What a CSM
portfolio should include.
A customer success manager portfolio is read for retention and expansion, so it should lead with the net revenue retention and gross retention you held, the size and segment of the book you carried, the onboarding playbooks you built, and the quarterly business reviews you ran. Name the health-score model you worked in and the tools behind it, Gainsight, Salesforce, Totango, or Catalyst. Below is the full list of what to put in, the terms a customer success recruiter searches, and which of the Portfolio designs suit a retention-focused page.
The sections a CSM portfolio needs.
Customer success is measured by the revenue you keep and grow, so the portfolio is organised around retention outcomes and the motions that produced them.
Retention numbers, up top
Lead with net revenue retention and gross retention across your book, and the logo retention rate if you tracked it. State the segment you covered, whether enterprise, mid-market, or SMB, so a reviewer can read the numbers in context. Retention is the single figure a customer success leader looks for first.
Expansion and upsell
Show the growth you drove inside existing accounts, upsell and cross-sell, seat expansion, and tier upgrades, with the share of your number it represented. Say how you spotted the signal, ran the play, and handed the commercial close to sales or ran it yourself.
Onboarding playbooks
Describe the onboarding motion you designed and its result, faster time to first value, higher activation, or a lower early-life churn rate. A repeatable playbook you built, with the stage gates and the success criteria, shows you scale a team, not just a single account.
QBRs and account planning
Name the cadence you ran, quarterly business reviews, executive check-ins, and renewal planning, and what each produced, a renewal secured, an expansion opened, or a churn risk caught early. A sample QBR structure, with client specifics removed, is strong evidence.
Health scores and tooling
State the health-score model you operated in and the platform behind it, Gainsight, Totango, Catalyst, or Vitally, plus the CRM, usually Salesforce or HubSpot. Say how you acted on a red account. These are searchable competencies a customer success team screens for.
Escalations and cross-functional work
Show how you handled at-risk accounts and worked across product, support, and sales to save them. A save story framed as the signal, the intervention, and the outcome demonstrates the judgement a CSM is hired for, without naming the customer.
Never include: named accounts and private terms
No customer names tied to churn or a discount, no contract values, no unreleased usage data, and no screenshot that identifies an account. Most customer success roles sit under a mutual confidentiality agreement, and publishing a named save or a private renewal figure can breach it.
Anonymise. "Recovered a seven-figure enterprise account flagged red at renewal" is safe. The client's name, the exact figure, and the reason they nearly left are not.
Terms a CS recruiter searches.
Applicant tracking systems index the words you wrote. If these are true of you, use the exact term a customer success recruiter filters on.
Paste your resume into the free ATS score checker with a real customer success posting to see which of these terms the posting uses and your resume is missing.
Which designs suit a retention page.
Customer success is read for outcomes and warmth, so the design should show numbers clearly and still feel human. Of the 60 Portfolio designs and 48 resume layouts, these fit.
Pick a design that carries a stat band for retention and expansion, with room below for save stories in prose. Customer success blends numbers with narrative, so the design should hold both without leaning fully editorial or fully corporate.
Of the 48 layouts, choose a single-column one. Two-column resumes can serialise into a scrambled order in a company's system, which risks your retention figures landing out of place.
Order the page so NRR, gross retention, and expansion sit above the playbooks and QBR cadence. A leader confirms the outcome, then reads the motion that produced it.
Use one accent colour and clear typography. A customer success hiring manager wants proof of relationship skill and commercial impact, so let the numbers anchor and the stories carry the human side.
Who a CSM portfolio is not for.
A portfolio helps some customer success managers and does little for others. Read this before you spend an evening building one.
Worth building if you
- +Have retention and expansion numbers you can present in aggregate without naming an account.
- +Are moving into a senior CSM, team lead, or head-of-customer-success role where a track record matters.
- +Built onboarding playbooks or a health-score model you can show as a framework.
- +Consult on customer success and want one link that shows your outcomes and the tools you run.
Skip it, for now, if you
- −Apply only through company career portals where an external link is rarely surfaced. Fix the resume first.
- −Are new to customer success without owned retention numbers yet. A clean, keyword-matched resume helps more now.
- −Cannot present results without naming accounts or private figures. Anonymise before you publish, or do not.
- −Have a deadline this week. Make the resume machine-readable first, then build the site.
Questions CSMs ask.
Straight answers on metrics, confidentiality, and whether the effort pays off.
What metrics should a customer success manager show?
Net revenue retention and gross retention first, then expansion or upsell as a share of your number, logo retention, and time to first value from onboarding. Present each against the segment you covered, because a retention figure for enterprise reads differently from one for SMB, and a reviewer needs that context to judge it.
Can I name the accounts I saved?
No. Most customer success work sits under a mutual confidentiality agreement, so present saves and expansions in aggregate. You can describe an enterprise account recovered at renewal or a segment churn rate you cut, but not the customer's name, the exact contract value, or the private reason they nearly left.
Which customer success tools should I list?
Name the platform you actually operated in, most often Gainsight, Totango, Catalyst, or Vitally, plus the CRM, usually Salesforce or HubSpot. Employers screen for the tool they run because onboarding is faster when you know it, so use the exact product name rather than a generic label like customer success platform.
Do CSMs need a portfolio to get hired?
Not for every role, since many customer success jobs are filled through company portals where a strong resume does the work. A portfolio earns its keep for senior and leadership roles, for consultants, and for anyone who built onboarding playbooks or a health-score model they can show as a framework rather than just describe.
How do I show onboarding work without a real client?
Present the playbook as a framework. Show the stages, the success criteria at each gate, and the outcome it produced in aggregate, such as a faster time to value or a lower early-life churn rate. That demonstrates repeatable process without exposing a single customer's onboarding or data.
Where to go next.
Build the site, test your resume, or read how the paste-a-resume flow works.
Turn your CSM
resume into a site.
Paste your resume and Portfolio drafts a clean, retention-first website in about a minute. Retention and expansion up top, account names your call to leave out, published to your own domain with TLS handled for you.