Latest / The Strength In Numbers Podcast / EP 36: Getting Hired—A Coach’s Guide to the Interview Process

Transcript

EP 36: Getting Hired—A Coach’s Guide to the Interview Process · The Strength In Numbers Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the Strength in Numbers podcast.
0:02
I'm your host, John Bloom, and today I'm going to dig into how
0:06
to get your next job. If you're applying, if you're
0:08
reached out for a job and you're going through the interview
0:11
process, how can you put yourself in the best position to
0:14
actually land that job? And now before we get into the
0:17
first step, first thing we got to talk about is that you got to
0:19
be good at what you do. You got to be a good coach, or
0:22
else none of it where he's going to talk about is going to
0:24
matter, right? Because you can only fool people
0:27
for so long. Like maybe this stuff could help
0:29
you get a job if you're not as good, but then once you get
0:32
there, you're going to be found out.
0:33
So first step before you worry about, you know, all the all
0:38
these things be be good at what you do.
0:40
Now after that, whether you applied on your own to this job
0:44
or maybe someone from the reached out to you, you want to
0:47
find every connection you can, right?
0:49
Because one, but you're going to want to get these people to
0:52
vouch for you, especially if you just applied for the job with
0:56
without someone reaching out to you.
0:57
And then you also want to Start learning everything you can
1:00
about the position, the high end process, who's actually hiring,
1:03
what they're looking for, right? So I want to find, do I know any
1:06
anybody in the staff? Do I know anybody within the
1:08
organization or even maybe the university or school that's on a
1:12
different team or or just associated and knows the coach a
1:16
little bit? Do I know anybody that's worked
1:17
with them in the past? Anything that you can find,
1:20
you're going to try and dig into that and see if those people are
1:23
willing to vouch for you and actually get your foot in the
1:26
door that they're going to actually pick up your resume and
1:29
consider you. Now, when I mentioned the
1:31
resume, I'm not going to dig too much in this part.
1:33
A great reference would be Scott Kuhn.
1:35
He has a great article, some great articles on how to build
1:39
your resume and let it stand out, which makes you like in
1:42
this day and time, you probably shouldn't just be a white resume
1:46
of just black texts like and that's it.
1:48
OK, put your picture, a headshot on a professional headshot on
1:52
there adds some color, add some differentiation.
1:55
You know, I put like watermarks, logos of the schools that I've
1:59
worked at on part part of the, the resume part, I had it let it
2:01
stand out a little bit so that it's, you know, not just one of
2:05
1000 of the same things that they're scrolling through, but
2:07
OK, it they actually see who you are.
2:09
They see some different things and it stands out a little bit
2:12
as they're scrolling through the resumes there.
2:14
Now, if, if you do get an in with, with that job and maybe
2:19
people vouch for your, maybe they've reached out for you,
2:20
there's probably going to be some initial less formal phone
2:24
calls as part of the interview. You know, I've had some words
2:26
with the actual head coach making the hire some with
2:29
assistance. Either way, I, I want you to
2:32
treat this as a research phase, right?
2:33
You want to start to get a picture of what they care about
2:36
through the questions that you're going to ask, but also by
2:41
paying attention to what, what they're talking about the most,
2:44
maybe what they're asking about the most when they're they keep
2:46
focusing on the most. You know, if they keep talking
2:48
about injury prevention, how their team was hurt too much,
2:51
take note of that. If they talk about not being in,
2:54
you know, good enough shape or the body comps not being good
2:58
enough, take note of that. Also, you want to, you know, I
3:01
like to do as much research as possible, like if it's the head
3:03
coach hire and I'm I'm trying to find, you know, YouTube videos
3:06
and press conferences, what they're talking about.
3:08
You know, what they're playing cell is looking at social media
3:10
stuff of the program, finding different articles about the
3:13
coach in the program, playing style, what they look for in
3:16
players, what they, you know, talk about with their Staffs,
3:18
right. And all of this information that
3:20
you're researching is going to help shape what you sell them.
3:24
And yes, I said sell specifically because that is
3:28
what you're in the business of of doing right now.
3:31
You're selling yourself as the best option for the job.
3:34
And lately, as I've been running a business and learning to do
3:36
sales, I've seen more and more of a connection between three
3:40
things, recruiting, the interview process and sales.
3:44
And we take it to recruiting first.
3:46
I remember back when I was, I'm an undergrad, I was having a
3:48
conversation with Evan Van Biesler, who at that time was
3:52
the strength coach for men's bass, but Oregon.
3:54
And I remember talking and he had just got off or just just
3:58
had a recruiting visit with a player right before we got on
4:00
the phone. And, and we started talking
4:02
about a little bit. And I, I, you know, in my
4:03
undergrad, I don't really done much of that yet.
4:05
And, and I was asking about it. And I remember he talked about
4:08
how with a recruit, he would always ask them like, what do,
4:13
what do they want to get better AT?
4:15
And like, like, where does that show up on the court in terms of
4:18
what they want to get better AT? And, you know, then they would
4:21
say, you know, I want to get better at moving laterally or,
4:25
you know, maybe finishing through contact.
4:26
And then what you do is you take that and you start to talk about
4:31
how what you're going to do is going to help them do that
4:34
better, right? So we're taking, you know, the
4:38
problem that they have and then we're selling them the solution
4:41
how we're going to help it, right?
4:44
And, and I found that this was very powerful and recruiting.
4:48
And I think like you don't want to be the only one talking and
4:51
recruiting, right? People don't want to just get
4:52
talked at, you know, for an hour or whatever.
4:54
So it's like you want to have a two way conversation and really
4:58
you want to ask more questions because I've heard people talk
5:01
when it says like the person asking the questions is in
5:04
control of the conversation. And now you're involved in them
5:07
and you're letting them start to talk about how they want to get
5:10
better these things and painting this picture of how you can help
5:13
them with those things. And now we take it now to sales.
5:16
When I, when I went into a business and I started having to
5:19
sell parents in my business, like, okay, I'm the best option
5:22
to train your kids and get them where they they want to be and
5:26
accomplish their dreams and goals.
5:28
I felt like it was a pretty easy transition from recruiting.
5:30
It felt very similar where I'm asking questions, I'm
5:33
understanding what they're looking for and then trying to
5:36
show them how I'm going to solve that problem through what my
5:39
business provides. And then now you can take that
5:42
concept to the interview process.
5:45
Also in in these initial phone calls and your own research, you
5:49
started to learn what they care about really the main problems
5:53
you can help them solve. And then now we can use that to
5:56
start building some slides to show how we're going to do that
5:59
for them with a more in depth portfolio of who you are and how
6:04
you going to differentiate yourself, right as I talk about
6:07
these slides. So usually the next step is
6:09
going to be a Zoom interview. So now with this portfolio, it's
6:13
going to be it's going to be a lot shorter for this.
6:16
I like to think like, you know, less than 10 slides.
6:19
And what I might include in this is maybe some some quick core
6:22
value, some of my main goals and in coaching and a few slides now
6:26
that can focus on the main problems that you've taken note
6:32
of in your research of what they've talked about, what
6:34
they've asked about what you found in your own research.
6:37
So if it is the, you know, maybe like you talked about before,
6:40
maybe it's like body cop or conditioning.
6:42
So maybe I'm going to have some pictures of like the smoothies
6:45
and the breakfast and the supplements that I've made for
6:47
teams and provide in the past. I'm going to have some pictures
6:50
of some before and after pictures of players that have
6:53
either put on a lot of weight or lost a lot of weight.
6:55
If it's like the injury prevention, I'm going to show
6:57
key data on how, you know, you know, my, my, my starters missed
7:03
0 games were were available for 100% of the games.
7:06
And maybe the whole team as a whole missed like 12 games, you
7:09
know, is available, you know, 9099.3% of all the games, right?
7:14
And maybe some of the things that I did to help with that.
7:17
You know, one, one thing I've been hearing again, and Alex
7:19
from Mosey is really good at entrepreneurship thing about in
7:22
sales. He talks about you want to sell
7:23
the vacation, not the flight. So like, you know, you want to
7:27
sell the beach, the, the all inclusive resort, the thing that
7:31
they're getting, the result of what they're getting.
7:33
You don't want to sell that they have to take an 8 hour flight
7:35
that they have to go through airport security.
7:37
So what is that? How does that that translates
7:39
like you want to sell results, the results you're going to get,
7:43
the outcomes you're going to help them achieve, how you help
7:46
solve their problems. I think more so than least the
7:50
specific tactical X's and O's of how you get there.
7:54
Because the person hiring you may not fully understand even
7:58
all those X&O's, but but they understand the results and they
8:02
understand you solving their problems.
8:04
And that's not to say if they start asking more specific
8:06
questions about how you're doing things to like dance around it,
8:09
obviously you want to toggle and communicate it that, but I think
8:13
First off, you want to sell the vacation and how you solve their
8:16
problems and, and, and paint that picture for them.
8:20
So again, for the, for the zoom slides, you want it to be, you
8:23
know, not, not a ton, just like less than 10, but I think I
8:26
think it's a game changer for these zooms, right.
8:29
And, and here's a story of how I started doing this.
8:31
I was, you know, I was in the interview process for a job.
8:35
I probably should not have been in the running 4 from from my
8:38
experience and age. And, but there was a, there was
8:42
a guy within the program that was really helping push and
8:46
really wanted me to get this job.
8:48
And I remember there was, there was like, I think maybe, you
8:51
know, three or four of us that made it to the Zoom interview
8:53
hotspot. And he, he was on, he was on the
8:56
Zoom interview with the, with the first person that
9:01
interviewed. I remember he called me after he
9:03
was like, hey, like this person didn't have any slides prepared
9:05
with it. Like, and like you need to, you
9:08
know, prepare these slides, like have them ready that you can
9:10
pull them up and talk on and it's going to help you in this.
9:13
So I threw those together, you know, that day so I could have
9:16
it ready for the next day when I'm an interview.
9:18
You know, I remember doing that it, it made it so much easier to
9:23
go through the interview because now, OK, that they ask you a
9:27
question about, you know, about how are you going to make sure
9:31
we have, you know, keep our, our girls or our guys healthy?
9:34
Boom, you can start sharing your screen, Pop those slides up,
9:38
click over to the slide you have on injury prevention and the
9:41
data you have about how you've kept your teams healthy and
9:45
maybe some of the things you do for that.
9:48
And now you have something to show and visualize and talk off
9:52
of. I mean, think about if you're
9:53
giving a presentation, is it easier to give that presentation
9:57
with slides or without slides, right?
9:59
It's so much easier when you're giving it with slides.
10:01
And now it's also giving them reference points.
10:04
And now you know it, it gives a little more structure to what
10:07
you can talk to. And it's also again, just
10:09
showing that you're prepared for that interview.
10:12
So creating slides mostly focused on some of those key
10:16
points, a little bit about who you are, but more so the key
10:19
points of what you found is important to them is going to
10:22
make that Zoom interview process a million times easier and make
10:26
you look way, way better. Now, after the Zoom, you want to
10:29
make sure you follow up with an e-mail to every single person
10:32
that's on the Zoom, right? Every person, right?
10:35
And you want to make it personal reference something that maybe
10:37
they said, maybe a good question that they asked.
10:40
Don't just copy and paste these, make these personal to each
10:42
person and then also include APDF of those slides that you
10:47
had right? And you may not have gotten
10:48
through all that. You may have only used like 3 or
10:51
4 of the the ones that you need the reference.
10:53
So send them those slides so that they now have something to
10:55
reference and remember you with. And also to separate yourself
10:59
there. If there was somebody that, you
11:02
know, maybe one of the coaches or the athletic trainer,
11:04
somebody missed the Zoom for some reason, e-mail them, you
11:07
know, talking about how you, you miss seeing them, you know, on
11:10
there. And you look forward to
11:11
hopefully getting talk and connect soon and also lead the
11:14
slides and, and you know, say like, you know, I, I had these
11:17
in the Zoom and just want to leave these with you so you
11:19
could see a little bit about me since you didn't give me the
11:22
Zoom. OK, Now the next step after this
11:25
Zoom is that is that you're hopefully going to get asked to
11:27
come on campus for the on campus interview, meaning that you're,
11:30
you know, probably one of two or three finalists for the job that
11:33
they've narrowed it down to now that you had an even more depth
11:36
Zoom with them, you should have an Indian clearer picture of
11:39
what they're looking for and what they care about the most.
11:42
And now we want to really build this portfolio packet that we
11:46
can actually print out and bring on campus or or in person to
11:50
this interview. And here's an example of some of
11:53
the stuff I've included for this packet, right?
11:56
So I'm going to have a cover page and it's going to have
11:58
school colors, school logo, maybe a good background picture
12:02
of like this. The if it's a basketball team,
12:04
the arena or you know, something, a picture of the team
12:07
or something like that, I'm going to have my name on it.
12:09
I'm going to have the position that I'm applying for, right?
12:12
And then for the rest of the packet also, I'm going to use
12:15
school colors for all the text, all the the the coloring, just
12:21
making it all look like it's for that school.
12:24
Also use different school or team slogans.
12:27
Include logos throughout the packet.
12:29
Make it seem like like one. It looks really professional
12:31
nice. And it's like you're part of the
12:34
program or school already. Now after that, I'll have a
12:39
pages, just a quick resume and literally have an actual
12:41
timeline on there that kind of show sequentially, you know,
12:45
logos of the different schools I've been at.
12:48
And then underneath the logo I would have just a quick kind of
12:51
the date and what that position was that I had.
12:54
Next. I might have, you know, some
12:56
quick coaching values, maybe 3 main goals for how I approach my
13:00
job, piece of development, how I'll build the training
13:03
environment or culture. Might be talked about methods
13:05
for injury prevention and slides with the data on different past
13:09
teams of their percentages available.
13:12
You know, might include the before and afters pictures of,
13:15
you know, breakfast Club and then the breakfast you cooked,
13:17
the smoothies you made, the collagen and electrolytes you
13:20
made, the supplements, right? Include pictures of different
13:24
player profiles and player dashboards and how I communicate
13:27
data and different things I've created and looks visually
13:30
appealing there. There's just so many things that
13:34
you can include in this part and in some of it's going to stay
13:37
foundational that you include no matter what job you're
13:40
interviewing. But then you also want to take
13:42
that research you've learned from the phone calls, you're
13:45
outside research now, especially the Zoom call and really
13:48
emphasize slides and emphasize those, those, those aspects,
13:53
those problems that the people hiring have talked about and
13:57
focus on the the most, right? You want to focus on what they
14:01
focused on the most because that that's showing that is a
14:03
priority for them. So you want to prioritize that
14:06
and how you're communicating that you will solve that problem
14:09
for them. OK, once I've created that and,
14:14
and, and with that, like you want to have it pretty in depth,
14:18
but don't have 100 slides where it's just an overwhelming amount
14:23
of information. And now they don't even know
14:25
where to look. They can't find the most
14:27
important information of what they really care about because
14:29
there's too much. So have it in depth, but not too
14:33
much where it's overwhelming. So now I've I've got those
14:35
slides ready and I use Canva canvas.
14:37
Great. I think for it, I'm going to go
14:38
to FedEx or someplace like that and I'm going to print it off
14:41
professionally. I'm going to have them create it
14:43
where there's going to be a clear cover over the front.
14:45
There's going to be a nice black back on on the back there,
14:48
right? And it's going to be bound with
14:50
rings. OK, black rings.
14:52
And it's, it's, it's horizontal layout there.
14:55
I, you know, you want to kind of see if you have an itinerary and
14:58
you know, all the interviews you're going to have to meet
15:00
with and all the people you can have an understanding of, of how
15:04
many you might need. I usually get around like 12 or
15:06
so. You know, you want to have one
15:08
for every person that you come in contact with.
15:10
And it's going to cost you, you know, probably a couple 100
15:13
bucks. But I think that's worth it if
15:16
you really want the job because it's going to really help
15:19
separate yourself. And if you do this right, it can
15:22
make a really big impression. Couple of things.
15:24
It's going to show one, OK, this person is really prepared and it
15:27
creates an idea of the type of the type of work and the level
15:31
of work that you do in their heads already.
15:34
I think especially when you're interviewing like on that on
15:36
campus interview, sometimes there's going to be 1 where
15:38
you're with, with a whole group of like 8 people interviewing at
15:41
the same time. And you know, one person might
15:44
ask a question at a time and you say, OK, you know, you pass all
15:46
those out to everybody. You say, OK, hey, like look at
15:48
this page and you can talk off of that.
15:50
Just makes a little bit easier, kind of like the Zoom where it's
15:52
easy to talk off of that and reference that to the group when
15:55
asked a question. And now I think one of the most
15:57
important things though, with these packages, it lets you
16:00
leave everyone with something which I think is a separator and
16:03
makes you memorable because a lot of people are not going to
16:06
do that. You know, maybe they bring a
16:07
resume, but a lot of people are not going to have as
16:10
professional of a thing is this. And it's now it's something that
16:13
they can keep on their desk. You're staying top of mind for
16:16
them and they can reference it after you leave of the things
16:19
you talked about, you know, the things that were impressive, the
16:22
different visualizations you left in there.
16:24
And I think especially for people maybe not as involved
16:27
with the hire, like maybe you meet with some of the the AD or
16:30
the different admin that, you know, you don't talk with as in
16:33
depth about XS and OS. And maybe it's they're not the
16:36
ones solely making the hire, but maybe they have, you know,
16:39
they'll, they'll talk with the person doing that about their
16:41
impressions. And you can make a great
16:43
impression by just showing the level of work and
16:46
professionalism you have through preparing that and leaving that
16:50
with them. So have one for everybody, OK,
16:52
no matter what role you think they are, you want to make a
16:55
great impression with as many touch points throughout that
16:57
organization as you can. Now in in terms of like the
17:01
actual day and how you're approaching that on campus
17:04
interview or an in person interview, you know, different
17:07
places will run it differently. You're probably going to have a
17:09
series of interviews with a lot of different people.
17:11
You know, I've had usually like that that if the head coach is
17:14
the one make the hire, I usually have, you know, maybe a initial
17:16
like interviews with that person earlier in the day, meet with
17:20
some different people throughout and then come back and have a,
17:23
you know, more in depth one at the end of the day.
17:25
I've had it, you know, I know other people that have had to
17:27
actually coach different people at the interview.
17:31
It might go to a practice or watch different things.
17:34
You might meet with some of the players or some of the people
17:36
that are in an organization, right?
17:38
You're going to, it's going to be a pretty extensive day.
17:40
You're going to meet a lot of people.
17:41
You got to be prepared for everything.
17:42
OK, Whatever you do, though, this is where you want to let
17:45
your natural personality, your skill, like we talked about it,
17:47
actually being a really good coach and your research and prep
17:50
of how to shape what you're selling lead you to the finish
17:53
line here. And that personality piece is
17:55
really important because people that are making the hire, they
17:59
want to hire people they want to be around, right?
18:01
Like if it's, you know, I've been with a lot of basketball
18:03
staff, as a basketball staff, you're going to spend a lot of
18:06
time traveling on the road with those people.
18:08
You just spend a lot of time at practice throughout the day with
18:10
them. People want to hire obviously
18:13
people that are good at the job, but also people that are good
18:16
people and fun to be around and enjoyable to be around.
18:18
Now, once you leave that interview and you go home as
18:22
soon as you can, you want to write handwritten notes to every
18:25
single person you met with. Again, make it personal to what
18:28
you talked about with that person.
18:29
Maybe some questions they asked, some different things you all
18:31
really talked about, maybe a funny moment that happened,
18:35
right? Make it personal to that person
18:37
and and that's going to really help.
18:39
Again, leave an impression of all these professional things
18:42
you were doing that just add up and show who you are as a
18:47
professional and separates yourself from the other
18:50
candidates. You know, there.
18:53
There's a million things we can talk about, but I think those
18:55
are really some of the key points of how you can
18:58
differentiate yourself in the process beyond being a really
19:01
good coach and communicating those aspects.
19:04
And Phil Buyer, who is the the strength coach for men's
19:07
basketball at Kansas State, probably been the biggest
19:10
influence on learning about these aspects for myself and how
19:14
to, you know, build these packets and separate yourself.
19:19
He was one of my first podcast episodes and we actually dug
19:22
into some of this stuff. And I definitely recommend
19:25
referencing. He's a he's incredible resource
19:27
on these aspects. And if you want to talk more
19:30
about this, we're interested in seeing some of the example
19:32
portfolios that I've created for different jobs.
19:35
You can e-mail me at info@johnbloomcoaching.com or DM
19:38
me on Instagram. You know, more than happy to
19:40
share and connect on on this if you're going through this
19:43
process. Hope this was helpful, I know
19:46
learning from phones on this stuff has been super helpful for
19:49
me on job interviews in the past, but we will see you next
19:51
week on the next episode of the Strengthen Numbers podcast.