Finding a Career Path with Exterro

Not being certain what career path you want to follow is a pretty common feeling among recent college graduates. Degrees and majors can provide some basic tools to start a career. Internships might give some insight into what you do (or don’t) want to do. But until you settle into the day-to-day of a job, you can’t necessarily tell if it’s the right path.

When Cameron Yarnell graduated from Oregon State University, his first thought was to try out recruiting. He could tell that there wasn’t much room for growth in his role, so it didn’t take Cameron long to determine that wasn’t the right path for him. He had learned a critical lesson–that he wanted a position that gave him an opportunity to grow and build a career–but that didn’t necessarily make his next step clear.

He reached out to a family friend who happened to work at Exterro. After a couple of informational interviews with members of the Exterro team, Cameron started in a business development role in December of 2018. “When I started as a BDR,” Cameron said, “There were six of us on the team. We were cooperative, but also competitive in a good way. If I struggled, one of the senior members of the team was always there to help me bounce back. If I saw someone on the team get six meetings in a week, I could ask them for ideas and they would teach me what I could do to replicate that. There was a lot of good, productive role-modeling.”

It might seem daunting to learn a technical field like e-discovery at first. “It was like drinking from a firehose,” Cameron said. “But everyone took time to explain it. There are so many great resources on the team to learn from–technical people, my BD peers, and the directors of sales and account executives we collaborated with.”

As Exterro grew, acquiring first a privacy technology company and later a digital forensics one, more opportunities on the sales team opened up. Cameron’s path took him from his starting business development role, to a sales role on the mid-market privacy team, to enterprise forensics, and ultimately to his current role as the West Coast account executive for mid-market accounts–making Cameron one of the few members of the sales team with experience selling all Exterro’s products!

“What I love about being an account executive is talking to people and getting to understand their situations,” he explained. “I like being able to provide guidance, and that’s something you can do more in the mid-market. You can be a teacher. I’ve gone from meeting this person to talking on a weekly basis. At the end of a project, I really know our clients. I might spend a half-hour checking in with them about their weekend, their family, and what’s happening with them.”

“I would definitely recommend Exterro to people looking for exciting opportunities to grow. I’ve been here over four years, and the company keeps growing. There’s always something going on, and the vision for the future is really strong,” he said. “My managers have always been been supportive. We talk multiple times a day, and they’re really clear that they’re here to help us succeed. There’s not really a ceiling to what you can do here. You can continue to build your skills and a satisfying career.”