	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

COSIDA CONFERENCE CALL

February 16, 2017

CLARK TEUSCHER: Good afternoon. I'm Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director at North Central College, and I'm the chair of the CoSIDA continuing education committee. I'll be moderating today's webinar as we are joined by members of CoSIDA's Job Seekers Committee. They will be sharing some helpful tips and recommendations to help our members as they consider upcoming career moves.

The webinar is being recorded and will be made available along with a full FastScript from CoSIDA's official transcript provider, ASAP Sports, for on-demand use exclusively at CoSIDA Connect.

Our presenters today include Danny Kambel, Sports Information Director at Pacific University, and vice chair of the Job Seekers Committee; Jen Heisel, Assistant Media Relations Director at San Diego State University; and Lamar Carter, Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations at Long Island University Brooklyn.

Attendees on today's webinar are welcome to submit questions in the chat window during today's presentation. We'll address as many of those questions as time allows. Our first presenter today is Danny Kambel, who is here to share his approach to determining his career path. Danny?

DANNY KAMBEL: Good morning, everybody. I just wanted to kind of talk to you guys about -- my job seeking has taken me through the NCAA Division I, Division II, Division III levels, and obviously what works for me may not work for you, but it comes about what has helped with the job transition, also twice being out of the sports information profession.

Let me dive in a little bit. The main thing I want to share with you is the acronym SET. As explained here on the slide, and my contact information is down there below, so if there's something you'd like to ask me after the chat, feel free to do that, and I also engage in quite a few Twitter chats to expand upon this.

But the acronym SET stands for S, strategic, E, engaged, T, teamwork. You know, obviously each of them have many multiple definitions, both in sports information but also in our job seeking.

Obviously before taking this current job, I've been at Pacific since September, so obviously there's been a lot of job change in my career. You know, coming from another Division III institution but also going from Division II to Division III, going from Division I to Division II, so a lot of different experiences to go for.

I'll briefly go over each of the words, strategic, engaged and teamwork, and definitions related to sports information and then job seeking.

As you can see on the slide, strategic is defined in many different ways. In sports information it's accountability and responsibility, answering the needs of your media, your coaches, your student-athletes, and working with that. But in terms of job seeking, I can hone in on the idea of it being goal setting, both personally and professionally, having short-term and long-term goals. When you make a decision to look at jobs, how does that impact where you want to go in your career? Where do you want to see yourself in five years, 60 days? Things like that are very important in job seeking, both personally -- obviously I've benefitted with working all three levels of the NCAA college athletics, but I think it's important to understand that I think our jobs are transparent across the different levels of athletics, but knowing what my goals were.

Obviously I've now lived in all parts of the country, and part of that is not incidental or accidental. I think it's a part of just knowing what my goals were. I wanted to learn more about this media market here in the Northwest. What can I do to benefit?

But also professionally, where do my goals -- where do I see myself going forward as a strategic communicator? Where do I see myself -- with this job I'm more of the actual director. I get to manage 20 some student assistants. I have a full-time assistant and a part-time assistant. So things like that were very important in my goal setting going forward into job seeking.

Next, into the engaged part, obviously being engaged within the CoSIDA community, obviously there's a lot of different people that I've met across my life. It's interesting that all three of us are here currently on the West Coast, but all three of us have spent time in the East Coast as Lamar makes his transition back to the East Coast. It's interesting that obviously how we've all engaged in different aspects of our job.

Engaged within sports information; how do you engage? I've always had the philosophy that I want to get to know all of my coworkers, if it's the assistant coaches that are eventually going to become head coaches, or our student-athletes are going to mature from freshmen to seniors; how can I engage with them?

But also engaging with a future employer. Here at Pacific for my job interview, I was able to meet my boss two years ago at CoSIDA when he was originally looking for this position and developing that relationship. One of the people on the search committee is our director of media relations who's a former SID, and having that relationship with them.

But then in relationship to job seeking, looking at things from an accomplishment versus responsibilities. What are you doing on your application materials to separate yourself? You know, quantifying, and I think that will be more explained by Jen later on here in the conference call about how to communicate that in a written form and on your rÃ©sumÃ©, but I think as a job seeker, looking at things from accomplishments and being able to quantify that and measurable data to explain to people how you're the right person for your next position, and that leads into my last part of teamwork.

I work with my references, keeping them informed. When I update my rÃ©sumÃ©, I provide them a copy. If I'm looking at job positions, I'm working with my supervisors, my coaches, so everybody knows what is out there to talk about me and potential job seeking. But then how I connect to the job.

As I explained earlier, with this position, there was many different people that were able to connect with me for this job. I had a previous relationship with the past SID here to help me have that foundational knowledge to answer the questions that I had both personally but also professionally about when I made the decision to apply for this position and put my full energy to being committed to wanting to be the next sports information director here at Pacific University.

And I just wanted to kind of -- I can go more in depth a lot more about the different parts of the SET acronym of S, strategic, E, engaged, and then, T, teamwork. I think it's very important, I tell people, get set, get ready. And then with that mindset, it doesn't matter if you're looking for your first position as an intern or assistant director or trying to transition from assistant director to director.

This acronym applies to each and every one of those endeavors. So that's what I wanted to share this morning, and I will turn it back over to our host for the call, Clark.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you, Danny. Before we move on, I want to address one question that's already come in on the chat window. You mentioned you've had several different career moves. In those instances, can you point to any things in particular that were signals to you that it was the right time to move on, and how did you weigh those factors against each other?

DANNY KAMBEL: You know, you asked what the factors were that helped me make the decision, and I think when I made the decision, when I looked at my goals, was the primary transition or the pivot point in my job seeking. Like I said early on, taking this job has allowed me to be more of a director, more of a manager. Knowing where I wanted to go with my career, both personally and professionally, I think that was the thing. But knowing that I could not obtain those with budget constraints, working with my supervisors, willing to shoulder on more load or more responsibility to grow as a person but grow as a professional allowed me to answer that question of when to move forward.

I benefit also from the fact that I'd made the decision for myself. But if I was a married individual, I think it would be a decision that would involve family, and I think those are -- when you look at making a decision to change locations, change positions, you need to get those influencers in your life helping you answer that question, but also, where do you sell yourself? Obviously can you see a future in that position? It answers that question on when to transition into another position.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much, Danny. Jen Heisel joins us to discuss some important tips for updating rÃ©sumÃ©s as well as the value of volunteering and the impact it can have on determining the direction of your career. Jen?

JEN HEISEL: Thank you, guys, so much for having me. I'm super excited. I'm going to talk a little bit about my background first just to kind of familiarize everyone who doesn't know me.

So I grew up in New Jersey, did my undergrad in Buffalo, New York, and then from there, I went on to San Jose State, worked with our great chair, Lawrence Fan. I was a graduate assistant San Jose state for two years.

From there I took a full-time position back on the East Coast at Penn State. I was full-time there for a year, and then realized that I missed the West Coast way too much. It was 15 degrees every day -- it was just -- you know, it was very cold, and going from 70 degrees and sunny every day was pretty hard.

So I actually quit my job at Penn State without a position. I didn't have anything lined up in San Diego, but I have a lot of family here, and I trusted in the process.

So I actually moved to San Diego without a position, lived with some family, and emailed the media relations staff here at San Diego State, who I had known from my time at San Jose State, and told them that I was willing to volunteer. I was willing to work for free, as long as I could stay in the profession because I knew I that I wanted to stay in the profession, but I also knew that I wanted to be in San Diego. I was happy to do whatever.

So fortunately enough, they had a part-time position open up as soon as I got to San Diego, which was June 30, 2015, and I was part-time at San Diego State last year working with women's lacrosse, men's soccer and men's tennis. Fortunately this year they were able to elevate my position to full time. So I am now full time at San Diego State working with women's cross country and track and field, football, and women's basketball.

So my kind of path to get to where I am now is very unique. I had a lot, a lot of internships, and we'll kind of go over my rÃ©sumÃ© just to show you kind of the visual appreciation that it takes to have a nice-looking rÃ©sumÃ©.

But my rÃ©sumÃ© is just all over the place because I -- kind of alluding to what Danny said, I am not married. I was fortunate enough to be able to move to different parts of the country because I have family all over.

So I had five internships. Three of them were for credit. I worked with -- in undergrad I worked with the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL. That one was for credit. I then worked with the New Jersey Devils that summer after my sophomore year that I worked with the Sabres, and that one was actually unpaid, no college credit, nothing. But that internship allowed me to then take another unpaid not-for-college-credit internship with the Niagara Ice Dogs, which is an Ontario Hockey League team, major junior hockey team in St. Catharines, Ontario, and my experience with those professional organizations led me to get my graduate assistantship with San Jose State.

So going off of that, I wanted to touch on the importance of volunteering for extra positions. So I know that it's very hard for some people to do that. You have a full-time job, or you're full-time in school and you have a part-time job and you have work study and you have a million other things to worry about. But I believe very strongly in the importance of volunteering for extra positions.

For instance, when I was full-time at Penn State, I also worked at the Big Ten men's hockey tournament that year, and I had a fabulous experience. As a huge hockey fan, it was more like just hanging out and having fun and watching hockey, but it was also a really great experience for me in terms of connecting with other people. They know that you have a full-time position or that you're full-time in school, but the fact that you took time out of your day or somehow worked it into your schedule to go out and work these extra positions is incredibly beneficial.

People recognize when you go above and beyond, right; they're going to call you out and say, you have a full-time job and you're doing this, or you're full-time in school and you're doing this? Going above and beyond makes you really stand out, and people say that all the time, going above and beyond, that's what you need to do.

But if you can make it work, it's integral that you take on these extra positions, and Lamar is going to touch on this later, but it just increases how many connections you can make.

Volunteering for these extra positions also touches on Danny's point about teamwork because you're working with people that you may not necessarily ever have the opportunity to work with. If you're working at an NCAA women's basketball tournament, you're going to get people from potentially all over the country. If you're able to volunteer at the Super Bowl, you're going to meet people from all over the country, and you have these connections at all these different places. Working in athletics is such a small community, and chances are you're going to know people or you're going to meet someone who knows someone who knows someone else, and if you have that reputation of being someone who's willing to take on that extra position or willing to stay until midnight and crank out game notes or drive people in a golf cart from the press box to their parking lot, that really stands out.

So I would also like to talk about the importance of a visually appealing rÃ©sumÃ©. So as you can see on your screen, I'm going to touch on how to create one. I personally use Canva.com. I think that it is the most user-friendly website for people who aren't comfortable with InDesign or Quark or any other sort of design program. It really -- it's very user friendly. There are a number of templates. A lot of them you can get for free. If you want to go above and beyond and pay a little bit extra, you can also do that, but I think it's the easiest way to create a visually appealing rÃ©sumÃ©.

So we'll go through the Power Point right now. As you can see, I included my head shot. I've had a lot of people ask me if you need to include a head shot or not. Personally, I have a professional one, as I mentioned, so I like to include it. It's also -- I mean, it's just a good kind of color scheme in terms of what I included with the rÃ©sumÃ©, so I thought that it went nicely with that. I don't think that you have to include a head shot, but I do think that it adds a nice touch. It helps you stand out a little bit more, and as someone who's gone through the interview process and hiring process, having a rÃ©sumÃ© that stands out is so important.

I know that in the Cal State system, which is what San Diego State is in, when we get rÃ©sumÃ©s, we get 50, 60, 70 for one position, and we're printing them all out. So to have something that really stands out and isn't just a typical Word document with bullet points in Times New Roman is really important. So if we can go to the next part.

Easy-to-find contact information. I have all of my contact information listed there, my personal email. I have two separate emails. I have my San Diego State email and my personal email. I like to keep all of my potential other opportunities that I'm seeking going to my personal email just so that I have it all in one place.

My education. So I have my bachelor's degree and my master's degree. I don't list anything extra about extracurriculars that I did in college. I graduated from San Jose State in 2014. I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 2012. It's now a little bit removed to be included that I was in marching band in college. As much as I would love people to see that, I don't think it's necessary for a media relations position in athletics.

So I have just my bachelor's degree, just the year that I graduated, the school I went to, and in case people don't know that Buffalo is in New York or San Jose is in California, I have the location listed, as well.

So the next point, I have a detailed list of my computer skills. People are very into the Adobe Suite, the Adobe Creative Suite, and for good reason. I think everybody needs to at least have a basic understanding of the Adobe Creative Suite. So I have listed all of my -- all of the programs with which I'm very comfortable. I don't go into great detail in my experience section as far as what -- I do my game notes in InDesign or I create game programs in Quark. I don't go into that in my experience because I have it listed neatly here for the next slide.

I have my social media presence on here. So I'm very involved in Twitter, participate in a number of Twitter chats. So I have that listed there, and typically, if an employer wants to hire you, they're going to look for your social media presence anyway, so I might as well just give it to them and save them from doing work.

Next one, I have a summary of my expertise and my experience, so I have nearly six years of working -- experience working in media relations. I just have a quick summary of everything that I've done that if someone didn't feel like working at the whole rÃ©sumÃ© they could read this, one short paragraph, and get a basic gist of who I am, what my experience is in, where my education lies, et cetera.

Next one, a quick list of what I'm qualified to do. So press releases, event planning, interviews. This is pulling from my experience section, the keywords from my experience section. Again, if someone doesn't want to read my entire rÃ©sumÃ©, they can get a basic gist of what I'm qualified to do, and I know, again, in the Cal State system, in our hiring process, it is computer generated, so there are three different levels of the -- it's kind of difficult to explain, but when you apply for a job in the Cal State system, it will kind of send you into three different brackets, and it'll tell you which you're the most qualified for, or rather it'll tell the employer which this person is the most qualified for, and it pulls key words from your rÃ©sumÃ© or from your cover letter. For instance, if the job posting says, must be comfortable using Stat Crew, must be comfortable connecting rÃ©sumÃ©s, must be comfortable garnering media presence. It's going to computer generated pull from your rÃ©sumÃ© or pull from your cover letter and then skirt you into these three different levels, and a lot of times the employers will only pull the rÃ©sumÃ©s from that highest level.

So I like to include -- somehow include every keyword from the job description that I can and put that in my rÃ©sumÃ©, so that if it is computer generated and it's not a human who's going through, that then the computer can say, well, this rÃ©sumÃ© has X, Y and Z, and that X, Y and Z is also listed in the job description, so this must be a good rÃ©sumÃ©, and then it'll sort it as the highest priority.

So I have my three most relevant positions on my rÃ©sumÃ©. As I mentioned, I've had a lot of internships, a lot of volunteering positions and whatnot, but I only include my three most relevant because I like to keep my rÃ©sumÃ© at one page. That process of flipping over the page to have someone look at the backside is one step too many, in my experience. Again, as someone who's gone through the hiring process and has also been on the other side of that, you want to keep it succinct. You want to display -- you want to put your best foot forward.

When you're going out on the town or you're going to a job interview, you're going to want to put your best foot forward, and your rÃ©sumÃ© is the first thing that people see about you when you're applying for a job. So I only want the three positions that I think put my best foot forward and that I think are the most relevant to the position that I'm applying for.

If you have more than three positions that you think are worthy of being on your rÃ©sumÃ©, if you can fit them on that one page, go for it. If you only have two, go for it. But I think the most relevant positions need to be on the front of your rÃ©sumÃ©.

And I think that's it.

Great, and also, just to plug, everyone in the Job Seekers Committee has been through the hiring process. We've been through the -- we've been on the other end, so please feel free to send your rÃ©sumÃ© so any of us. We are all willing to help. We've all been on the other side. We're all happy to look over your rÃ©sumÃ©. You can find all of our information on CoSIDA or I'm sure that our contact information will be on there. You guys now all have my contact information, so please feel free to send any of us your rÃ©sumÃ©. We're happy to look it over for you.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Jen, before we move on to Lamar, we do have a question that I think would be appropriate to send your way. For someone who's just starting their career, they've got limited experience; talk a little bit about what would be appropriate to include in terms of internships and what level of detail to go into.

JEN HEISEL: Well, when I was applying for my position at San Jose State, at the time I had had, as I mentioned, three internships. So I put my three internships on there. I think that if you can go into as much detail as possible to prove that you are qualified for this position for which you're applying, then that's what you need to do. If you're applying for a community service position and you have only had internships in media relations, try and tailor your job description -- try and tailor your experience to fit that position.

So for instance, my internship with the Niagara Ice Dogs was a community relations internship that I then morphed into a media relations position, but it was a lot of community relations. So in my job description for that position, I included everything I possibly could about media relations because I was applying for this media relations graduate assistantship, so I talked about anything that I had done with media relations or how my interacting with the southern Ontario community could fit into a media relations position. Dealt one-on-one with season ticket holders; attended golf outings; represented the organization at various and assorted community service events. So somehow find a way to tailor those internships into the position for which you're applying.

If you've only had one internship and you're applying for a second internship, then just try and list as much relevant information as you possibly can for the position for which you're applying.

A lot of people like to just have one rote rÃ©sumÃ©, but I think it's really, really important to constantly be tailoring your rÃ©sumÃ© for the position for which you're applying because no position is equal. If I apply for a position at San Diego State in media relations or I apply for a position at San Diego State in development, they're going to need to be two completely different rÃ©sumÃ©s to prove that I am qualified for those two different positions.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much. Before we move on, I do have a question that I think would be direct to Danny. Danny, you mentioned having been out of the business a time or two; for those job seekers who are in a position like that who are out of the business and looking to get back in, is it appropriate to list those positions on a rÃ©sumÃ© or not?

DANNY KAMBEL: To piggy-back on what Jen was just talking about, I think it's important to correlate the two positions to one another. Before taking my job prior to Pacific, I worked in retail, so learning how those customer service, those teamwork skills, translated into being a successful strategic communicator, learning how to lead people and communicating that in rÃ©sumÃ©s are important.

I think to reiterate, I think there's opportunities, there's -- to volunteer, to share in your expertise, to grow, and obviously you don't want to have a gap in your rÃ©sumÃ©. I think that would cause more red flags rather than not having anything on there and answering those questions for the job holder, but also, like Jen talked about, is utilizing those keywords in the job description and how you're able to gain those skills or grow in those development areas to answer those questions in the job seeking mode.

CLARK TEUSCHER: That's great. Thank you very much. Jen, before we go to Lamar, could you just clarify the platform you used to create that rÃ©sumÃ©?

JEN HEISEL: I used Canva.com, so it's a very user-friendly website, so now we can go through and see how you create a rÃ©sumÃ©. So this is the front page of Canva.com. You're going to type in Canva.com, create a profile, very easy, and you're going to click where it says create a design. This is the create a design website, or front page, excuse me. So you're going to, as it says there, click rÃ©sumÃ©, and from here, on the left side you can scroll through and see the different templates that you can use. So in the bottom right-hand corner of each template, it'll say free or there will be a dollar sign, so the dollar sign means that there's an element for which you have to pay on the template, but you can see that they're not even just scrolling through, you can see that there are a number of free templates that you can use.

So from there you would choose the design that you want and then just go through there and fill out the different elements. You can also change the colors if you'd like. I recently worked with our head team manager for San Diego State women's basketball, and he wanted to make his rÃ©sumÃ© red and black for the colors of San Diego State, so we were able to easily change that. You can tailor it to what you want. You can also add extra elements. You can put in a head shot into this template if you wanted to. Again, it's very, very simple, but if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a direct message on Twitter, shoot me an email. I'm happy to go through it with anyone.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Great. Thank you very much, Jen.

Lamar Carter is here to share his experiences to illustrate the important role that networking and maintaining relationships has played during a job search. Lamar?

LAMAR CARTER: Clark, thank you for introducing me. I want to thank Danny and Jen for giving their experience and for CoSIDA for allowing this platform to go about.

I don't have a slide in my speech, but I wanted to give three examples of how I networked and how I found ways to get into the profession and move along in the profession that kind of speak to what with Danny and Jen have presented before me, and what we are all trying to convey to everyone here.

So I'll give my background, like they did. I graduated from Rutgers University in 2009, spent a year out of athletics working for a nonprofit that my sister, Christine Carter, had started, called the Against All Odds Foundation, was doing media relations and graphic design for her. I knew that I wanted to get back into sports so kind of worked my way into finding a position at ASA Junior College in Brooklyn, New York. I worked as their assistant SID for three seasons. My first season I was also women's basketball coach as an assistant, so I had both roles concurrently, so that was from 2010 to 2013.

Next position was at Howard University from 2013 to the early spring of 2016. I just spent the last calendar year here at the University of California-Berkeley, and I am starting my newest position at LIU Brooklyn next week.

I look at my approach when it comes to finding positions and moving along in my career in three ways, and I'll give examples to kind of illustrate that three-pronged attack, if you will.

Anyone that knows me in the profession knows that I'm excited and passionate about what I do, and I think we all are. Anyone that's on this webinar that wants to get better I would think has a strong level of passion for wanting to advance in the profession and get better. So doing so, networking, applying, putting your best foot forward with passion and genuine interest is important, especially when you may be applying or in the running for a position that you may have a connection in where it's not just, hey, you apply for something and they're going based off of your words on your rÃ©sumÃ©.

So I think back to a class that I had when I was in college. It was a leadership class, and we had a guest speaker come in one day. It was the CEO of a nonprofit based out of New Brunswick, New Jersey, that came to talk to us about her challenges and the things that helped her become an effective leader.

I remember our professors in our class before the speaker came in told us, hey, when you're networking with someone, when you're looking to connect with someone, be able to be passionate about it, and show value, as well. No one wants anyone to just come up and ask for a job and not show why you're worth that person investing in you, so you kind of have to, again, be passionate about it to show your worth quickly, elevate your speech type thing, and not just kind of look for a handout.

So when the guest speaker came, I remember hearing something that she talked about, she said she struggled with technological things, not really being as computer literate as she wanted to. That's a strength of mine. So after the speech, I remember going up to her and saying, hey, if there's anyway that I could help out and lend a hand to you in that computer department that you needed help in, I'd be willing to do it, knowing that, A, I genuinely love computers, so that would be something cool for me to do. It could help someone else out, and put the two together, it could allow for a good connection.

In contrast, I had a classmate go up to that same person and just say, hey, I'm about to graduate, are you hiring anyone. Needless to say, I was able to stay connected with that person and that organization, and a year later out of the blue I ended up getting a paid internship with them before I graduated college.

Reaching out, extending a hand, being passionate about what I can do, the skills that I have, ended up working out, and that all leads to networking that way.

To piggy back off of that, I always think -- kind of what Danny was speaking about, you want to network with goals in mind, when it's short-term or long-term. You never know what you do, whether it's an internship or just volunteering for a tournament or any little thing can open a door that you can use later on down the line.

I'll go back to my college days, and I remember I volunteered to help out with a women's basketball pro-am league, the West Fourth pro-am in New York City, very popular in the league for women's basketball players, and I volunteered there in 2006, back when anyone that knows Rutgers, Cappie Pondexter was out at our school, Estes Carson, some of those other players that were friends of mine, so I said, hey, I wanted to get involved, I wanted to stay connected to the sport in the summer, so I said, hey, what can I do.

Spoke to the coach and started as the team manager, so I'm dealing with graphics, T-shirts, keeping contacts with the players. Any little thing that the team needed, I had it on an Excel sheet, but I did it.

Some of those skills I still kind of use to this day. But again, it was something that I did where it was a way for me to stay involved, to meet a bunch of people, and to get my foot in the door in an environment that I didn't have a foot in before.

Fast forward to four years later in 2010, when I'm looking to get my first job and either get into coaching at the time or into media relations, I go back to the pro-am one summer just to kind of visit and see old acquaintances, watch games and see what's happening. I made the connection when I went on that visit in 2010 with someone that played in the league but also was the head coach at ASA. I said, hey, I used to be a manager here. This is what I'm doing. So the work that I did four years prior allowed me to have a segue of a conversation to this person that I met in 2010. Come to find out, they needed an assistant there. The head SID needed an assistant, and it all worked out.

So again, networking, doing any little job that you can, it can help out in the long run. Never be afraid to take an opportunity that can lead to something down the line.

And lastly, once you kind of get your foot in the door and you're volunteering at certain places or you're getting to work certain things, actively continue to market yourself to people. I think back to the three years that I spent at ASA, I did as good a job as I could with my boss and my AD and the teams that we had, and we built something great on the junior college level. But I had a great boss at the time that said, hey, I know you need to develop your game even more, so if you see something, you have my blessing to start looking.

Anyone that knows me and Chevonne Mansfield, one of our great board members at CoSIDA, she was one of the people that I connected with when I started reaching out on social media to make connections to get to Division I. I wrote on athletic communications help, some of the other SID groups, and said, hey, I'm trying to make my way to Division I. I'm here in junior college. Is there anyone that can kind of point me in the right direction.

She was able to see that I was serious about what I wanted to do, where I was going with my career, and she started to help me from there, along with other people that I got a connection to.

A few months later after putting myself out there and continuing to market myself, the position at Howard opened up. She put my name in the great Ed Hill's ear, and congratulations to him, sidebar, for retiring this year, but she was able to put my name out in their hiring process. I got interviewed. I was able to take all those skills that I had built up, put my rÃ©sumÃ© out as clear as I could, was strategic, did everything that we talked about today, and that allowed me to get my first Division I position from there, and once I got there, I ran the opportunity, it led me to Cal, and now it's leading me back home to LIU.

I've been blessed to have all these experiences that have allowed me to progress in this career, and like Danny said, everyone's experiences, the things that we've talked about may not be for everyone, but I feel as though anyone that's listening today can take a little bit of all of our experiences, tailor it to what you want to do and where you are, and you'll be able to make the most of it.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Great, thank you very much, Lamar. We've had another question come in about rÃ©sumÃ©s, so Jen, we'll start this with you, and then once you've answered if Danny or Lamar want to jump in, they're certainly welcome. You mentioned including relevant positions in your rÃ©sumÃ©. If including those results in gaps in the rÃ©sumÃ©, how do you go about addressing that?

JEN HEISEL: I think it depends on the length of the gap. So for me, if -- I don't know if you can pull up my rÃ©sumÃ© again, but that's fine. I have a gap from June 2015 when I left Penn State to August 2015 when I started at San Diego State. It's not a huge gap, but it's a gap nonetheless, and I think if it's a small gap like that, it's easy enough for an employer to say, okay, well, maybe they were going through a move or maybe there was some reason involved as to why they took a month off.

I think if it's longer than that, if it's maybe a year or so, I think it's important to kind of look at why there's a gap. If you were a working mother or you were a woman who had a child in that year, that's an easy thing to explain to an employer. If it was something longer or you got out of the profession, you were doing PR for a private company, something like that, I think it's relevant to include those positions.

Danny is the one to talk to about include positions on a rÃ©sumÃ© once you've gotten out of the profession, but I do think that, again, it's important to -- if it's relevant to the position for which you're applying, then that really helps. But if it's something that you can easily explain to an employer as to why you took that time off, I think that you can leave that off there.

Danny, if you can touch on that a little bit more about the importance of including a position that may not be athletics on your rÃ©sumÃ©.

DANNY KAMBEL: Yeah, to piggy-back on what Jen was just talking about, what I had done in my two gaps in my rÃ©sumÃ© between jobs is I invested into professional development. Took time to work with or volunteer with a local athletic department but also to gain additional knowledge, learning how to do certain types of certain skill sets. When I had a gap in my rÃ©sumÃ©, I didn't know how to do certain things with certain applications, so I learned how to utilize better web management. I think doing those kind of endeavors, there's a lot of professional development you can pursue on a freak level. Like Jen talked about in Canada, you can learn how to utilize, for example -- of course there are different skills and different tips and different tactics and then be able to utilize that information and share that information on your rÃ©sumÃ© in other areas, and that can limit that and initiate that conversation about that gap in your rÃ©sumÃ©.

So what are you doing during that time? So when that question is asked, but then you can also address that in your application letter or cover letter but making sure that's also being communicated to your references and the people that are going to try to advocate for you, as Lamar talked about, for your next endeavor.

CLARK TEUSCHER: To wrap up today, Danny, if you could, just provide us with a brief rundown of the services that the Job Seekers Committee offers to CoSIDA's members.

DANNY KAMBEL: Jen talked about our long-standing offer to help in the job-seeking process. We may not have job opportunities per se at our institutions, but we are people that can answer those kind of questions. How can we help you if it's preparing for an interview, preparing your application materials? The Job Seekers Committee is full of a lot of individuals with a lot of diversion and interesting experiences that can bring that to the table. You're more than welcome -- we'll be glad to share with you through CoSIDA Connect or through email, a way to interact with people on our committee for rÃ©sumÃ© reviews or cover letter reviews. Mock -- I do a lot of like mock interviews with people. Prior to taking one of my past jobs, I studied human resources, so I learned a little bit more about once you get your rÃ©sumÃ© sent in, what's your strategy look like and how does that differ, and I think there's a lot of people -- our committee is full of Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA SIDs, so we all have different lenses that we can provide expertise, and I think that's something of our committee that makes us unique and very specialized but provides a great service to our fellow members, and we're all here to help.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much. We continue to appreciate Capital One's sponsorship of this year's continuing education series, and we invite all CoSIDA members to visit the career center at CoSIDA.com to view current job listings and rÃ©sumÃ©s of job seekers.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297