A Day In The Life Of: Danny McGrath

Name: Danny McGrath

Job title: Manager, Customer Success

Pronouns: he/him/his 

Please tell us a bit about yourself and your career so far?

I’m Danny, an LGBTQ+ ally, currently working at Greenhouse Software. After finishing college I had no idea where I wanted to start my career. I ended up joining a company that specialised in working with retail & customer data and bounced around sales, customer service & data insight roles there. I eventually moved to Scandinavia with that company, building teams in Copenhagen & Helsinki. After getting married I moved home to Ireland and picked up my first role in the SaaS industry with Glassdoor. And that’s what brought me to Greenhouse! I now lead our Customer Success team as we grow our presence outside the US.

Can you tell us about your current role?

I’m responsible for growing & developing a team of Customer Success Managers, supporting our international customer base in implementing structured hiring practices in their organisations, and evolving our approach to diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) in Europe.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I’m usually up at 6 am after listening to the chorus of chatter from my daughter babbling away in her cot for a few minutes, then out for a walk before dropping her into creche. Most days I’ll fit in some exercise before grabbing breakfast and starting work in my home office (aka my daughter’s bedroom). My days are a combination of meeting with different people on my team, peers across the management team and working with project groups. Greenhouse is a US-HQ’d company, so my afternoon’s usually involve working with the leadership team on different projects over Zoom.

What excites you the most about your work?

Two things stand out for me here, and they’re the reasons I love my job. First, I love to see people I work with set themselves an ambitious goal and then support them in achieving it. More than any other company I’ve worked for, Greenhouse is set up in such a way that people’s development is meaningfully recognised and rewarded. Being in a position that allows me to spend time helping people to achieve their goals is a privilege and something I find incredibly rewarding. Secondly, ever since I started interviewing for ‘career’ jobs I’ve found the interview processes I’ve been part of to be an unfulfilling experience, for the most part. I remember being involved in a graduate interview process where one hiring manager commented on where I was brought up and how I must be the young upstart who wanted to drag his family name out of the gutter. Although I didn’t know how proliferate bias is in the recruiting process back then, this didn’t sit right with me and I walked away from that process. I’ve seen friends & family experience much worse in their own job searches & from employers. These kinds of experiences & insight shaped my view on the impact that structured hiring, broader education on the value of diversity, and being an advocate for this approach could have on people. And that’s what excites me about my role and working at Greenhouse - the opportunity to impact millions of candidates across the world, and playing a very small part in opening up greater economic opportunity through the adoption of equitable hiring practices. That might sound starry-eyed, but when a customer speaks about the diversity of the candidates coming through to their interviews for the first time; that’s a great feeling. Someone may be getting an opportunity to take on a job they may not have been considered for previously because you’ve advocated for an equitable way of attracting & assessing talented individuals.

Have you learnt anything new since starting this job?

Zoom fatigue is real. I’m really looking forward to a time in the near future where I can strike a balance between working from home and in person collaboration. In saying that, I’ve also learned that people are resilient, and, when a company culture values its people, people have an incredible ability to lift one another up.

What interview tips would you give someone who’s interested in applying to a similar role?

If you’re interested in applying for a Customer Success Manager role (and I can’t emphasise this enough) - do your research. There is a huge amount of material available online that will give you insight into what the role is, how it differs across organisations, and the different types of success models that a company could have in place depending on the complexity of the product, the types of customers that buy it, and how much customisation is available for the user. This knowledge will help you to understand whether the CSM role at a given company is for you. Some people get great satisfaction from working very closely with a small number of large Enterprise customers, while others enjoy the process & efficiency goals that come from working with hundreds of small businesses at one time. Find your area and highlight the skills you possess that will enable you to be successful in the role. On top of that, if you’ve never been a CSM before, remember that there are some highly valued transferable skills that you may possess from other experiences that you have had in your career. Do not opt yourself over for that reason! For example, some of the best CSMs I’ve worked with are great project managers, product/technical gurus, customer relationship managers, advocates for structured hiring or simply incredible teammates. None of these people have come from CSM backgrounds, but from a plethora of customer facing, customer support, sales, recruitment, or generalist roles. Emphasise these skills on your profile, CV and include a cover letter if you think you need to bridge the gap between what the job description says are the necessary skills or experiences versus what they’ll get from reading your CV. At a management level, the main thing I can say is that the people I’ve enjoyed being managed by are the ones that care about the people on their team, on both a personal & professional level. If your only ambition is self progression or micromanaging, then very few people will want to work with you. If you’re applying for a manager role, think about ways in which you have given people the space to explore their strengths for the benefit of team & company goals.