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COSIDA CONFERENCE CALLMarch 31, 2016Bill DyerLisa StromeierMarlene NavorDanny KambelCLARK TEUSCHER: My name is Clark Teuscher. I'm the sports information director at North Central College and a co-chair for the CoSIDA Continuing Education Committee. I'll be moderating today's call as we welcome members of CoSIDA's Job Seekers Committee for a discussion about job searching and career advancement. Our first presenter today will be Bill Dyer, who is here to discuss the focus and function of CoSIDA's Job Seekers Committee. BILL DYER: Clark, thank you very much. Welcome, everybody. We are really glad that you took time to join us today. I think this is a very important call. As Clark mentioned, I'm a member of the board of directors and also the liaison with Job Seekers and I've been a member of Job Seekers for all of its 20-some years of existence. Lawrence Fan, our chair does a fantastic job with this committee. We want to make sure that people realize that this committee is not just a five-days-at-the-convention-type committee. We are year round and try to help everybody as best we can year-round. I'm going to make my presentation very short and sweet today so that we have more time for questions because I think they are very important. We want to make sure people understand we are not just serving the younger members of CoSIDA. Another focus of our committee that we are starting to pick up more on is people that have left the profession and want to get back in. They are important to us, as well and we are looking for ways to better serve that constituency. One of my functions with Job Seekers is at the convention where we have our program on the Sunday, the first day of the convention. I do an orientation for our job seekers and our job holders. We've sort of, as technology has changed, our committee has changed through the years. We tried to become more interactive with our membership, and these face-to-face meetings between job holders and job seekers, we feel has become a very important part of what we do. We bring everybody together in a big room. We talk to them. We let the job holders give short presentations about why you would want to apply for their positions. They do a great job with that, and we've gotten such positive feedback since we've been doing this. As I say, I do the orientation of that. It's a lot of fun, and we feel like we help people with that. One of the things that our committee has seen over the last several years is an upswing on the number of jobs available, especially those available during our convention time. It used to be back when I was younger, basically to get a job in CoSIDA, especially one of the entry-level positions, you went to the convention, you sat in a big room, you hoped somebody would call you in for an interview. We've tried to streamline and change that a little bit. It's a little more interactive than that, but we have here over the last four or five years, seen a significant increase on the number of jobs available. So I want to put in a plug for our convention, if at all possible, that's it's a great place to go, not just for Job Seekers, but for everybody in our organization. There's so many things out there, so many benefits, so many ways to help you professionally at that convention. Also want to put in a plug for CoSIDA.com and our career center there. There are job listings, job announcements, people moving in the profession. Also, there's a list of resumés there that's invaluable. Laurie does a great job of making sure that those are updated. I know these she's actually done a couple updates today on that board, and they are valuable for both job seekers to look at and see what other people, how they do their resumé, good things and important things to make sure your resumé is in good shape; and also for job holders, looking for that special person they are trying to fill a position with. At CoSIDA, like I say, we do an orientation on Sunday but we are there the entire time. We like to work with people, and we are getting into more professional development now than just actually trying to get jobs for people. That's sort of an overview of what we do. I'm going to pass it over to Clark, and please take advantage of the CoverItLive Blog on the Web site. If you have pertinent questions, please ask them and we're going to try to get to as many of them as we can. CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much. Danny Kambel has spent time in each of NCAA's three divisions and we will speak about his career path, as well as the similarities and differences that come with working in college eight athletics. DANNY KAMBEL: I've been fortunate to spend five years on the Division I level, five more years on the Division II level and wrapping up my fifth year here on the Division III level on the NCAA level. You'll see on the attached slides and things like that, I see a lot of professions transcend regardless of our division. Prior to our gathering today, I was serving as the SAC advisor/technology coordinator for our athletic department. So I've had to fulfill many roles within our department. So I feel our profession transcends, regardless of our level. At the Division I level, you're working more in media relations, working hand-in-hand with your relationship with the media. And as you go to smaller schools, cultivating that relationship with your media is very important, and that's regardless of Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA, whatever. Cultivating a relationship with your coaches, your student athletes, media, transcends your level or division of college athletics. I have included on the shared PowerPoint a personal acronym that I keep as a sports information director and that acronym is SET. We talk with our coaches, student athletes, talk about ready, being organized, or being prepared or as I use in the acronym, SET. The acronym SET, those three letters are broken down: The "S" in SET stands for strategic. What are your short-term and long-term goals; as you're looking at job advancement, what are your opportunities, what are your short-term goals? Is it to advance from being the baseball contact to the basketball contact? What are your goals in terms of your family? How does that affect your goals. Then obviously when you set goals, are you setting the goals or a 30-day, one-month, six-month, five-year, three-year plan, and having short-term but also long-term goals. That's one thing of being on the Division I or Division II or Division III level, having that strategic mind-set, working with my coaches to understand, I'm one person for 13 sports at a smaller school. Having that vision, having that ability to communicate that out, being strategic and setting goals, when on the Division III level, there's different rules and regulations with incoming student athletes, understanding that you're one person for all these sports. How do you schedule that? How do you staff that? So being strategic, the "S." "E," carrying that forward, being engaged. One of the things is reaching out to others within your conference. Yesterday I spent my day at the Sports Video Summit at Texas Christian University. We were a very small minority of Division III but there was also the Division I landscape. Expand your horizon, broaden your horizons, reach out to your colleagues regardless of level or division. Sharpening your skills. There's a lot of great resources that Bill talked about on the CoSIDA web site. A lot more social media or Twitter. There's a lot of Twitter chats and I'm involved with many different ones and would be glad to share more of those with you throughout the day. There's the small college athletic administrators that I participate; there's young professionals sports chat. There's now a sports media chat, a lot of different avenues and I started to branch out a little bit and learn more about the human resource aspect of sports college athletics and learning just the HR standpoint. Before taking my current job at LeTourneau University, I was a human resources major and social media design major. So learning how to mesh those skills, taking classes. We all work in an environment of higher education. Partnering with your university and media relations or university communications; educate the people on your campus. You have a skill set that is special and unique. And then the last thing that ties into the "T": Teamwork, find accountability. I'm fortunate throughout my career, I have people that I have worked just one game with, but I feel like there was something that was strong about that individual that makes myself better as a sports information director. Finding that mentorship. Utilizing that communication with the references, not only communicating with your references when you're searching for a job but just to keep them informed of your day-to-day transgressions, your activity in life. Obviously teamwork, who else is involved in your decision-making. As you look to take advancement opportunities or look into opportunities, engage with your family. Work with those people that are your mentors or your role models or people that have made that transcendence. I have spent nine months out of work before taking my job and came back into the profession, and there was people advocating that were trying to help me get back into this profession. Learning who I could work with and utilizing the skill set that I developed as a sports information director allowed me to return to the profession. Then like I talked about, the differences between our levels of intercollegiate athletics, at a Division III school, I have to wear the hat as the marketing director, the sports information director, the technology person, the SAC advisor, a lot of roles and responsibilities. I have to be proactive in my relationship with the media rather than reactive. I have to be confident in my ability to sell my source. The media is not going to come to me. I need to go to them. Like last week at one of our baseball games, the media was there. Well, I spent two innings, rather than give Twitter updates, I spent that time visiting with media about story ideas and giving them loads of ideas about how to cover our athletic program. Even though my baseball team was on the field, there was stories beyond that. And that's about how when you're at a smaller school or smaller division; you have that responsibility to take advantage of those situations. Your skill set transcends being a Division I, Division II, Division III. Having that time management but being SET, S, strategic; E, engaged; and T, teamwork. That's kind of what I wanted to talk about here on my section of today's call and I'll be glad to answer questions if people have them. CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much, Danny. Marlene joins us to discuss the importance of positioning yourself for career opportunities and the impact it has had on her career. MARLENE NAVOR: I've been a student member of CoSIDA, I started in 1997 and then became an active, full-time member in 2001. So I can't emphasize as much as when you're starting off earlier on in your career, as Bill has said, to go to the convention, network and meeting people there. Because if that didn't happen back in 2000 when I graduated from college, my career wouldn't have been the same that it has grown to now. If you're going to convention, you definitely need to check in with the Job Seekers committee folks and Lawrence Fan has been a mentor of mine for the last 16 years. I think that's really important for younger people that are pursuing our profession to find a mentor, or someone that you can, I guess learn more about our profession. I do it a lot now. I love giving back, and Job Seekers, I'm a member still since my first time at convention, and I think it's really important to give back and kind of give back on what Lawrence had guided me into my career. Job Seekers really has changed since my first convention back in 2001, back then, like Bill said, you kind of went to convention to find a job, an entry-level job in the profession, and I interviews there with a couple of schools, and landed my first-time job in Vegas, was my first school that I started off with. I really feel like for younger people, they are pursuing the profession; that if they can attend a convention or a couple of conventions in their time, it really will help in their career moving forward. And it starts with getting to know the people in our profession and that's really key of a lot of things is networking, attend conventions and seminars, continue your professional development, volunteer at post-season events like the NCAA Tournament, is where I met a lot of folks in the business, taking time off as an intern or as a student. Volunteering at those events to help me after I graduated, to be able to find an entry-level job in our profession and for further -- people that I met there, I'm still in contact with them now. Committees forums are important to be a part of. Get your name out there and meet new people. Even when you're out of school right now, when you meet other SIDs in your non-conference events, speak with them and network with them. The more people you can know only expand what you can do in your future of your career. Stay in contact with people you have met through networking. Continue to build those relationships with those people. Stay in the know of what positions are out there or may be opening up. Especially to get out there, I think when you're looking for new opportunities and jobs and for myself in the past, when I was looking at new opportunities in the profession, I didn't limit myself to one school, one city or one region in the country, because the likelihood of me landing at my dream school, didn't happen often. You have to like build your experience and establish yourself first in the profession before you can get to that dream school down in the future. Another tip I would say, too, is don't be afraid to apply to a school that you never thought you would possibly get a job at or never thought you could move to or live in that certain area. Because most of the times in my career, it's took an interview out to a school to know that it was the right situation for me after meeting with our coaches, student athletes, colleagues and administrators. You just know from there it's going to be the right fit. For example, for me, my first job out of college, full-time job, was University of Nevada Las Vegas. I never thought I would move anywhere from the West Coast and I had a job opportunity to interview at Kansas State University in the middle of Kansas, and I never thought that was going to be a possibility for me in my career. That turned out to be a great move. I meet the SID there; I'll do networking opportunities through my conference, through the Mountain West Conference, and went out for an interview. I stayed there for three years, which led me to my other future jobs for the two stops after that. So I think that when people are looking at different job opportunities, don't settle on just like one area you think you're going to live in your whole life. I think for me, it's been the best thing for me that I didn't go into it with that mind-set; that it helped me in my career advancement that I was open to possibilities of things that I never thought that would happen, and especially for my current situation, too, I didn't think I was going to be a head SID in an office. The opportunity presented itself, and you know, you just never know in life where you're going to go and I think for the best advice for younger people or for people that are getting back in the business, don't sell yourself short and you never know what's going to happen. And you have those relationships with people that are so important; keeping in contact with different folks that you can of being aware of -- if there are things that you want to improve or learn more about, you have that network of people that I definitely think has helped me in my career. And as far as tools and the process that helped me, I'm always making sure to update my resumé. I make sure if I am looking for a new opportunity, I make sure that my objective is specific in the position I'm looking for and what best fits my skill set. I make sure my resumé assesses my skills and experiences and highlights them and are highlighted on my resumé. I make sure to keep in the know with word-of-mouth postings and online postings through CoSIDA and NCAA.org. For most of career development and my searches in my career, you're not always going to land the job that you want. You have to prepare yourself when you're looking for new positions that it could be a success and it could be a failure, but you can't be discouraged that you're not going to get that position that's meant for you; and to always keep a positive attitude in the job search, and just never give up because you just never know what opportunities there may be out there. For me, for my first job, I thought I was going to be at a big school after my internship, and my bosses there were very encouraging after I did not get a job at the school that I had hoped for. I didn't give up. I think that's the biggest thing is it's not what you thought you wanted -- like a job out of college or out of your entry-level job, it can happen down the road. It just takes little steps I think to make sure you build your career and build your -- establish yourself in the business, and you'll eventually get there. It just takes a lot of time. Not everybody is lucky. I probably have known a couple people there probably at the school that they wanted to be for their whole life, but a lot of us, too, it's still a work-in-progress and really just don't give up on those dreams. CLARK TEUSCHER: We have had a question come through on the CoverItLive Blog for Danny. Feeding off your example, moving from being a basketball contact to a baseball contact, how are you able to properly allocate your time between teams without favoring a certain team, regardless of what your career advancement goals might be? DANNY KAMBEL: What I have done, I have a handbook that I have produced and modified throughout my career. I try to provide a calendar for a schedule or a skeleton with my coaches to communicate how -- I have always told and been very up front to my coaches, the in-season sport is a priority, and then the out-of-season is secondary. But being mindful of the message that we are trying to obtain through that; if it's from a marketing standpoint, is it towards an event, is it towards a potential student athlete. So identifying, prioritizing that way. CLARK TEUSCHER: We've also had another question come through. It's really being opened up to any of the speakers. Marlene, I'll direct this in your direction here. Would you want to touch on how important it is for SIDs who have the opportunity, you talked about volunteering at NCAA Tournament events, for SIDs who have the opportunities to undergraduate or graduate student help in those type of events, and how important that can be for getting that next generation of SIDs involved in the business. MARLENE NAVOR: I think it definitely starts in undergrad. I was a four-year student assistant at my office in Washington State University, and I really think if my bosses there hadn't -- they kind of recruited a lot of us in the undergraduate, to come work for them. And those opportunities are very vital I think. If you can start early, when you're in school or when you're right out of school, it's really the best time to get that experience for anybody who wants to pursue our profession; that volunteering at those events, if you have the opportunity to go do those things, it definitely helps. I took a two-week spring break actually in college to work NCAA Tournaments. I really, truly believe it benefitted me down the road of going out to Michigan to help out at a regional and met some of the folks out there in the conference office, some people that I never would have met in Washington; that if you have those opportunities, definitely contact the schools that are hosting the different events. And not just basketball, other Division I, Division II, Division III events that are around, or close to you, where you can actually volunteer and see kind of behind the scenes of what we actually do. And then also, those are always great opportunities to meet the media there and getting to know their side of the business. CLARK TEUSCHER: Another question, great to see all these questions, for Danny and Marlene. How do you view potential job seekers reaching out personally through e-mail for possible job openings, even if they are told to directly just post to an employment link? DANNY KAMBEL: My personal response to that is that's where you use your benefit of having a network of contacts. If there's someone that can help you understand what is open and what they are looking for in that position; do you have a connection; does your baseball coach play with their baseball coach, and how can you connect through that position without violating the human resources job description. I think that's one great benefit of our sports information profession is that we are a very tight-knit community, and I think the more you can build relationships within the SID family, as I call it, I think that's how you can handle the obligations and responsibilities as set by the job description. MARLENE NAVOR: As an employer now, I actually appreciate those that actually e-mail their resumés and their interest in the position if I have one open over what would normally come through our HR process. As well, I just feel like there's more of an intent to want to work there. It shows me that somebody really wants to be here at my school and it also helps, too, if you have somebody that you may know that, worked with the person that you're sending your resumé to, that always helps. I probably more than likely have hired people because they have contacted me directly or their boss or another colleague contacted me first through e-mail before I received all the applications from HR. CLARK TEUSCHER: We've had another question. Marlene, you touched on this briefly so I'll direct this to you. During the interview process, how do you make sure you stand out, because it seems we are in a position where a lot of people have similar skills and resumés, so how do you make sure that you stand out? MARLENE NAVOR: As far as on resumé, I think keeping a clean resumé with bullet points of your real, your big skills that you have that are specific and not generalized. As far as now the profession has changed; that we are doing more social media and video. So when you have those kind of talents and skills, you really need to highlight those on your resumé. For the most part, I think people know that we should know how to use Word and design photo shop and whatnot, but if there's specific skills that you have that are different from others, then I would definitely highlight that on your resumé. I prefer to on resumés to keep it clean. If you can keep it to one or two pages, that's like the best thing instead of a multiple-page resumé, and as well as I really would like people to include their references on there. Sometimes people do not list their references and I usually look over -- I actually throw those away probably. If no one lists their resumé, I do not move forward with their resumé. CLARK TEUSCHER: Looking at the flipside of that, we've had another question come in. If you have a skill that maybe you don't have as well developed or haven't had a chance to learn as much, how do you address what might be called a shortcoming like that in that process? MARLENE NAVOR: I think there's two things that I want to see on a resumé as an employer. I want to make sure somebody knows how to write and want to know somebody that can communicate well and work well with people. So for the most part, for entry-level, I can understand if somebody is at entry level and doesn't have those skill sets, but as long as they have those basic two things where you really can't teach those things. The other things as far as sports knowledge, things like that, can be caught. I think really emphasizing and sending clippings of your writing, along with your resumé will definitely help to overcome some of the things that you may not have that the position is requiring. CLARK TEUSCHER: We've had another question come in, which really is open to the whole group. This is a question about head SIDs outside of the Division I level who are interested in breaking into a Division I program, even though most times that level, experience is requiring for that position. What suggestions do you have for Division II, Division III or head n IA SIDs who are interested in moving up to the Division I level? BILL DYER: I think you have to apply. You have to put yourself out there. You have to go. If you want to make that move, if you see a position out there that you're really interested in, you've got to make the move. You've got to let people know you're available. I'm a big proponent, always have been, and this is something I've learned form my mentors years ago; good SIDs are good SIDs. It does not matter D-I, D-II, D-III, junior college, NAIA, whatever. That doesn't matter. If you're good at what you do, it carries over from division to division. Not so much from the aspect of a head SID, but when we're hiring our interns, we don't necessarily -- we're, quote, a power five school. We don't necessarily look just towards power five students. We actually look towards some of the smaller divisions because these people have more actual work experience than a lot of students do at the large Division I level. I'm, like I say, very much a proponent of good SIDs are good SIDs. CLARK TEUSCHER: When it comes to interviews, what are questions that you want to hear from somebody that is applying for a job? BILL DYER: It's interesting, that question right there, we had, and I'm trying to bring it up here, it's one of the handouts on this. I do a present -- part of a primer (ph) of our CoSIDA Job Seekers every year, and the handout that I have distributed here, directly answers a lot of those questions. The first thing I have to say along those lines is: Do not have no questions to ask. We want to know that you're paying attention; that you are interested in this position and that you have done your homework. And by doing your homework, that's so important in any job-seeking, whether you're 21 years old or 51 years old. You have to do your homework as you go into an interview process. But we are looking for you to ask the questions that we through the interview process we have not answered for you. We want you to ask about salary, about benefits, about living in the area, the town that you live in, housing opportunities. We don't want you to say, hey, can you get my wife a job. But we want you to ask questions of, hey, my wife is a graphic designer, are there opportunities in the area, things like that. We want tough questions, because that means we know that you're interested in the position. CLARK TEUSCHER: Right now we are going to move on with our final presenter: Determining which career move is the right one for you and preparing for the interview process can come with more than its fair share of stress and anxiety. Lisa Stromeier is here once again to provide some helpful tips for presenting yourself positively in the search and interview process. LISA STROMEIER: Thanks. Boy, it has been great listening to the first three presenters. The members of CoSIDA, in whatever stage of their career they are at, there's so many good resources that they can be using. I really liked what I heard. I really want to focus right now on, you've got the skills, but the confidence is lacking. And the first thing that I would mention is to be prepared, a lot of when we're feeling nervous and not feeling confident is because we have not taken the time to be prepared and these days, it's so much easier to be prepared. Just by doing an Internet search, look up the school that you're interviewing for; look up who you'll actually be interviewing with. And if you can even talk with someone at the school to get even detailed information, I think that's really important. I think that Marlene was talking about this: Focus on what you do have, not on what you don't have. Even if you're newer to the field and don't have some of the fine tune skills, there are some basics that she was sharing that you need to have. So focus on what you do have, not on what you don't. Focus on specific work experience, and maybe some specialized training within the division that you currently are working on, whether it's as a student intern or if you are an SID. I'd also say, don't compare yourself to others, because when feeling nervous, you'll very likely fall short. And when you're comparing, you'll fall short; not because you're not qualified, but because we only see what others let us see, and especially professionally, most people try to highlight their accomplishments when talking with others. I mean, this happens not in the professional world, as well, but especially in the professional world. I call it putting on your Sunday best. And by that, I mean, you might have a coffee stain or a rip, but your shirt or jacket is covering it up. Only you know that that stain or rip is there, but when you're meeting other people, you see maybe an immaculately dressed person; you don't know what stain or rip they have under their jacket. So don't compare yourself. You know what your faults are. You know what your insecurities are, but it's very, very likely that no one else knows that. I don't know whether you're familiar with Dr. Amy Cuddy, she's a social psychologist and researcher at Harvard Business School, and she studies how nonverbal behavior influences other and even your own brain. She has a wonderful TED talk. It's a TED talk on power posing. She's had over 32 million views and if you haven't seen it, I really recommend that you Google it and watch it. Power posing, basically what it is, it's standing like Superman or Wonder Woman. If you can imagine how they stood, legs slightly apart, hands on their hips, chest and shoulders up and back, and head lifted high. What she found is that if people stood this way, that they felt confident, even if they weren't feeling confident, but by doing that, the testosterone in their body changed, the cortisol in their body changed. So we know that that is helpful. I use it before I get on stage if I'm speaking or if I'm going into a difficult meeting. I will say this, though: I think you know it, but do it before you step in the interview, not in front of the interviewer. So in the bathroom, before you walk into the building, whatever. Do it for at least one minute and it does make a difference. I'm looking at the time and I wanted to talk a little bit about the imposter syndrome, because I know that's a big deal. But I know there's a few more questions left, so I'm just going to say this about imposter syndrome. It's also called fraud syndrome. It's a term that was first coined by psychologist Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, but it refers to high-achieving people who seem to have the inability to internalize their accomplishments, and they have a persistent fear of being found out to be lacking. So it's very, very, very common, a lot of the most qualified professionals in many different fields, we're finding have this. If that sounds familiar to you, Google imposter syndrome and you'll find lots of information. I have a few things, steps that you can do, but I'm not going to take the time to talk about that now because I know that there's a few questions. Last thing I'm going to end on is, in the event you don't get the job that you were interviewing for, don't assume it's because you weren't qualified. Take the time to follow up and ask for feedback if possible. This will help you in the next interview, but it might be that they already have someone picked out for the job and had to go through the interview process, so it might have absolutely nothing to do with you. And also, think about it; was it a good match? Maybe it wasn't a good match. Maybe you dodged a bullet in disguise. Finally I would say with regards to that, use when you learn to be even more prepared and confident in your next interview. I really wish all of you in whatever capacity you're job searching for to put on your smile, make direct eye contact and know that you're highly qualified. Best wishes. CLARK TEUSCHER: How often do you contact people who are not listed on someone's initial reference list that is sent along with the resumé because you may have knowledge or know a person who is not listed? MARLENE NAVOR: I do it often. I do contact people that are not on people's resumés. For the most part, if you're putting people on your resumé, they are most likely going to say good things about you, so I always like to find other people that I know that may know you to contact and see if there's anything else that I should know about the candidate. So I definitely think it's putting people on your resumé, it's better than not putting any references on your resumé. CLARK TEUSCHER: Okay. Great. And for Danny, you touched on references earlier. Could you talk a little bit about the best way of getting someone, building a relationship and then getting someone who might be able to become a reference for you, even if the two of you had never worked directly together. DANNY KAMBEL: The main thing I would say about a reference is they are your cheerleaders, your support team, people that will best know your skill set and how you can fill that job responsibility. Part of that is two-way communication with a reference. As you apply for a position, you want to make sure that that reference first and foremost knows that you're looking at this position. You do not want to blind side or surprise; or making sure your reference has that current copy of your resumé, because you wouldn't want a potential employer to ask a question about your resumé and not be aware of what you've said already. And then to answer the question about not knowing that person, I think that's where you start to build a relationship or build that professional friendship with that person. Set up a time for you and that individual to meet on a weekly basis. Even if you're separated by miles or time zones, have a time where you can talk each week about your job search strategy with the emergence of online job advertising and things like that. As positions open, have that weekly conversation where you can talk about some of the tips Lisa talked about that's just general job-seeking tips. Have that person work with you to establish that relationship where they can be that cheerleader, that advocate for you to answer that job specification. But the main thing is you want to keep an eye on communication. That's one of the benefits of social media is that's where you can transcend that conversation. You can e-mail that person those game notes that you did for the basketball game and see what you're working on maybe, our profession when we do a lot of the same stuff, that person can help make you a better, more well-rounded sports information director and help you obtain that position. Even though you have not worked directly for that person, those are some suggestions I would give, if you want to use that person as a reference. CLARK TEUSCHER: This next question, might be best to start with Lisa on this. Do you have any advice for how to pursue new opportunities while actively employed? SIDs encounter situations where they don't want to be perceived as disloyal but need support from their supervisors, superiors, to serve as references. What steps can you take in advance so that something like that goes smoothly, whether the application is successful or not. LISA STROMEIER: Yeah, that's always difficult, whatever the field is, that people are working in, because you don't want to rock the boat when you're still on the boat. You also don't want to appear to be ungrateful or disrespectful. I always say, use discretion. Get as much groundwork laid before you go to your supervisor. And it's not personal; it is normal for people after they have spend some time in a job to either want to try a different area of the field, whether it's focus on a different sport and maybe your school doesn't have that sport; or maybe you want to move to a different division or maybe your family is wanting to move to a different location. So talk open and honestly, but have as much in order before you have that conversation. The worst thing I think you can do is to blind-side your current employer. That wouldn't be appreciated and that's not the note you want to leave on. BILL DYER: I think this is a very common issue. You know, we're communicators, and communication is the best part of this, the best thing to do with this. I think as Lisa was saying, doing your homework, make sure it is something you're very interested in before you go to your supervisor. I've been very lucky through the years of having supervisors that understood that sometimes change is good. Sometimes positions are better suited for you. But please keep the lines of communication open with your superiors. That way -- on all aspects. That way they know that you're a professional and that you have thought into this and that this is not you just saying, oh, I'm going to apply for everything out there; that this is something you are really interested in. MARLENE NAVOR: I think that goes to career enhancement and development. If you're open with your employer, they should know -- if it's a lateral move, I can understand as an employer, how it would be difficult to approach someone to say that you are looking at another lateral move. But if it's something that's advancing your career, I would definitely keep those lines of communication open with your supervisor and letting them know of why this position maybe you're interested in. Definitely don't blind side someone in the process. Definitely if you're listing people as references like Bill said, make sure to contact them and let them know. Because they are your biggest cheerleaders, if they don't know you're applying for a job, they can't say those good things about you. If they get blind-sided by a call and are not prepared, they may not give you the best reference that you thought they would have if you had just informed them. I think definitely don't be afraid to look at different opportunities every year. Our position, I would hope for most people in our profession and our athletic directors and whatnot that they know that athletics, everybody is trying to move up. And if it's a position that's going to make you better and help you in your career, I would think they would be very supportive. CLARK TEUSCHER: Looking at an applicant's resumé, is there an amount of time that you're looking at, a minimum amount of time for someone to have spent at a previous position to see that they are not somebody that's just kind of hopping around from job to job, or how do you look at reconciling gaps in an applicant's resumé? MARLENE NAVOR: Well, it depends on I guess for positions as far as in my office, if we have an entry-level position, I would hope that someone would have at least one to three years of experience, as far as undergrad, graduate position, or even I look at some people that have backgrounds in the newspaper business or in media, I think translate well into our business, because they already have the writing and communication skills. So definitely for entry-level positions, I'm looking for that -- and this is not full-time experience, but at least one to three years as far as having some kind of interaction as far as seeing newspaper, sports media, some kind of background there for an entry-level position. I guess for an associate director job or director job, definitely have a lot more experience, five to ten years of experience, and then obviously having some supervisory experience within their office. As far as gaps, it depends what's in that gap, though, what were you doing in that gap. Were you working on ESPN or something related; if it's something related within our profession, I think it would translate over to getting back into our business. I have a lot of people that apply that are in the corporate world or they think sports is like the best thing and want to move over from something that's totally different, and that would be more for an entry-level position and not for an associate director or director position that I would consider. CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much. We'd like to thank all of our presenters today for offering their time and expertise to help our membership. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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