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Will the program/course give you hands on experience and internship on a leading SaaS based platform. Avoid programs that talk about Amazon (AWS) or CRM (customer relationship management solutions like salesforce or Zoho) – those platforms are a commodity and will not differentiate you in the market.

The course is delivered with on-demand videos only. This should be a huge red flag. You will never learn the right skills through video or large instructor led classes only. You need to pair technical sales engineering training with hands on software experience.

Will the program/course work with you until you land a job? A lot of programs will leave you in the dust. Make sure there is some guarantee that they’ll work with you until you land a position as a technical sales engineer.

If you’re not interested in investing into a program, I would research and watch as many videos as you can on YouTube about sales engineering, so you know what exactly what it takes to land a job as a technical sales engineer.

Once you have a good idea of what it takes to become a technical sale engineering, I would focus on the following three things:

Get hands-on software experience on a popular SaaS platform like ServiceNow, Salesforce, Microsoft. Many of these companies offer free access to a personal development instance to help you learn everything you need to know about their software. I’d also look on Udemy.com for courses on SaaS – ideally finding a course that will teach you about SaaS (software as a service) software while giving you access to an environment so you can get hands on experience.

Once you’ve completed a course giving you hands-on experience, now it’s time to showcase your knowledge by demoing and speaking to different areas of the software. Record 3, 5, 10 minutes videos showcasing your knowledge, your ability to present on the software’s value proposition and anything unique that you can do in the software. Record and upload those videos on a YouTube channel or a personal blog like Weebly, SquareSpace, WordPress, Typedream etc.

Next, take two courses. The first course I’d focus on would be a sales course – ideally software sales but any courses that teaches you the basics or fundamentals on selling or the sales cycles should suffice. The second course you should consider would be a presentation and public speaking course. Great, A-player technical sales engineers are very good at presenting and communicating their message so invest the time in this area.

Now, you should have a general understanding of the role, you now have hands on software experience that you can showcase, you have a general understanding of sales, and have honed your presentation and public speaking skills.

What do you do next…

Rebuild your linked. Recreate your LinkedIn so you’re attracting sales engineering positions. Start with a catchy headline/LinkedIn title, complete the entire about section – including anything from your experience or background that you could connect to a role as a technical sales engineer. Completely fill out your job descriptions using rich keywords such as “sales”, “software sales”, “presenting”, “communicating” and any achievements you can list that would help you land a role as a sales engineer. Also make sure to include details about your hands on software experience that you gained in step 1 above as well as your presentation/public speaking training as well.

Connect with local recruiters, recruiters on LinkedIn and express your interest in a sales engineering position. Explain how you acquired hands on software experience and any training you’ve completed that would align to a sales engineer role.

Most companies will look for someone who has experience as a technical sales engineer. Sales engineers are the face of a product, so a lot of companies are looking for people who have at least a year of experience under their belt at a software company before they’re even considered.

So how do you get experience? I highly recommend looking for an entry level software sale, business development or lead development position. Not only will you get experience selling software, but you’ll also get paid. This is exactly how I got in. I didn’t start my career as a sales engineer, I started selling software. After one year, I was recruited from LinkedIn and that’s how I began my sales engineering career. And by following the steps above, you will have enough experience and skills to land a business development or lead development position.

In summary, the days of having 4 years of general studies acquired at acollege/university are fading away. It’s less about a piece of paper and it’s more about what value you can you bring to a company today.