One way I’ve decided to help is give a better explanation of what certain IT roles are so it helps you understand it more as you move into around in IT jobs. One of them I’ve heard is about a TAM.

The Technical Account Manager (TAM) is a person hired by a product vendor (For example, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), that owns either one or multiple accounts or end customers. The TAM is responsible for ensuring the end customer is getting technical updates, briefed on technical issues, and manage support tickets, and even explain new technologies as it might help the customer.

Your day to day job is really to ensure the customer is happy with the products they got, if there are bugs, you have a good way of tracking and reporting back, following up, and providing guidance. You interface with the customer and your own organizations support organization, such as development, engineering, and support to provide updates and help them address it. You also engage product specialist to help answer questions that are very deep or help find the answers in your organization and provide it back to the customer.

INTERVIEWING FOR THE ROLE?

If you are being interviewed for this role, and this role sounds like something you want to do, some excellent traits to demonstrate are:

Communication:

Most importantly – excellent communication skills. You have to explain problems very well back to the support team, and able to translate complex workarounds to the customer so they understand how to apply it. Also, you have to effectively communicate timelines clearly, and next steps.

For example, if I had to answer a “How would I manage a customer ” question in the interview, I would always answer with a process:

“I normally would ask the customer the problem, try to get as much detail as possible and document it live on a zoom meeting. That way they can see what I’m writing down and reduce any errors as it increases communication issues. I would also ensure any of my questions or any other details from the customers are captured, and then commit to a timeline to follow up. I would not commit on a resolution time, as that can be dangerous and harm our relationship. I would also ensure I have proper follow up notifications on my calendar to make sure I don’t miss updates or commitments.”

ITJob.Coach response

The above response shows:

• You’re aware of customer’s perspective towards your company’s brand.
• You’re proactive – thinking of where problems can come up.
• You’re great with process and structure.

Complexity:

Another common part of these interviews is to see if you can make it easy for the customer calling you. Being able to take something that is complex but explain it in simple terms is an attribute you want to show in an interview.

Think about questions like this:

• “Please explain how a belt buckle works without using your hands.”
• “Explain how a computer works.”
• “Explain how to tie your shoes without any gestures.”
• “Teach me how to ride a bike with only words.”

Remember to break everything down to steps to make it manageable. The better you can do that, the easier it is for you to answer questions. For example, with the computer, start with CPU, then RAM, then disk and then peripherals, like a keyboard. For the bike, start with “location”, “what to wear”, “Starting Position”, and “Action in Motion”. As long as you break it up in whatever steps, it gives you a way to talk about it without choking.

Managing/Coordination

A great coordinator – organizing several customers with several technical issues can be complex and overwhelming. You need to show you are great with processes and documentation. Any stories from your past, or how you organize complexity (like business project, or large deliverables) from previous roles will help demonstrate this. See my video on YouTube on MS Whiteboard, as you can set those up to present it.

Effective Listening

One great skill you should have in customer facing roles is to have great listening. Showing how you can listen effectively (no interrupting), and able to repeat what they said and get confirmation is an excellent skill. Know that the interviewer will be gauging you on this. Are you listening to the problem well? For example, let’s say the interviewer is asking you the following question:

“A customer calls in to say that his service is down. He says there’s a flashing green and red light on his dashboard, and is complaining that his service is very important to him. What do you do?”

How many of you would jump to answering? An effective communicator does not just talk, but listen. A proper answer would be:

“So… You’re saying a customer called in and is saying his important service is down, and he’s seeing red and green flashing lights on his dashboard?” –

ITJob.Coach Response

So my response lists some key words that show it’s fully understood, such urgency (important), the what (the colored lights), and the source (dashboard). Being able to recap and get confirmation before you start is a great strength in customer facing roles and should be practiced.

1 Bit of Advice:

Whether you are going for a TAM interview, or a customer support engineer, the skills are pretty much the same. Can you listen? Can you coordinate? Can you communicate well? Also if the problem is really complex, can you make it easily understood? I hope that helps! Good luck and Stay Safe!

Rick@ITJob.Coach

So many of you have reached out for help on Interviews that I had to rush through this article!

Firstly, I’m glad the resume suggestions have been so effective! If you put some time and effort, you’ll get that interview in no time! Secondly, yes – this might be your first interview or it might be your hundredth. I’ll show you some tips and secrets to get you that job offer in this blog!

There are 4 category of questions that you’ll be asked. These include:

• Common Questions
• Scenario Questions
• Technical Questions
• Awkward Questions

COMMON QUESTIONS

Common questions include the same boring questions that are asked everywhere, no matter if it’s an IT job or not. It’s questions that haven’t changed but some people still lead with these questions. You can quickly google a lot of these questions and get a list. You should prepare for these questions like an exam. For exam, the “Tell me about yourself?” or the “What are your strong qualities?”.

Here is an awesome way to begin practicing a skill to train your brain. You should write out the answer to these questions, you must do this in full. Trick: Use Microsoft word dictation feature. I guarantee that if you keep practicing this skill you will increase your chances of landing a job a lot.

Use my ITCoach.Job secret trick and get a red and blue pen and underline everything that is negative with red. Negative means you talk negatively about yourself, show a weakness, or talk negative about someone or something else. Now, underline everything you see as positive with the blue pen. These include positive features, naming a recognized skill, brand, or talk about your skills. Keep practicing this and remove as much red as possible when you answer these questions. Repeat and repeat. Now you’ve trained your brain up for the interview!

SCENARIO QUESTIONS

The second type of questions are “Scenario” based. These questions start with “Tell me a time …”. The best approach to answer these questions is using STAR.

• S – Explain the Situation, such as the location or place.
• T – Explain the Task you have to do.
• A – Explain the Action that you have to do
• R – Explain the Result of the action.

The STAR approach is popular if you’re interviewing for Google, or Amazon style jobs. However, I’ll give you another ITJob.Coach secret. Include L for Learning.

• L – Explain the key learning

You’ve just differentiated yourself from hundreds of applicants by showing that you’re someone that continuous learns, is self-aware, and is always improving yourself.

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

The next Interview Question is the Technical question. You can either get this really quickly, don’t know it, or get so nervous you fumble trying to answer your question. The secret is using a process. Remember this sentence: “I Know Three Right Things”. Once you have this, you can answer any technical question with a process.

• I is for Impact – quickly identify the severity of the problem and who you need to notify
• K is for Know – do you have the skills to answer this, where do you get the skills?
• Three places to check: The System (CPU, RAM, Disk), The network, and the App logs/Windows logs
• R is for Report – collect the time, logs, tasks lists for future troubleshooting or giving it to the vendor. Enable verbose mode, etc. on your logging systems.
• T is for Team – Notify your teammates, or the teams of other IT staff that might be impacted, management, etc.

By answering this way, you pretty much can answer any technical question. Instead of giving an answer, you’re showing how you would troubleshoot it. Another ITJob.Coach bonus tip – make sure to get the hiring manager’s email. For the ones you don’t know, write it down in the Interview, and email him the answer with your thank you letter.

AWKWARD QUESTIONS

Finally, the last questions are the awkward question. These include questions that take a lot of thinking and reflecting. For example:

• Why are man whole covers round?
• How many toothpicks fit in a van?
• How was your life affected by Covid?

You take everything you’ve learnt from before:

• No negatives
• No quick answers, show your work by talking through your process
• Explain in a systematic way

By practicing the other 3, you can naturally get more talented with these types of questions. You can still get stuck, and get to a point to say I’d have to get back to you on this answer. It’s a very good answer to say that rather than I give up! Also, grab the email and get back to them.

QUESTIONS FOR THE HIRING MANAGER

Finally, you can also ask questions to your hiring manager. A job interview is 2 ways. Do you want to work there? I’ve not taken many jobs because the culture does not fit my style. Make sure you always have good questions – good questions show that you actually think through things. It’s totally fine to ask them some questions about the work environment, what’s important for them, etc.

I’ll go deeper into these categories in future writeups, but this should give you a great start! Good luck in landing that job!

Stay Safe!

Rick@ITJob.Coach