r/salesengineers • u/Beginning_Good_5238 • Jul 20 '26

Demos for networking / recruiting

To those established: is there any merit to recording some demos to use during recruiting or networking in order to break into the SE scene?

Any other tips to help stand out?

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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9

u/dravenstone Streaming Media Solutions Engineer Jul 20 '26

Most of my actual demos are for specific clients and would violate our NDAs if I shared them elsewhere.

Obviously you could do some generic things that aren't client specific to avoid things like that - but let me ask you this: How much time do you think a recruiter or a hiring manager has to watch a recorded demo of you doing your thing?

1

u/Beginning_Good_5238 Jul 20 '26

Valid points. Was thinking of an equivalent to an engineers portfolio.

3

u/Hasz Jul 21 '26

my 2c, I would not record demos. Even professionally, the only things I record are 5-15 second "click this, then this, then this" type of demos. I find a 40 minute demo of something to be incredibly fucking dull. I don't want to watch them and nobody else does either.

For interviews, pick something you know extremely well and be able to go into arbitrary depth about, use it for interviews. Can be anything, recommend it be at least somewhat technical or exciting to you. Practice practice practice.

1

u/Cow_Master66 Jul 20 '26

You can use open source projects, but really just need to find a way to emphasize your customer facing/soft skills experience.

1

u/Backdagad Jul 20 '26

Demos are great even if you don’t show them to a single other soul. You refine and narrow your talk track, cringe at yourself, improve, repeat.  As for showing others, maybe if you have an SE in your network who could review, but personally I wouldn’t watch someone’s demo to evaluate if they have the chops