by Greg Carroll, Tudor Collegiate Strategies
We often know what we need to change to improve our health, our careers, our personal lives, or for our purposes here how we recruit – but we’re often slow to pivot in the necessary direction
Whether it’s a change of behavior in one’s personal life or something connected to our professional responsibilities the reasons that hold us back from making an impactful change are typically the same.
Let’s unpack what the reasons you might be struggling to embrace a change in your recruiting practices, and why you should reconsider your current strategies.
Change is uncomfortable. We know this to be true. We are creatures of habit and often those habits are not serving us well. What we fail to recognize is how much better we feel about ourselves once we break out of the shadows holding us back. It’s like the person who goes on a diet, loses 30 pounds and suddenly realizes how much better they feel and wishes they’d lost the weight sooner. If you have not taken a critical look at how you are recruiting over the past two or three years you are missing opportunities for success and the rewards that go with that success. The recruiting landscape has changed just over the last 10 months! Don’t let your fear stand in the way of getting to the other side. Good things are waiting for you there.
You may think you lack the skills necessary to change how you recruit. The result is that you lack the confidence necessary to get a little uncomfortable. This is the most common thing that holds us back from going in a new direction. If you are reading this, you’re more than halfway to accessing the tools you need to change your recruiting behavior because you’re dialed into Tudor Collegiate Strategies. Whether you are one of our valued clients or not there are a ton of resources available through TCS to build your confidence as a premiere recruiter. This is especially important for those just getting into the coaching profession. Trust me as a long time AD when I say if you become an all-star recruiter you can write your ticket to the best programs in the country. But it takes a conscious effort to learn those skills. They won’t evolve on their own. You have to make a commitment to acquire them. And when you do you will no longer be uncomfortable about taking a new approach to your recruiting!
While young coaches have their challenges the seasoned coach has some of their own. It may be a fear of getting uncomfortable but it might also be satisfaction with the status quo. That coach tells themself “I’m getting my class each year, we’re competing just fine, my AD seems satisfied, so I think it’s all good!” It may feel all good but how much better could it feel if you stirred the pot, tried some new things, opened yourself to ideas from that young upstart assistant, embraced social media, opened yourself up to parents, set timelines that reflect your program’s value, drew in your alumni (you should be getting the point…) It’s like the point I made before, sometimes we’ve lost sight of how much more rewarding our job can be because we’re stuck in the status quo!
And then there’s the problem of time and the argument that we simply don’t have time to learn something new. I thought the same thing when recruiting software was just emerging (I’m really that old!). And then I saw how much more time my peers had to spend on other things (they even had hobbies!). And I also saw the results they were getting, the quality of their rosters, their upward movement in the standings, the number of visits they were getting. I’m a slow learner but even I jumped on board. By not considering new ways of doing things we wind up working far less efficiently. Just ask someone within your department how much more efficient/effective their recruiting is by working with a team of experts who can provide tools for successful shortcuts towards more potent recruiting! They’re the one’s leaving the office at 5 pm while you’re still there grinding out this week’s email to recruits.
Finally there’s the question of value and an unwillingness to consider the potential value of changing a behavior. This is where the value of Tudor Collegiate Strategies comes in because the numbers don’t lie. All the practices we encourage coaches to employ are based upon research. We know that more than 90% of recruits rely on their parents to guide their decision. We know that more than half the time recruits are on campus visits they should be interacting with the younger members of your teams. We know these things to be true because the athletes tell us. If you were to change your recruiting to reflect those two facts alone – I guarantee you will look at the value of changing your recruiting practices differently.
There’s never been a better time take a critical look at your recruiting. Are you doing the things we advocate at TCS for recruiting success? Are you accessing those resources readily available to learn those practices? And if you aren’t what are the things holding you back from doing so. If you can find a way to take that first step (even if it’s a small step) you’ll feel good about a change and enjoy the positive results to follow.
To overcome challenges like these in recruiting, it makes sense to get help from experts who have helped other fellow college recruiters become better at what they do. One of the easiest ways to achieve that? Let us come train you, your staff and your athletic department. Our on-campus recruiting workshops are legendary on the campuses where we’ve spent time, and we’d love to add your athletic department to the list. Click here for all the details.