When you graduate one option for a cross functional role in the ICT industry is presales. If you are considering it in this post you will find why it’s a good option for you and why not.

Presales roles for a recent graduate are the target reached before running. Generally career path for technical degrees starts as developer or R&D engineer.

This roles must make promises to the customer happened. The technical part of the world (requirements, technologies available, implementation rules and working way) cares while the “big picture” is missing.

They don’t focus on

• what customer has now and what it wants to have in the future
• how it works
• which are its needs and all about business

These aspects are well known by pre-sales engineers that

1. Meet customer

2. Check its business environment and it’s way of doing business

3. Analyze customer requirements

4. Collect informations on technological solutions available that, generally combined, could match customer needs

Pre sales cares more about make customer happy with tools available than discuss the details of the technical aspects. Technical abilities, instead, are useful to

1. understand customer (above all when you meet customer engineers or technicians )

2. to convert what customer wants in technical specifications for developers or R&D engineers

3. To design the development process step by step

4. To illustrate it to customer and colleagues

4. to understand what developers tell and report to the customer if needed. You are the link between customers, technicians and sales, each has a language to speak

If this is true (in my quiet long experience I notice that it’s so) pros and cons are up to the person. For a recent engineer graduated could be:

PROS

1. The big picture and not only technical aspects of the problem are evident
2. Being close to the customer increase the experience on how to analyze an offer to make it customized on requirements
3. The possibility to be involved in all the business process and cooperate with different company areas
4. To learn to listen your counterpart and this is a root skill for every job

CONS

1. Your technical knowledge are not increased as if you work as technical part
2. You have to focus outside the technicality, more on the product desired
3. You have to learn to see the world as your customer and colleagues see it. Listening means also put yourself in the customer feet

Business and management aspects are more important than technical details. This for a recent technical graduate could not be so amazing.

Listen the customer and tail the offer could be more challenging than resolve a bug fix or not, it’s upon you.