It is the end of may,  and thousands of student athletes are completing their final exams and graduating from university. If you are an employer, then whatever your recruiting period is you need to consider making a serious push to recruit and hire graduating student athletes.

While many of these athletes may have little work experience, what they do have is their passion and their work habits, which they have poured into building their athletic careers for the last 20 years. Now they are eager to figure out where to pour all their passion and apply their work ethic.

11 Reasons why you need to hire a past varsity athlete?

• Athletes know how it feels to be the most inexperienced person on a team. They know how much work, passion, and dedication it takes to master a new skill and prove themselves to a new team because they have done it year after year.
• Athletes are not strangers to hard work. In fact, they have been doing it for a long time and expect to have to do it to accomplish their goals.
• Athletes are not afraid of failure because they know that failing over and over again and always being able to get back up is the path to success.
• Athletes know how to be a teammate, a cheerleader, and a leader on any team, and they know how to play the role they are assigned.
• Athletes know how face conflict with a person in authority and still find a way to excel.
• Athletes know how to work through pain or illness and still perform at their highest level.
• Athletes know that early is on time and on time is late—it’s just part of their discipline.
• Athletes know that you need to respect a competitor, and that in the end the most important person you compete against is yourself.
• Athletes know how to work under pressure; in fact, they thrive in that type of environment.
• Athletes know how to deal with a poisonous person on their team.
• Athletes know that to be really successful you need to do way more than your job description requires and you need to work hard no matter who is watching.

How do they know all these things?

Athletes have experienced good, bad, ugly, and amazing situations while playing sport, and learning how to deal with each of these has given them the tools they need to create success in their life.

Setting goals, maintaining clear focus, working with a team and working under pressure, leading and motivating others, working hard consistently—these are some of the skills that athletes have been practicing for years, and now they are ready to transfer all of their passion, intensity, and hard work into your business.

Don’t be fooled when you see lack of work experience on an athlete’s resume. The experience that she or he has had on the court or on the field has prepared them well for solid success in the working world.

They may have played their last game, but it’s not all over for them.

For them the game of life is just  beginning.

So harness the power of sport and find yourself an athlete to help take your business to a whole new level.

Because Life is a Sport, and I know you both want to win.

 

 

If you’d like your sports story to be considered for a future book or for use on our blog, submit it here. We’ll pick and publish our favourites!