Resumes look terrible on a wall.
I am Phil Tran, NSCA Maryland State Director and NHSSCA Maryland Coach of the Year.
I have a speaking engagement at the NSCA Coaches Conference in San Antonio, TX on Friday and I will proceed to Nashville, TN afterward for the American Football Coaches Association Convention.
The start of the new year, a new semester, and a new football offseason is a time of great change for many football coaches.
The biggest continuing education and networking events for strength coaches and football coaches lead off in January and you will assuredly find hundreds of young coaches, coaches in transition, and fired coaches looking for their next job at these conventions.
Many do get hired, but they don’t get hired by posting their resume on the wall. You will find job boards at all of these events where unemployed coaches pin their resumes on the wall and just hope somebody calls them.
This is not the way it works. Put yourselves in the position of a hiring authority. You need to fill a vacancy. Do you call a trusted colleague and ask if he or she is interested or knows somebody who is? That is what I would do.
Actually, let’s just go to the job board and peruse one hundred resumes of strangers and pick one we like. Does that sound silly to you?
If you are one of the lottery winners who actually landed a job by letting your resume be a wallflower at a convention, congratulations for sending every insecure job seeker down that rabbit hole. For the other 99 percent, here is how you find your next job at a convention.
You need to build a network.
First, you need to actually talk to the people sitting next to you in the seminars and sessions. Some may be hiring. Some may know someone who is hiring. Some may have nothing else to offer than wisdom, which I would say is what we all need.
Second, you need to connect with speakers. There is an art to this approach that merits a separate discussion. In brief, if the speaker is conducting a hands-on presentation, participate. If the speaker needs a volunteer, be a guinea pig. In any scenario, introduce yourself to the speaker at the end of the presentation, but don’t hog the speaker’s time. I will talk more about this in a later video as I can offer some strategies coming from the vantage point of a convention speaker myself.
Third, you need to connect with exhibitors. The exhibitors are trying to sell their wares to the coaches. They need to know who to contact in every athletic department so they can do their job and they are often the first people to know of job vacancies.
Perform these three actions instead of being a wallflower and letting your resume be a wallflower on a job board and you will greatly increase your chances of finding a job at your next convention.
Connect with me on all social media @PhilTran22. Subscribe to my YouTube channel at PhilTran22. If you are attending the 2020 NSCA Coaches Conference in San Antonio, TX or the 2020 AFCA Convention in Nashville, TN, I hope to see you there.
