility is really wonderful, but my day revolves around really retaining customers. So making sure they’re satisfied with the products that my company and I sell. If they need tech support, I help liaise with the support team to organize those calls just to make sure they get a resolution. And then I’m looking to see, you know, what business problems are my customers having that we offer solutions for. So then I’m looking for upsell opportunities.
Elizabeth:
Very cool. Will you tell us a little bit about, um, you mentioned earlier that there’s different levels of customer success managers at your company. What is the growth trajectory look like, um, for this career and at your company?
Erin Hoerr:
So the next, so right now I’m entry level, I’m CSM one. The next step is CSM two. Um, then there’s a senior manager and a director and my company is really fabulous and there’s a lot of strong female leaders and that was one of the things that really stood out to me. Um, even if I never made it, make it to CSM two, what’s cool about my position is a large part of it is a base salary, but there’s a component that’s commission.
And so that was new for me around teaching. So the harder I work and the more I sell the more money I make anyways. And so by coming from a teaching background, I already worked, was used to working so much more and giving so much more of myself. It’s been easy to hit my quotas.
Elizabeth:
That’s great to hear, especially Just that ability for forward momentum. Um, and it is a lot different from depending on if you’re teaching in a public school district with the set salary schedule, years of experience. Uh, does that motivate you being able to have that aspect of it?
Erin Hoerr:
Yes. Because As a teacher, I always did more. I always just kept giving and giving and I wasn’t always financially compensated for those things. It’s just part of the roles you take as you get better, you do more and you just keep giving more. And here I’m recognized for that. Um, I’ve already been asked to help train some of the new hires and um, I’ve asked been asked to sit in on the panel interview for, for those new hires and so I’ve already seen upward growth, so to speak, and I’m only in month seven in this role. And so my boss ─ and my leaders have recognized, hey, this girl works her butt off. You know, she’s not just a teacher.
Elizabeth:
I’m so happy to hear that. Do you have a favorite part of the day or a favorite part of the job?
Erin Hoerr:
Honestly, I think I’ve just landed in the perfect spot for me that my teammates have been so accepting of me. I didn’t know how, you know, if they would embrace somebody who’s never done that the same role as them, but they have been excited to have me on the team. And I guess my favorite part is the people that I’m working with and that was also a big part of the part I loved about teaching was I love the teacher camaraderie and the PLCs and planning with other teachers too. So you want to stick with people you’re happy to work with.
Elizabeth:
Absolutely. And it sounds like those relationships, um, that, that foundation of relationships carried through to your next position.
Erin Hoerr:
Yeah. Yep.
Elizabeth:
And then you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I, we’d love to hear if you could expand upon it. You talked about how you’re able to take your sons to doctor’s appointments or sporting events. Can you tell us a little bit about your work life balance now compared to, uh, where it was?
Erin Hoerr:
It’s so much better because I dictate the schedule. Um, if I need, you know, to run to a dentist appointment, I put an hour on the team calendar and nobody questions that my my work just still gets done and it’s not a big deal. I used to have so much anxiety about if I needed to be out as a teacher. One would have said pick up. You know, and what if they didn’t pick up what they they would call it farm out where each teacher on the hall would take two or three kids and then I felt like I was burdening my other teacher colleagues and when you have small kids and daycare, it just somebody’s going to get sick. And so I always felt very guilty to. Take any time off for myself, even though that was part of the benefits of being a teacher. So work life balance is, is so much, so much better.
Elizabeth:
That’s amazing. And tell us what you’ve learned about yourself in this process.
Erin Hoerr:
You know, I don’t think of myself as being scrappy, but I think through this process, I’m pretty, I’m, I really was. I almost had to prove it to myself that I could do it. Um, and just being unrelenting. To give up and to fold in, even though it was hard enough just to keep on going. I feel like I set a good example for my family of, and my kids of mom can do, you know, she can do anything she sets her mind, her mind out to that. She, that she’s can do this. And I really learned who my true support system really was. Um, when when I, Would tell teachers, you know, this is what I was thinking of doing or later ask why I’m not coming back. I got mixed emotions and reactions from people because some people just Was like you’re leaving without a next job lined up that doesn’t make sense. And so I just really realized, you know, how supportive my My good friends are my husband is my mom and my dad are just who I can rely on in those difficult times.
Elizabeth:
Erin, thank you so much for sharing your teacher transition story and teaching us about your job search process and about being a customer success manager. I learned a lot. I’m excited for everyone to listen and we appreciate your time. Thanks so much, Erin.
Erin Hoerr:
Thank you for having me.
