How Badly Do You Want to Work in Sports, part 3

This post is going to address two topics: primarily research and a little bit of networking, the second of which I know I have written about multiple times. In this post I'm going to address how they are sometimes tied together, whether people realize it or not.

I frequently get emails asking for advice about where to look for a job or help getting a contact into somewhere I've worked. Often when people contact me, I'm their first stop on the research path. This is incredibly annoying! Often, I will talk with people who tell me they want to work at New York Road Runners, for example, yet when I talk to them, they haven't even looked at the NYRR website. I don't mind giving them information on things that are really only available from talking to someone who has worked (or is working) in an organization, such as what the culture might be like or what the leadership style of a department VP might be. What irks me is when people don't even take the time to figure out on their own who the organizational leaders are or ask me questions such as whether I know if NYRR has any open jobs. Check the damn website! If there isn't a staff directory, which there isn't on the NYRR site, there are press releases and photos and videos and Flickr links and Facebook links, and on and on. You can find out a lot of information there. I even had one student (not one of mine) ask me if I could recommend where in New York City he should apply for sports jobs, not even a specific area of sports, which still would have made it a bad question, but narrowed down a bit. I, and others in his network, are not the "job bank of New York City" to start naming off organizations. This was someone I had talked to once and now he was asking me to be his personal scout. Not gonna happen! Now, if he had said something like, "I'm looking at NYRR, Korff Enterprises, the US Open, Madison Square Garden, and Eventage and have read up on each of them. Do you happen to know anything about those organizations?" That's a different question. It shows me someone who is trying to help himself and find a job but needs a little help versus a person who wants someone else to find a job for him. It would also have been different if this were someone I had talked to more than once. That's just the cold hard truth.

It is the epitome of laziness to not research the basics of an organization. As an example, if a student told me that she wanted to work for Under Armour, and then I asked her what she would say to Kevin Plank if she ran into him in the lobby at a conference, I would often get blank stares and the question, "Who is Kevin Plank?" People in sports are willing to help you, but you have to be willing to help yourself and do a little bit of work before you talk to them. When she gets around to answering my original question--what would she ask Kevin Plan if she ran into him in the lobby at a conference--she would likely answer with something pedestrian, such as "I would ask him how he got the idea to start Under Armour." Read an article for that! It's pretty well documented why he started the company. It's even on the "About Under Armour" section of their website. This is a fictitious example, though admittedly not too fictitious.

Another area is when you are applying for jobs. If the position states that it reports to the general counsel of a football team, for example, guess what, most pro teams have a staff directory listed on their websites. Here is an example for the Kansas City Chiefs. Mouse over "The Team" and the drop down has a link called "Coaches, Staff, and Execs." I wonder, though, how many people would address their cover letter and resume generically to the HR manager or generically to "Attn: General Counsel," assuming they send their resume directly to the Chiefs in addition to applying online (discussed in previous blog posts).

The synopsis is: Don't waste peoples' time, and just as importantly, don't waste the opportunity you have to speak to them with questions you can find answers to on the Internet, in a book, or in a magazine. Leave them feeling like they just talked to a person who is a young sports business professional rather than an unpolished student.

Who to Follow-Up With

I started to respond to a very good comment on the 2/21/09 posting about following-up after applying for a job, but my comment became so long that I've decided to post it separately. Part of the comment from RNelson noted that some job posting require that your resume be sent to HR or posted in the system and state "no calls."

Yes, many require posting through the organization's online system and some may state "no calls." I wouldn't call the HR department anyway, or at least not ONLY them. The HR manager isn't the person who will make the decision on who gets hired or not. As part of your research (which is actually my upcoming post) you should try to find out who the hiring manager is. You send your resume and cover letter directly to that person (in addition to whatever the posting requirements state). That's who you want to call. If that person blows you off, so be it, but you don't want the opposite. Here again is where your network comes into play. You need to use your network to find out who the hiring manager is or at lease someone in that company. If you can arrange time to talk to anyone in the company about the department or generally about the company, that's always beneficial. I personally don't care if the job is posted through a site like teamworkonline.com, I send my information directly to the organization and follow-up directly with the organization. Also, don't take it for granted that a third party job posting site has exclusive rights to post that job. Often, organizations will also list the job on their site. Sometimes it may point to the third party site, but not always. On the organization's site it may list a person's name or you can find the department manager's name on the About Us or Staff Directory page.

The HR manager isn't going to be the person who will decide who gets the job--it's the hiring manager. The HR manager may decide who gets contacted for interviews, but hopefully not. (I'm not a fan of HR at all when it comes to hiring. There's a great Fast Company cover story that I love from a few years ago called "Why We Hate HR.") Since I'm not a fan of most HR folks, I don't want them trying to select who I want to interview. I want them to post the job information online, collect the resumes for me to review (from the people who don't send theirs directly to me), and then contact the prospective candidates to schedule the interview times. No more than that. I had one HR manager who was screening candidates because of geography. A couple of candidates got through the gate keepers via phone and followed-up with me to ask if I'd received their information. I hadn't. When I asked the HR manager about these candidates, he informed me that he hadn't passed on their resumes because they weren't already living in the city where we were located. I had not put any geographic restrictions on my requirements. If someone is a good candidate and wants to move to take the job, why wouldn't I want them? The fact that this company didn't pay moving costs (the cheap-o's) would come up in the interview or could even be stated when scheduling the interview. The candidates could decide from there whether they wanted to move forward with the interview. The point of this long paragraph is to show that if you go only to HR and talk only with HR, you're more likely to get lost in the shuffle. This is a link to another Fast Company article from around 1997 that I still love. It's called "Interview with a Head Hunter" and I think it's actually been updated. It gives a lot of really good advice and a lot of the things I've been doing for the last twelve years came from this article.

Competition vs. Cooperation

I've been searching on the Internet to find out who first said that youth is wasted on the young. According to thinkexist.com, it was George Bernard Shaw. I guessed Mark Twain. Seemed like something he would have said. It was 100% true with me and I'm seeing that it is still holding true.

I absolutely LOVE being around a college campus again and working with students. I definitely want to get my PhD and teach, even if I only teach part-time and pursue other options full-time. There are certain things about being around students, though, that are really tough for me. I now understand the frustration that my mentors went through with me.

With two or three exceptions, the students I've come across this year don't fully grasp that the people in their class are going to be their network for the rest of their professional lives and not their competitors. They could do themselves a huge favor by eliminating the internal competition and focusing on cooperation. It's not as if they don't like one another or don't get along, because they do. It's just that they're ultra competitive with one another. I've seen it firsthand, this weekend being the most recent example. One of the students was incredibly secretive and evasive when asked what internship she was applying for when another student was giving her an update on some reference information.

They're so worried about other students going head-to-head with them for opportunities. They don't want to tell others who are interested in the same line of work where they're applying. In contrast, if they helped one another through the process and made sure that at least someone in their network gets the internship if they don't, they'd be so much better off. They'd have someone they know in that area who could help them out in the future! It's not the easiest thing for competitive people to do, but by helping one another, by being happy when one person does well, by accepting competition for internships, and by being willing to let their merits go head-to-head against anyone, it would solidify their reputation within their class as someone who's willing to help others reach their goals. Yet, they're secretive and they hide information.

The greatest example I've come across of what people would ideally be like when working with those who are also competing with them was the description of Lincoln in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Lincoln took the idea of cooperation to levels I can't even fathom. I think it's one of the things that made him such a great leader. He chose four men whom he beat out for the presidency for major positions in his cabinet, any/all of whom were expected to be elected over Lincoln. He was continually back-stabbed by people in his cabinet, yet he knew that they had the best talents for the jobs. And even though they treated him that way, he never reciprocated. He chose these men because although they were competitors, he wanted them around him because they had the best talents for the jobs.

Again, cooperating with people you view as competitors isn't easy. It's really damned hard, because that behavior may not be returned! I can scream about it until I'm blue in the face, but like almost everyone through time, there are life lessons that we only learn through our own experiences, and not from others trying to teach us. Just be open to the idea of cooperation instead of competition.

Networking

The contacts you make in the sports world will be important throughout your career. Some of the things you do that may not seem like much at the time or that you do for reasons besides networking, may bring future dividends.

My mentor, JC, was the venue manager for boxing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. In the late 80's and early 90's, she worked for ProServ. One of her assignments early in her career at ProServ was to meet with the insurance broker about coverage for their events. She said that at the time she thought she was being punished or overlooked by being handed this boring assignment. She became friends with the insurance broker and they are still friends today. The president of the insurance broker's company was friends with Billy Payne at ACOG (Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games). That person forwarded on her resume to Billy Payne who sent it to one of his lieutenants. One meeting later in Atlanta, and she was hired.

I stayed involved with the Ohio University Sports Administration Program for my own personal reasons of wanting to give back and make a contribution to the program that first provided the opportunity for me to make a full-time career of sports. That network has paid off with some of the best friends I've ever had, but also by presenting job opportunities, including a possible new job. The Ohio University SAFM network is very strong. It's almost like an informal family. Anytime I've placed a call to any alumni, they have always returned my call, from the time I was a student to the current day.

Building your network is one of the most important things you will ever do. It's not always important who you know, but rather who knows you. That won't get you the job necessarily, but it will often get your foot in the door and allow you to do the rest of the job of selling yourself. And that is all we as professionals can ask for--the opportunity. You never know where your next opportunity will come from, so keep your network and contacts up to date.