Experience Matters in the Sports Industry – Work In Sports Podcast - a podcast by Brian Clapp - Work in Sports

Fact: Those who don't get real experience while in college, feel ill-prepared to enter the workforce. Let's examine.  I’m feeling pretty fired up this morning –ready to dive into today’s show… but before we do… Hey everybody, I’m Brian Clapp, VP of Content and Engaged Learning for WorkInSports.com and this is the Work In Sports podcast…We’re going to veer of course a bit today, but I think you’ll like it. No fan question, rather, I’m going to share some recent data and give a bit of analysis on it, from my own perspective.Now, a major part of this discussion is to validate your moves. Those of you listening to this podcast regularly know my theories on employment, standing out from the crowd and getting yourself IN the consideration set for jobs.To define that, when I say consideration set, that means in the top 5-10% of applicants for any job. Why is this number important? Because, and this is rough data of course s changes from job to job, but the top 10ish % are the ones who get the initial phone screening.So if I post a job for a marketing coordinator, and we get 200 applicants, my first step as the hiring manager is to whittle that list down to those worthy of a callback. So in this instance, I’d be looking at 20-30 people who would get a phone interview.This is the consideration set. You are in consideration for the role.Now, how do you get in this set? Well you’ll have to listen to all of my podcasts and take our online courses in the Work In Sports academy – just $39 each and available 24/7/365 at workinsports.com/academy… but a quick extremely superficial summary would be:* Gain the experience the marketplace needs* Intern, intern intern and then intern some more* Build industry-relevant relationships* Customize your materials, resume cover letter et all to each job application* Master the art of selling yourself during the interview process.Now again, that is way way, way rough and superficial… but that’s the start of the conversation to get into the consideration set for sports jobs.Notice what isn’t in there. High GPA.Now that is not an argument against taking your college courses seriously… of course, you have to and need to. But that is so you have the brainpower to do the job… it is not what gets you hired!So just to spell this out again – taking macroeconomics is great! You will learn concepts and skills that will apply to your sports business life…so take it seriously! That will help you be good at your job… but it isn’t the thing that will get you noticed and hired.So let’s get into this data a bit.I was doing a ton of research for my upcoming interview with Joan Lynch Chief Content Officer for Working Nation. Quick aside on Joan, whose interview comes up on Wednesday. Prior to becoming the big cheese covering the future of employment in America, she was a big-time executive at ESPN, and one of the main creatives behind 30 for 30 amongst other projects.She tells some really cool stories about her ESPN days during our interview.Anyway, that’s Wednesday tune in them for that. But in researching for that interview I came across some data released late last year from McGraw Hill’s Education’s Future Workforce Survey which detailed statistics about recent college graduates.  #1 – this is a really big survey, I’m just going to distill it down to a few major pointsCollege graduates don't feel well-equipped to face the real worldOnly 4 in 10 college students feel very or extremely prepared for their future careers.While low, the percentage is a significant increase from 2017, when only 29 percent of students reported feeling as prepared.Many reported feeling like their college experience did not provide the critical skills they need to transition into the workforce, such as solving complex problems (43%), resume writing (37%), interviewing (34%) and job searching (31%)Ok so let’s talk about this first. For one,

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