Might be moving from support to presales engineering - any tips? [View All]

[Taverner]

A little background: I have a graduate degree in Journalism that is collecting dust on my shelves. After grad school, I wanted to pay off school loans so I kept my job as a tech support guy for a dialup ISP for a while. Newspaper jobs didn't pay squat (my best offer was from the Modesto Bee for $8 per hour as a PT stringer.)

The tech jobs did pay well, but I never really LOVED my work. I moved up the tech chain, working for iPlanet and then going into IT, where I worked at Apple for 3 years. Laid off, and then went back into support where I am now, at a company which makes large datacenter-level file servers.

Support is OK, but it's getting old, and I always had a desire to go into a more sales-ish role. So they just had openings in the pre-sales engineering department here. I submitted my resume and am in the mid-stages of interviews. They like me, and I feel confident I will get the job.

Now although it is technical, it is also very much a sales role. I will have a chance to write a lot more (which is good) and I will have a chance to use that ubiquitous "excellent written communication skills" that has bullet pointed the end of every resume I've sent.

So for those in sales - what should I expect? I know the sales world can be rough and it is numbers driven. But is it a world of alpha-male and alpha-female wannabe's clawing at everyone around them?

I'm just nervous it will be Arthur Miller or Glengarry Glen Ross out there...but perhaps I'm being needlessly nervous. After all, I know I can kick ass at this.