For introverts trying to find a job in the sports industry, networking is a great chance to get that dream job but if as an introvert it can feel intimidating. In this article we have share some effective strategies how to be a job seeking introvert in the sports industry.
In the sports world, networking is essential for career growth, but it can be challenging—especially for introverts.
If crowded events and meeting new people make you anxious, know that you’re not alone. The good news? Introverts can still network effectively with a few adjustments. This guide provides tailored strategies to help introverts build strong connections and open up career opportunities in the sports industry.
For further reading, check out our insights on navigating a career as an introvert—it’s packed with tips beyond networking!
1. Prepare Conversation Starters Think of sports-specific questions to spark interest, like asking about favorite teams, recent events, or upcoming games. This helps you skip small talk and move into a shared interest area, making conversations easier and more natural.
2. Focus on Quality Connections Instead of aiming to meet everyone, identify a few people you genuinely want to connect with, like professionals in roles that interest you or with career paths similar to your own. This focused approach makes interactions more meaningful and less draining.
3. Practice Your Sports Story Develop a short “elevator pitch” about your role, interests, and background in sports. Keep it authentic, highlighting why you’re passionate about the industry, and use this as a way to open conversations and build connections that feel genuine.
4. Maximize Digital Platforms Use LinkedIn, Twitter, or sports-specific forums to stay active and visible without needing to attend every in-person event. Engage by commenting thoughtfully on others’ posts, sharing relevant articles, and participating in group discussions—this keeps you connected without the pressure of constant face-to-face interaction.
5. Leverage Small Groups Networking in smaller settings, like local meet-ups or viewing parties, can be far more comfortable and impactful than large events. Seek out sports watch parties or industry meet-ups where conversations are likely to be focused on shared interests, making it easier to connect with others.
6. Set Goals for Each Event Set manageable goals for each event, like aiming to connect with just one or two people. Focusing on one quality interaction can help you stay present and relaxed, preventing the stress of overextending yourself or trying to meet too many people.
7. Follow Up Mindfully After meeting someone, send a follow-up message or email that references something you discussed, especially any shared sports-related topics. This reinforces the connection in a way that feels personal and intentional, rather than transactional.
These tips help introverts build connections in sports authentically and strategically.
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In the sports industry, getting noticed can be a lot like finding the right entrance into a stadium. There’s the main gate, where everyone lines up, and then there’s the side entrance—less obvious, but a lot less crowded. Here’s how this applies to breaking through in your career and getting that job in sports.
The Main Gate (What Everyone Does)
In sports, just like any other industry, most people follow the well-worn path. Take job applications: 96%+ of candidates use job boards like Indeed, LinkedIn, or Monster to mass-apply to positions with the click of a button.
This approach can work, but it’s also where the competition is fiercest. Since everyone is funneling through the same process, it’s hard to stand out.
The Side Entrance
The side entrance is all about finding ways to get noticed that most people overlook. It’s not the easiest route—it requires effort and creativity—but it offers a significant advantage because you’re not competing with the crowd.
These “side doors” are unconventional and hidden, but they’re effective when discovered. Here are some strategies that can help you get ahead in sports and beyond:
Examples of Side Doors
🏃 Finding a Job in Sports
The Main Gate: Applying to hundreds of job postings through LinkedIn or Indeed.
The Side Entrance: Instead of submitting a generic resume, reach out directly to the recruiter or hiring manager with a customized message. Better yet, send them a sports-specific work sample that shows how you can already do the job. For example, if you’re targeting a marketing role, create a mini social media campaign for a recent sports event. This proactive approach can make you a standout candidate.
🤝 Building a Network and Personal Brand
The Main Gate: Attending networking events and adding people on LinkedIn.
The Side Entrance: Connect directly with key figures in the sports industry through cold outreach. Interview them for a blog post or podcast, then share their insights on social media. Alternatively, organize an online forum for people in the sports world to discuss trends and challenges, which can position you as a connector in the industry.
🏆 Earning a Promotion or Pay Raise
The Main Gate: Waiting for annual reviews to get noticed for a promotion.
The Side Entrance: Actively seek out senior staff who influence compensation decisions. Keep them updated on your contributions and achievements. Set your own targets and showcase your progress to those who can help you advance.
A Final Thought
Don’t abandon the main gate altogether; it’s a popular route for a reason. But if you combine the usual path with these creative side entrances, you’ll significantly improve your chances of success. In the sports world, just like in a game, sometimes it’s the unexpected play that wins.
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When crafting a resume for the sports industry, avoid vague statements like “I’m a quick learner.” Instead, provide concrete examples of how you’ve made a measurable impact quickly, such as increasing social media engagement or ticket sales. Highlight your ability to adapt by showcasing experience across different roles or departments, and emphasize career progression and skill development to demonstrate growth. Focus on accomplishments, not just responsibilities, by quantifying your results with metrics that show your contributions to the organization. This approach will make your resume stand out to hiring managers.
Listing vague phrases like “I’m a quick learner” on your resume won’t impress hiring managers in the sports industry. In fact, statements like these can be a red flag because they are subjective and unproven.
Instead, provide concrete examples of how you’ve quickly adapted, learned new skills, or made a measurable impact. Here’s how to frame it:
Highlight fast impact in your bullet points:
Example: “Developed a comprehensive social media strategy for the team’s fan engagement, increasing follower growth by 30% and ticket sales by 20% within the first six months.”
The “first six months” part demonstrates that you can deliver results quickly, which is highly valued in the fast-paced sports industry.
Show adaptability across roles and departments: If you’ve worked across various departments—marketing, operations, team management, or partnerships—mention that on your resume. It demonstrates your ability to adapt to different teams, projects, and objectives, a critical skill in sports organizations where flexibility is often key.
When recruiters in sports review your resume (or LinkedIn profile), they are looking for more than just your experience—they want to see:
Career progression: Stagnation can be a concern. If you’ve held the same position for a decade without promotions or new responsibilities, it raises questions. Demonstrating upward mobility or taking on new roles within the same team or organization shows you’re actively growing and developing your expertise.
Expanding skill sets: It’s not just about title changes—sports recruiters want to see that you’ve learned and applied new skills over time, whether it’s project management, athlete relations, or data analysis.
Stability: Regular promotions also signal that you’ve stayed long enough to contribute meaningfully, unlike candidates who frequently jump between organizations.
This article offers plenty of examples on how to emphasize growth, especially through promotions, on your resume. It’s worth a quick read if you’re revamping your CV or LinkedIn.
Lastly, your resume should focus on your accomplishments (what you achieved), rather than simply listing responsibilities (what you were tasked with). Here’s the distinction:
Responsibility (avoid this): “Managed the game-day event operations.”
This doesn’t highlight how well you performed. It sounds generic, like it was copied from a job description. Instead, try this:
Accomplishment (do this): “Led game-day event operations, increasing fan engagement by 15% through innovative on-site activations, while reducing setup time by 25%.”
This version is specific, highlights the impact of your work, and quantifies the results, making your contributions clear and measurable.
Feel free using one or several of these tips. Let us know if you need any advice.
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The Swedish University Sports Federation (SAIF), is a Special Sport Confederation (SF) that works with student sports at a national level. As a confederation, they primarily work with students at universities, colleges and adult education centers in Sweden who are interested in being physically active. Now they have recruited a new colleague, Linnea Asservik as a new sports club consultant. Get to know more about her and the role below.
One of our collaboration partners, SAIF have after the summer and the holidays 2021, expanded its office. New to the team is Linnea Asservik who will work as a sports club consultant!
Linnea Asservik is for many within Studentidrotten a well-known face where she as a member of Studentidrotten was involved at Halmstad Studenters Idrottsförening for several years. Among other things, as chairman for one year. Right now she lives in Gothenburg where she also grew up with sports as an obvious part of life. Here is a short interview with her:
I grew up in a sports-crazy family far out in the country a bit outside Kungälv. As an adult, I have moved around a lot but have now landed in Stenungsund, which is almost home. I am a YES sayer who loves to have several things going on at the same time. And I got a bachelor’s degree from Halmstad University, as a Health Educator / Behavioral Scientist, where I focused on sports, says Linnea to SAIF’s website.
Student sports
What is your background in Student Sports?
During my studies in Halmstad, a classmate (who was then chairman of Halmstad Student Sports Association, HSIF) noticed my interest in football. I was coached to take over as project manager for their association Student League, which of course I said YES to. After this year, the chairman of HSIF needed to move and I then had the opportunity to take over. Together with a bunch of other super-committed students, we ran the association for a year. This was the most fun period during my studies there.
Already during her time at HSIF, Linnea was in contact with SAIF, where she took part in a board training on-site in Stockholm. She says that she immediately saw a future in working with sports clubs. Now she has made her first days and she says she has found the right place.
It feels incredibly good! The team here has been very welcoming and curious about my thoughts and experiences. I think we will have fun together. It has been a dream for me to work with sports clubs for a long time so I am super thrilled!
Sports club consultant
What is your opinion about the role as a sports club consultant since you have been in contact with that role a lot when you were at HSIF?
There was always so much commitment and joy from the club consultants that I had contact with during my studies. They had a desire to contribute their skills while they were always super curious about our thoughts and ideas. We had the opportunity to attend several educations and also apply for several financial support that really contributed to developing the club, says Linnea.
Now she hopes to be able to take her knowledge and skills, combined with her experience of sports club life to help SAIF’ clubs forward.
I hope to be able to contribute with the experiences I have from the time “on the other side” as a student. I hope to be able to convey the joy I find in student sports to students, clubs and the whole team at SAIF, Linnea concludes.
During the spring of 2021, SAIF had the intern Jonas Fridell who has shared his experiences on SAIF’s website, which we will share a bit here.
Get your next internship at one of the most exciting sports places in Sweden, SAIF.
During the summer of 2021, the Olympic Games was held. Despite a special Olympics with no fans attending, the athletes made great competitions and broke many records. One thing that is getting more and more popular to talk about is what helps athletes to go higher, faster, better and together. One of the secrets to this is SportsTech. In this article, we will break down some behind the scenes from the athletic successes by sharing the SportsTech that was behind many of the athletes in the Olympic Games.
What is SportsTech?
There are several ways to explain what SportsTech is and one of the ways to explain it is described by Daniel Marcus at Forbes, where he writes that SportsTech has emerged as a viable sub-sector in the tech space. SportsTech combines two things that the general population views as “sexy”, startups/technology and sports.
In 2018, the SportsTech sector generated an estimated $2.5 Billion in venture capital funding with some estimating that number growing to over $30 Billion by 2024. Moreover, the definition of what qualifies or is considered to be SportsTech only continues to grow. When people think of the term SportsTech, they think of different kinds of wearables, media platforms like The Athletic or Overtime, and probably e-sports and gambling technologies. There was a point where the term “SportsTech” would prompt eye rolls from people like Daniel Marcus – there was a pervasive sense that the sports industry was grasping at something that simply wasn’t there. However, the space has evolved over the past few years, as SportsTech is no longer limited to the traditional areas mentioned earlier in this article, as SportsTech now includes (or at least should) – not just technology that has applications in sports but technology where sports can be used as a vehicle or a platform for the success of the company.
SportsTech is the intersection of sports and technology
To put it simply, sports tech is the intersection of sports and technology. In other words, when technology is used to create a solution in the realm of sports, it falls under the umbrella of SportsTech. Think of solutions that have changed the way athletes compete or help them improve their performance or even new ways of engaging sports fans — that’s all SportsTech.
SportsTech is here to stay and to help athletes train better and win competitions (and make money) while delivering better experiences for fans. So let us have a look at what SportsTech was part of the Olympic Games 2021.
SportsTech help athletes train better
San Francisco-based asensei helped the British rowing team prepare (see video below) with its connected coaching platform. The company raised another $2.2M to build out a library of exercises including rowing, yoga, pilates, rehabilitation, kettlebells, and TRX.
Los Angeles-based StreamRecap produces “instant automatic highlights” for high school and college athletes that help with training and recruiting. The company was one of 10 winners of this year’s NBCU SportsTech Accelerator getting exclusive access to teams and Olympic coverage this year.
Other coaching platforms with recent successes include:
New York-based Obe Fitness, which raised $15M for its “personality-driven” exercise platform;
New York-based Citytrow, which raised $12M for its at-home digital platform and chain of rowing studios.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based MaxOne, which raised $3.5M from NBA point guard Chris Paul and others for its system that allows coaches to upload training videos for players;
Seattle-based Boost Sport, which raised $1.3M for its AI-powered video analysis software; and
Palo Alto, Calif.-based SwingVision, which was named the official shot-tracking technology for Australian tennis after raising $120k from pro tennis player Andy Roddick and others.
SevenSix, the winner of the Nordic Sports Innovation Challenge 2020.
Emerging platforms for more general audiences include A-Champs and Utah-based Freeplay.
SportsTech improves an athlete’s performanceandrecovery
Other SportsTech companies are upgrading the equipment athletes use to train and recover.
Two other NBCU accelerator winners include Atlanta-based swim apparel maker Ane Swim, which creates swim caps designed to make the water more appealing for diverse audiences; and Ohio-based Safety Skin, which sells reflective skin to improve roadside safety.
Houston-based GRINDraised $250k from Mark Cuban and others for its basketball hoop that passes the ball back to you. France-based Stendo is developing technology to help athletes recover faster by sending “cardio-synchronized massages” through an IoT-enabled bodysuit.
Oura ring is a $300 Sleep Tracker That Provides Tons of Data.
SportsTech can also applymentaltraining
Mental health took center stage at this year’s Olympics Games, providing opportunities for startups focused on the mental side of sports.
Swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, recently joined the board of Australian technology startup Medibio, which uses data technology to help those dealing with depression and anxiety.
The Indian Olympic Association partnered with Dhyana, a meditation-tracking startup that uses a ring to track a user’s heart rate variability, to help all of its athletes focus on their mental wellbeing.
New York-based Sharper Sense developed a “sensory patch” that sends electrical signals into an athlete’s body to improve awareness and reaction time. Denver-based GameSense trains baseball players to recognize pitches faster, and Arete offers personalized mental training and support from an “AI-powered wellbeing coach.”
SportsTech also help athletesmakingmoney
SportsTech startups are also using tech to help athletes monetize their passion.
Toronto-based Eon Media, another NBCU SportTech Accelerator winner, helped the U.S cycling and swimming teams understand the exposure they’ll get during the Olympics through its AI-enabled video platform.
London-based SportsIcon helps athletes create “one-of-a-kind, inalterable digital memorabilia” for fans to buy, while Own The Moment works to build “the Bloomberg for NFTs.” Both companies are part of this year’s Techstars Sports Tech accelerator.
Influencer culture is expanding, with some estimating that brands will spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022. Antourage allows sports organisations to leverage influencers, or super fans, to create interesting, engaging content.
Min Fotboll, ‘We’re in the game now’: How Sportswik helped the SvFF connect Swedish football from top to bottom. Min Fotboll allows football clubs at the grassroots level to live stream their games and enable friends and family to follow every step on the pitch.
SportsTech improves thefanexperience
SportsTech startups across the globe are creating new ways for fans to enjoy live sports, too, as well as athletes road to the Olympics.
GreenPark Sportsraised $14M for its social sports platform. The company, which was founded in 2018 by former execs at YouTube and Zappos, recently entered a partnership with the NBA so fans can outfit in-game avatars with jerseys and hats of their favorite teams.
Meanwhile, Buzzerraised $20M from pro sports legends Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, among others, for its live-sports service that aggregates streaming rights to give users an all-in-one-app experience.
The Sonar Company recently raised $1M from Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers and others to use ultrasonic tones to communicate with fan devices. For example, instead of displaying a QR code for fans to scan on their TV, future broadcasts could play a tone only recognized by enabled devices.
A host of AR companies—including Paris-based Immersiv.io and Bangalore, India-based Edisn.ai are working to bring stats and other information to fans as they watch games.
Want to take grassroots sports to the next level? Joymo have created an innovative fixed installed camera system, the Livecaster Pro, which brings automatic action tracking and higher resolution detail and when combined with the Joymo platform elevates and empowers everyday superstars.
Ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a local cleantech accelerator is pushing for California to win a “gold medal for clean air” by boosting electric vehicle use.
As an athlete there are many great skills being developed like discipline, focus, goal setting and balance and those are not only for an athlete, their skills can be useful in other contexts too, for example in an entrepreneur’s environment. This is what we call transferable skills. During the spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sweden, our founder Jakob had the opportunity to sit down at an entrepreneurial event with four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. In this article, one of Sweden’s most successful Martial Artist, William Seth-Wenzel, will share, among other things, how to put yourself first and to ask for help when it is needed in order to find the optimal balance and focus!
Transferable skills from athletes: Skills you gain as an athlete
This is a four-part series where we share the conversation from a panel discussion from an entrepreneurial competition during spring 2020. We have divided each athlete’s story and experience into a separate blog post. Usually, when we are talking about skills, we are talking about skills needed in different jobs. Job ads contain some required skills for a role or some preferable skills needed. Even if you don’t have that skill from previous job experiences you might already have the skill from other experiences. This is called a “transferable skill”.
If you have played sports you probably have learned about teamwork, goal setting, or showing respect. This is something you could bring into your future job, which means, you transfer the skills into something else, like from youth sports to a job. Therefore, transferable skills. You could basically acquire skills from other experiences in life than your current job, but also from one industry into another. For example, what can we learn from athletes?
In the first part of the Transferable skills from competitive athletes four-part series we share a great story from Susanna Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists and she explained how to develop the secret to her successes and why it is her strongest skill. But you can also head over to the next part, part 3 with the unique world champion.
In this second part we will learn how to find balance and focus and why those skills are valuable to transfer into your daily life. William Seth-Wenzel is a martial artist with both World and European Championship gold in jujutsu. In 2019 he was named the Champion of the Year and Martial Artist of the Year at Kampsportgalan.
Athletes must balance short- and long-term plans and it is important for them to feel good and be resilient in order for them to achieve consistent results. Even if you do something that you really love, you may sometimes need to take a break or talk with someone that can offer new points of attack to the challenges you face. Below is the transcribed version from the panel discussion.
William Seth-Wenzel – what drives you to persevere with sports?
– Mainly, it is because I love the sport and get something out of it. As long as I feel that I am developing and have goals to fight for, I will continue. When it becomes more draining than fun and rewarding, then I quit – or should quit. You can continue to fight if you see there is a future beyond that is within reach, or else it will not work in the long run. I think many business owners can feel that type of stress and maybe let it get too much.
Mental health is a topic that has been widely discussed within sports in recent years. You have won European and World Championships but have also talked with a sports psychologist – explain why?
– To start with, I did not end up there voluntarily. It was the coach that gave me the opportunity to talk with someone because I was going through a period where I was less happy than usual. My first thought was “as an athlete I shouldn’t need this, I compete as a weapon”. In retrospect, I noticed how much it helped and that the psychologist made me think differently. He offered a solution that only he could give because he was outside of my usual world. The solution was focused on me and the more I visited the psychologist, the better my results became. My advice is to have the courage to seek help in time and take the opportunity to work more proactively.
A high level of discipline is required by elite athletes and many are forced to choose between friends and training. What are your thoughts?
– Elite athletes sacrifice many things, but I don’t want to sacrifice things that I think are important. I need a life as an athlete and a life outside of it. If I need to give up something that is important, I will reprioritize. Perhaps I can shorten one of my sessions by half an hour. You need to make sure that the right things are sacrificed, or else you may not enjoy it. Prior to the last World Championship, I was feeling stressed out and had several things I wanted to take part in at the same time. I was studying full-time at KTH, I wanted to spend time with friends, I had a part-time job and I was unsure whether I would be able to push it all aside. I did it my way and added all the things in life I find important and that I want to keep. I trained less but in a more effective way and this gave me more time for other things, which made me happy, focused and balance in life.
How can you create a sustainable personal life as an entrepreneur?
– Dare to be selfish! Focus on yourself first, then help others and be an inclusive person.
Find your balance and focus with a challenge
There are many athletes that have been challenged in their lives around the competitions. Should they compete for their own sake or someone else’s will? Everyone, even athletes needs to find balance in their lives. One of the greatest heptathlon athletes, Carolina Klüft lost her motivation and focus even though she was the best athlete in her sport. So what happened? Instead of competing in that sport she moved to long jumping. She wasn’t the best one in this sport, but she found joy and balance in her life and her athletic career. Another one that has done a similar thing in 2020 is Stina Nilsson. One of the greatest cross-country skiers and she decided in April 2020 to change the sport to biathlon. Once again, to find joy, to find balance and focus in her life.
If you are not familiar with these two, then what about Michael Jordan? Perhaps did you like most of us sports interested people watch Michael Jordan’s documentary series on Netflix, The Last Dance? Did you think about that he stopped playing basketball for a while? He actually started a career in baseball in order to find balance and focus in his life. Even though if you are the greatest in your sport, you are the one who should decide your life. Maybe a new challenge like Klûft, Nilsson or Jordan is the way to go in order to find balance and focus in your life? Like Seth-Wenzel, dare to be selfish and learn how you work at your best. Focus and Balance are transferable skills you can use in other contexts too, just remember that it is okay to make your own decisions.
If you missed the first or third or fourth part about Mental strength, Teamwork and Values curiosity, Pressure and Solely responsible check them out here.
In the next part about transferable skills from athletes, we speak with Rob Haans, who explains the importance of putting people in focus and the significance of the team for both athletes and entrepreneurs. Rob Haans has his own experience as a triple world champion in jujutsu and as the team captain for the Swedish jujutsu national team.
This story is made by Caroline Wendt at Future By Lund and the original story comes from here: Personal durability, part 2: Martial artist William Seth-Wenzel talks about why you should dare to ask for help.
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As an athlete there are many great skills being developed and those are not only for an athlete, their skills can be useful in other contexts too, for example in an entrepreneur’s environment. This is what we call transferable skills. During the spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sweden, our founder Jakob had the opportunity to sit down at an entrepreneurial event with four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. In this article, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists, Susanne Gunnarsson will share how she become one of the greatest and what skill that took her to the top.
Transferable skills from athletes: Skills you gain as an athlete
This is a four-part series where we share the conversation from a panel discussion from an entrepreneurial competition during spring 2020, and we have divided each athlete’s story and experience into a separate blog post. Usually, when we are talking about skills, we are talking about skills needed in different jobs. Job ads contain some required skills for a role or some preferable skills needed. Even if you don’t have that skill from previous job experiences you might already have the skill from other experiences. You might have played sports and probably you have learned about teamwork, goal setting or showing respect. This is something you could bring into your future job, and this is what we call transferable skills. You could basically acquire skills from other experiences in life than a job, but also from one industry into another. For example, what can entrepreneurs learn from athletes? First up is Susanna Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists and she explains how to develop the secret to her successes and why it is her strongest skill.
Want to learn more about balance, focus and curiosity, pressure, head over to part 2 or 3 or 4 below.
A panel discussion with elite athletes at Creative Business Cup
The entrepreneurs in the Swedish final of the Creative Business Cup held on 12 March competed with their ideas, business models and teams – but also had to learn how they can think for themselves to manage their business concepts. To aid the contestants there were four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. An entrepreneur and an athlete are quite similar, they want to succeed. And therefore we can look into what an entrepreneur could learn from sports into their own adventure, what are the transferable skills from athletes?. Over four articles we present the thoughts of the four athletes. In the first, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists, Susanne Gunnarsson, talks about mental strength.
As entrepreneurs strive to build the companies of the future it is important that they also find ways to maintain satisfaction so they can perform what is necessary. Elite athletes and their coaches are used to finding ways to perform to the highest level, both in the short and long term. For this reason, four representatives with elite sporting experience were a key part of the Swedish final of the Creative Business Cup.
– We want to give start-ups, businesses, and organizations the opportunity to share the broad knowledge that elite athletes and top coaches have in relation to strategies and processes for personal durability. Our vision is for an ecosystem where entrepreneurs, business coaches and investors collaborate closely, in sustainable business practices and with people at the core, says Lars Mattiasson from xPlot, who organizes the Swedish part of the Creative Business Cup. The arrangement was made in collaboration between Lund Municipality and Future by Lund.
The panel consisted of William Seth-Wenzel, a gold medal winner in jujutsu at both World and European Championship level and a student at KTH; Susanne Gunnarsson, with a total of 17 World Championship or Olympic medals in canoeing and now working as a coach, lecturer and treatment assistant; and Rob Haans, with several individual World Championship medals and now part of the Swedish national team in jujutsu. Joining via video link was Klara Svensson, former professional boxer with several world titles and now a self-employed business owner. The debate was led by Jakob Wikenstål with both an academic degree in sports management and experience as an entrepreneur through the job platform Sportidealisten.
The discussion came to be about what it is like to deliver every day to maintain momentum and stick to your big goals and dreams. It was also about how to work for the team to function, but also daring to be selfish and clear when asking for help to get what you really need. All necessary skills for an entrepreneur, basically great transferable skills from sports.
First up in our interview series about transferable skills is Susanne Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists. Susanna has won Olympic gold in K-2 500m in 1996 and World Championship gold in K-1 5000m in 1993, in addition to two Olympic silver medals, and three silver and five bronze at the World Championships. Furthermore, she won five World Championship golds in the canoe marathon between 1992 and 1998. She is unique in that in 1996 she won gold for both the Olympic sprint race and World Championship marathon. Nowadays she works as a coach, lecturer, and treatment assistant.
– When I was active, I remember that we listened to a tape with the psychologist Lars-Eric Uneståhl before training, but not much more was done at the time. During the 90’s I began to wonder what I needed to be the strongest – of course it was good to train, but also to change my thoughts. I worked on my thoughts by myself and it really strengthened me. What I did was, amongst other things, every night repeat the following words ten times “I am the best, I am the strongest”. Until finally it was ingrained in me. In a World Championship or Olympic final all the competitors are equally well trained – but it is the one that is mentally the strongest that wins.
How did you work on your goals?
– For me it has been important to write down my goals and my sub-goals along the way. I made it simple and drew a mountain with dashes on the path where I highlighted what I needed to do to reach the top. There were visions and sub-goals and the dream at the summit was Olympic gold. I kept my goals on my nightstand so I could look at it. Whenever I faced adversity, I analyzed what had happened because there are no shortcuts, and you must make changes to be able to take the extra step. That way I learned what was needed to make it all the way to the top. It is tough to be an elite athlete, mother, and friend at the same time and you have to learn to be part of and withdraw from circles and sometimes it is important to let go of something to get the energy. I recognise that this is the case even for entrepreneurs who work and focus on their businesses.
You gave birth to your second daughter four weeks before the 1994 World Championship in the canoe marathon. Many women may have waited to have children in their career – do you notice any differences today in that discussion?
– When my daughter was born it was four weeks to the World Championships and I had not really been able to train for eight weeks. But I was out trying to paddle five days after giving birth and it felt good. Then at the World Championships I won gold. I was one of the first in the world to resume my career after I became a mother. If it feels right, then it works. In a way, it is quite easy to bring children along when they are young, and you have a lot of energy as a mother. It should be the same when working for companies and it is good to be able to bring children to work. I believe that I see more young children brought to work these days.
How can you attain a sustainable personal life as an entrepreneur?
– It is important to feel joy and inspired by what you do. If you can do that, you will be able to achieve what you want to do!
In the next part about transferable skills from athletes, we speak with William Seth Wenzel, a martial artist in jujutsu. In 2019, William was named Champion of the Year and Martial Artist of the Year at the Kampsportsgalen (an award gala for combat fighters) for his gold medals at the World Championships and European Championship.
If you missed the second or third or fourth part about Balance and Focus, Teamwork and Values curiosity, Pressure and Solely responsible check them out here.
This story is made by Caroline Wendt at Future By Lund and the original story comes from here: Athletes teach entrepreneurs to be durable, Part 1: Susanne Gunnarsson – mental strength.
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Leaders exist in all different industries as well as in sports. There are two types of leadership. There are formal and informal leaders. No matter who you are, you will find out that sports could be your go-to place to learn and build your leadership skills. In this article, we will talk about what leadership is, and especially look into what leadership lessons we learned from Johan Cruyff. An innovating footballer and manager that always tried to become more efficient and open to new ideas
3 leaders who changed the leadership forever
This is the first part of a new miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. In this first part, we will introduce what leadership is, and then introducing some great leaders from the sports world and what these miniseries will talk about.
If you want to already jump to the second part about modern leadership and efficiency click on the button below.
Leadership lessons from 3 football managers who changed the sport forever
In the past few years, the business coaching industry has grown exponentially to become a multibillion-dollar industry[1] and leadership education is a part of this rapidly expanding industry. Multinational companies, business professionals, managers, entrepreneurs, and students invest a substantial chunk of their money on leadership development and education[2]. Leadership education includes conferences, certifications, human resource training, seminars from leadership gurus, coaching, books, and even post-graduation courses. However, if analyzed properly, a lot of significant leadership lessons can be learned from the sports industry, particularly in football management.
What is Leadership?
Before we dive into the examples, it is important to understand the true definition of Leadership. One of the most famous leaders of all times, Martin Luther King Junior defined a genuine leader as a moulder of consensus rather than a searcher for consensus. His definition is in prime proximity to one of the earliest and most meaningful academic definitions of leadership provided by Stogdill, who summed up leadership as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement[3].
“Leadership has nothing to do with the title on your business card or the size of your office. Leadership is not about how much money you make or the clothes you wear. Leadership is a philosophy. It is an attitude. It is a state of mind. And it is available to each one of us” writes acclaimed author Robin Sharma in his book, Little Black Book for Stunning Success. According to me, leadership is a skill of inspiring an organized group to pursue a particular philosophy, a process, a method in order to achieve the desired goal.
Prominent leaders in the world of football
From long balls, rough sliding tackles, and static player roles to slick ground passes, interceptions, and floating player positions, the world has seen a drastic change in the way football is played. Among many known and unknown contributors, the credit for the development of modern eye-pleasing Football goes to three prominent managers over the past three decades; Johan Cruyff, Arsene Wenger, and Pep Guardiola. These managers not only reinvented the way of training and playing Football but also made it more understandable and exciting for the viewers.
During Cruyff’s and Guardiola’s time at FC Barcelona and Wenger’s lengthy spell with Arsenal, the world saw a radical change in the way football was played. These three football managers inspired their respective teams to achieve great feats during their time and beyond. The playing style, training methods, diet schedule, training regimes, and psychological preparation introduced by them were so effective that it became a culture at FC Barcelona and Arsenal.
Nevertheless, altering the status quo of a football club, it’s traditions, training, and playing style was challenging for all of them to begin. The timing of their appointment and the context of the football clubs at that period was also complicated. In the beginning, all three faced a variety of obstacles, resistances, and questions from the players, management, and fans. Having a firm belief in their philosophies, these managers adopted the transformational (for an academic definition please see at the end) form of leadership.
The following piece will cover some of the most common terminologies used in Leadership literature with their academic definitions at the end. This article will also discuss the leadership lessons from the life events of these three football managers and how they changed the sport forever.
Total Football – Johan Cruyff
The 1970 FIFA World Cup, Mexico, was the first-ever FIFA World Cup to be telecasted on newly invented colour televisions. Through vivid colours, football started to become a more glamorous and entertaining sport for its television audience worldwide. Because of this development, the squads begin to think about playing an attractive style of football to serve the entertainment desires of the fans of their respective teams. The Netherlands was the first team to catch the eye of the world with their new form of playing football at the 1974 FIFA World Cup. The Dutch team cruised through the finals after defeating two South American heavyweights of the game at that time: Brazil and Argentina. Under the leadership of their captain and the reigning Ballon d’Or winner, Johan Cruyff, the team introduced a postmodernist (for an academic definition please see at the end) (new) style to play football coined as ‘Total Football.’
In Total Football, any outfield player of the team was allowed to take over the position of any other outfield player without changing the overall formation. It was a successful strategy against orthodox (and modernistic, for an academic definition please see at the end) man to man defence, which was the usual way of defending during those days. This attractive brand-new style of football came agonizingly close to winning the highest prize in the football world when the Dutch team took the one-nil lead in the opening minutes of the final. However, West Germany came back to win the match 2-1 at the end.
From a player to a manager
After retiring as a player, Cruyff got the opportunity to replicate his transformational leadership as FC Barcelona’s first team manager. He was recruited at the club on 4 May 1988 under the most controversial and difficult circumstances. The club had won one league title in the last fourteen years, and the whole first team was against the president. Six days before Cruyff’s appointment, one of the most unfortunate events happened. Twenty-one players and then head coach of the first team, Luis Aragones publically revolted against Josep Lluis Nunez, who was the president of FC Barcelona at that time.
Some severe changes were imminent, considering the context of the organization and the circumstances. To renew the squad, Cruyff sold fourteen players, and they were replaced with twelve new players. In the era of formations like 4-4-2 and 3-5-2, Cruyff was first to introduce 3-4-3. Moreover, the recruitment system at FC Barcelona was also revolutionized under Johan. Going against the general recruitment policy of the club, he signed various short players from the academy and other clubs who were technically excellent. A 1.70-meter tall midfielder, Eusebio was signed from Atletico Madrid while players like Guillermo Amor and Albert Ferrer were promoted from the Barcelona academy both less than 1.75 meters tall. Eventually, the three abovementioned players went on to represent the Catalan club for more than 200 occasions. To make his possession, passing, and movement-based ‘Total Football’ playing style successful, Cruyff invented new training drills. Rondo, which is one of the most famous football training exercises nowadays, was developed by Cruyff.
Comment to the tweet above – Johan Cruyff led FC Barcelona to their first-ever European Championship title in 1992 as a coach
The football culture
The influence of his transformational leadership was not only limited to the first team. He laid the foundation of a football culture (for an academic definition please see at the end) at FC Barcelona. As part of developing a football culture, La Masia, the modern FC Barcelona Academy, was established on Cruyff’s ideologies. He promoted talent ahead of physical attributes and eliminated the Prueba de la muneca (test of the wrist) at the Barca Academy. The Prueba de la muneca was conducted on all the academy players to check the height they will achieve ultimately. If it was found that the player is expected to grow below 1.80 meters, he was rejected from the academy[4].
Furthermore, he introduced fitness through football. Johan developed a unique short passing, possession, and retention of the ball through pressing based playing philosophy at FC Barcelona, which became characteristic from the grassroots level to all the way top to the first team. As a result of this culture, the club is regarded as one of the best in promoting academy players to the club’s first team. In the span of eight years as the head coach of Blaugrana (1988-1996), Cruyff helped the club to win eleven trophies, including the club’s first-ever European Cup in the year 1992. If Cruyff hadn’t amended the rules at the academy and developed a culture at FC Barcelona, the world would have never seen the players like Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi.
Johan Cruyff, antrenorul cu cele mai multe victorii din istoria Barça! El a creat „Dream Team”, care a câștigat prima Cupă Europeană. … Johan Cruyff, the coach with the most victories in Barça history! He created the "Dream Team", which won the first European Cup.#barçapic.twitter.com/3ENLsFc5GL
— PenyaBlaugranaBucharest (@BucharestPenya) April 25, 2020
Comment to the tweet above – Cruyff – Innovator, Researcher, Visionary, Revolutionary, Risk-taker, and a Leader
Summary of leaders who changed the leadership forever – Johan Cruyff
To summarize, Cruyff provided the modern leaders of the world with four important lessons to become successful. Firstly, Innovation was at the heart of everything the Dutch prodigy implemented both as a player and as a coach. He was always open to new ideas. Today’s globally accepted playing philosophy, ‘Total Football’, the most common means to practice football, ‘Rondo’, and an amazing move to beat the defender, ‘Cruyff Turn’ were some of his most noticeable inventions.
Secondly, Johan not only played and managed the sport, but he also studied the sport like a meritorious scholar. During his entire lifetime, he constantly examined for the avenues of improvements in playing style and coaching methods. Once he concluded his research on a certain issue, he stood behind his research and philosophies. Cruyff’s persistent and patience with his researched methodologies (especially during testing phases), made him one of the most iconic players and managers in history.
Thirdly, Johan was never shy of exterminating bad practices and stereotypes of the sport. He abolished long-practised Prueba de la muneca (test of the wrist) at the Barca Academy. By doing so he advocated for equal opportunity to play irrespective of physical attributes. FC Barcelona reaped rewards of his good work by producing world-class players like Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. Last but not the least, the three times Ballon d’Or winner taught us the importance of taking risks. He took the biggest risk when he agreed to become the gaffer of the Blaugrana at the time when the club was at the tip of its adversities and the rest is history. He personified the saying – the bigger the risk, the greater is the reward. Big risk coupled with his impeccable work ethics led Barcelona to unprecedented success during his eight-year reign as the manager.
Johan Cruyff, the winningest manager in Barça history, would have been 73 today. Johan was the father of the Dream Team, which won the Club's first European Cup in 1992.
But Barça's managerial Hall of Fame has plenty of other greats …
Though the footballing world recognizes Cruyff as one of the greatest players and managers, the iconic Dutch deserves to be mentioned in Leadership education as an illustration as well.
🔊 Bartomeu says that the club is talking to Johan Cruyff's family about a permanent tribute to the former Barça player and coach #FCBlivepic.twitter.com/W6Yzb6Q4wG
This was the first part of the new miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. Stay tuned for the second part, where will introduce our next great leader from the sports world, Arsene Wenger.
Transformational Leadership – An ideal style of leadership which promotes innovation. Transformational leadership can be defined as the set of five observable and learnable practices: challenge familiar organizational practices, inspire a shared vision among employees, enable employees to act in accordance with their vision, model the way for employees to perform, and encourage employees through recognition and celebration of success. In this type of leadership, a leader takes risks and initiates radical changes[5].
Postmodernism – A complex set of ideas that emerged in the later part of the twentieth century which promotes dynamics in roles, shifting of power, blurred boundaries among groups and individuals’ sensemaking, and horizontal interconnections rather than vertical hierarchies in an organization[6].
Modernism – A set of ideas that endorses specified roles, defined boundaries, vertical hierarchies, and centralization of power.
Culture – A set of values, beliefs, atmospheres, customs, and practices in the achievement of higher productivity and efficiency[7]
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Do you want to work in the sports industry? Do you love sports? Don’t just say that you love sports and think that you can work in the sports industry. You have to think deeper and identify your values, which can get you closer to your dream job. In this article, we will share why passion is important in order to work in the sports industry and also share three reasons why people want to work in the sports industry and what their passion is.
Values are your toolbox to your passion
At Sportidealisten we believe that working with a passion makes you work in a sustainable way. With this, we mean that you want to work at that job forever and that you hopefully will not feel tired and forced to go to work. Working for a long time will be and feel better if it is something you are interested in. One great example to understand and identify your passion is to think about what values you align with. At Sportidealisten, we strongly believe in values like Transparency, Innovative Mindset, Open-Minded, Trust, Inspiration and Loyalty.
We know how much it would mean to work with your passion, sports and we know the importance to support and work together. Our mission is to help you reach your own goal in the sports sector.
Why do people want to work with their passion, sports?
This is the very first start of our new mini-series of learning more about why people have a passion for working in sports and what makes them tick. From a project that was developed from the Covid-19 outbreak, we started to gather likeminded people that align with Sportidealisten’s values and drive.
In this first article you will learn why:
giving help and joy is a passion
sharing the best benefits of sports is a passion and,
it is easier to work if you have a passion for the work
Gratification as a passion
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – sorry to repeat it again! However, this ‘overused’ quote by Steve Jobs explains the best why I want to get involved in the sports industry.
My biggest motivation to work in a sports organization is the gratification of my soul with my utmost passion. I always had a desire to live a fulfilling life comprising of fun, joy, thrill, drama, challenges, and love. I want to live in a place where I can share my views and thoughts freely. A place where the people have the same interests as mine. An office where staff discusses new ideas, the match that happened last night, a workspace that has more friends and fewer colleagues.
I have always loved sports because it brings people together irrespective of their nationality, language, ethnicity, color, and any other means of discrimination. It fills people with joy and provides them a reason to live. Most importantly, through sports one could achieve the penultimate human satisfaction by improving the lives of others and making them happy. Fortunately, I have found myself the “work” that I love. It is only a matter of time until I find the right opportunity. Till then, can you suggest me a more satisfying life?
— Shrey
Shrey Upadhyay, MSc Business Management in Sport
PS. He is looking for opportunities in Media, Marketing, and Business Development (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Shrey.
Physical activity is a free tool to bring well-being
My passion for sports came from a story in high school. Physical activities are, in general, not encouraged much at schools in China. Without regular sports activity, I remembered that even I couldn’t reach the national standard’s test for 800 m running.
I once became overweight and struggled to get the perfect body for years until I entered the sports and fitness industry. I started to know why people were passionate about sports and their stories. After some time I finally chose to pursue my Master’s degree in Sports Industry Management at Em-lyon Business School. For me, sports can be life-changing. I am proud to be part of the field of sports and how sports can get people engaged and bring well-being to society.
PS. She is looking for opportunities in areas like Administration, Communication, Coordinator roles, Management, Marketing, Sales and Support (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Xiangyi.
I have played football for my school and college at the national level and have represented them in various tournaments. I always wanted to become a footballer but couldn’t do it because of the limited resources in my country, India.
That was when I thought of pursuing a career in sports after my college graduation because then I could still continue to work in the field that I liked the most. I believe that if you are passionate about something then it becomes easy to follow that thing and you can also progress in that with a smile on your face.
And, since I was once part of a team myself I would like to be directly associated with the playing team of a club as I know I will understand it better and that it would bring me closer to what I wanted to pursue.
PS. He is looking for opportunities in areas like Administration and Management roles (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Sanchit.
3 reasons why passion is important for working in sport?
Thank you Shrey, Xiangy and Sanchit for sharing your reasons why you have a passion for sports and why you want to work in the sports industry. These are three unique stories and people and they are all three determined to share their passion and values in the sports industry.
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The quick guide to shaping up your networking skills with LinkedIn
Have you ever thought: “How do I find a job and why does everyone tell me to network and what does it mean?”. You are not the first one to think so. No matter how you find out about a job, we usually need to talk with someone, either to ask questions about the role or when we do the job interview. We are humans and we like to connect with each other in order to build trust and add value to each other. The secret of how to manage all of this is not a single answer. However, LinkedIn is a great platform to get you going and to shape up your networking skills and to increase your chances to get a job. In the following text, we will give you an introduction to the key elements of LinkedIn and how you can get noticed in this busy and crowded world.
What is LinkedIn and why do I need it?
LinkedIn is recognized as a professional networking and business platform. It was founded in 2002 but was officially launched in 2003. LinkedIn has more than 645 million users across more than 200 countries. Their mission and the reason why you need it is basically, great opportunities to connect with people from around the whole world and become more productive and successful.
Below are 7 steps on how you can get going with your networking. Let us start with step 1.
Step 1: Setting up a LinkedIn account
You can jump over this if you already have a LinkedIn account. But if you don’t have an account yet, start but creating one today. 40% of the monthly LinkedIn users access it on a daily basis. Despite this, you only have a few minutes to make an impact. Make sure you set up your profile today and then head over to step 2 and start to build attention so you can get noticed.
Step 2: A picture improves your chances to be found and connected
A lot of people on LinkedIn have a profile picture, but also a lot of people haven’t. Did you know that adding a picture increases your chances 14 times to be viewed by others?
At LinkedIn, the main focus is being professional, either connect with new potential clients, build your brand, find potential employers, and additional focus from a serious perspective. This makes it very important that you have a picture but also if you want to be viewed as a serious and trustworthy person that your picture is professional and serious. And please, don’t have a picture from a crazy party or a picture on your cat. To give you an example, here is our founder Jakob’s profile picture.
Adding a picture increases your chances 14 times to be viewed by others
Step 3: Your title is like your 8 seconds of attention
At LinkedIn, you have a short field called “Title” next to your profile picture, where you can add where you work or study. This is the place where it is very normal for people to decide if a person is interesting to look into more and head over to your profile. But it has also a great impact if someone would like to connect with you or not. And as mentioned in Step 1, the attention span is quite short, you need to be clear and interesting.
You might think: “but what if I don’t have a job and I am not studying?”. Well, don’t worry. Even people who have a job might not have their working title in this field. You might be looking into finding a new job and therefore you should be thinking about what job role you are searching for. Let us say you want to work with Sports Marketing. Then you could edit your title to:
Looking for a job in Sports Marketing
5+ experience in Sports Marketing, open to new opportunities
Step 4: Your personal summary, your CTA
Let us imagine you have caught someone’s (ours) attention and we clicked on your profile. We have seen your title and now we will have to scroll through your previous experiences (that you hopefully have added). This could be time-consuming and we might not read your profile as you would like us to do. But, hold on, there is a better way to get a quick sense of you, which is by reading a summary. Adding a summary at your profile could help the person who visits your profile page to learn a bit who you are as a person, what your values are, or what you have done and wants to work with. This section could actually help you getting the visitor’s attention and communicating whatever you would like the visitor to know about you.
Your summary is the text box at the top of your LinkedIn profile, just below your photo. It’s open-ended space (2,000 characters max) where you give an overview of your professional life.
Guide: how to craft a great LinkedIn Summary
There are so many different recommendations about how to write the summary. We don’t have the only answer, but from our experiences, we have a good guide on how to start your own summary. Think about answering the following keywords: Mission, Key Skills, Highlights/Awards, Values, Vision, Previous Experiences, Discussion Topics. Here you can check out how our founder, Jakob have done.
Mission – What you can help a potential visitor, e.g. you are driven to help people make sales efficient
Key Skills – Describe your key skills, e.g. expert on Microsoft Excel and 5 years of customer care experience
Highlights/Awards – Any highlights/awards, e.g. Top 10 innovators according to ABC newspaper
Values – What values do you believe in and stand for, e.g. trust, transparency and positivity
Vision – Where do you want to go in your career? e.g. Striving to make the world in better physical and mental health.
Previous Experiences – Write a few sentences about where you have been doing in the past few years, not a long story, but briefly provide a short summary.
Discussion Topics – any topics you are interested to discuss and network around
Step 5: Adding your experiences
As we mentioned earlier, your profile should have your previous experiences, both academics, and work-related experiences if you have both. And it doesn’t matter if you have had paid jobs or been a volunteer. All experiences count. Add one after another, and make sure to add some brief story to each experience about what you did there and also something you accomplished. For example:
Sales at ABC – at Sales ABC I had several responsibilities around our memberships and I called current and potential clients to sell them a membership to the upcoming season. I also took part in our strategy meetings and provided several campaign plans that improved our revenue by 5 % two years in a row.
Step 6: Try to connect with your current network
Now when you have set up your LinkedIn profile and have a good and professional page it is time to build that network you always wanted. In order to make it easy, to begin with, we recommend you to start searching for your current network. It is always hard at the begging of who to connect with, but usually, LinkedIn helps you with a suggestion of whom to connect with. Try it out, but don’t feel the need to do this right now. Instead, think about your friends, your current and former colleagues and student colleagues. From this stage, you get a solid base, but make sure you want to connect with them because you feel that they can help you in the future with advice, networks or that you feel that you could help them with the same thing.
Don’t just connect with people to have a network, try to think if you can add value to them or if they can add value to you. As soon as you start sending requests to connect you will be recommended by LinkedIn to connect with similar people to the one you sent a contact request. Who knows, maybe you find your future employer, co-founder, colleague through this?
Well, try out LinkedIn, stay connected, and try to make a visit to LinkedIn as a daily habit. Good luck!
Step 7: Join us on LinkedIn
Now when you are ready to connect and network at LinkedIn we welcome you to join us on LinkedIn. Make sure you are not missing out anything from Sportidealisten. Click on the symbol below and follow us at LinkedIn!
Getting a job in the sports field is quite tough and competitive, so how should you do it? How do you find a dream job in sports? We have talked with Jessica Pettersson that found problems in sports and therefore created her dream job in sports instead of searching for it. Today she helps sports clubs that don’t have time for administrative work, which is more or less the majority of the sports clubs at least in the Nordics. In this interview, she will explain how she did to achieve her dream job in sports and she also provides advice on how you can create yours and lastly Jessica will give some tips on how to recruit in sports.
MEET THE SPORTS INDUSTRY FROM THE INSIDE
Jessica Pettersson – Founder and CEO at Föreningskraft Education background: Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet and Child and Youth Sciences at Stockholm University
What experiences can get you a sports job?
Hi Jessica and thank you for taking the time to share your experiences in the sports industry. Let us start by asking, who is Jessica?
I am a public health scientist combined with a master’s degree in Child and Youth sciences. After my studies I found myself in the volunteer sector and worked both at Friends as well as Min Stora Dag (My Special Day). To date I am the CEO of Föreningskraft, where we help sports clubs with administrative work, in areas which they themselves can’t do it, don’t have the time for or doesn’t want to do.
Now, let’s get further into sports. Why did you choose to go into sports and work in the sports field?
I have been involved in the sports field since my parents put me in gymnastics at the age of 4. I have then continued working in sports in different roles like an athlete, a coach, a board member, a referee and more.
Sport has given me so much and therefore I want to give back to the community in every way I possibly can. It is a big movement in Sweden and sport is where I have gained joy for a physical active lifestyle and knowledge about leadership.
WHY YOU SHOULD CREATE A CAREER IN THE SPORT INDUSTRY
How did you come up with the company, Föreningskraft?
There are two reasons why I founded Föreningskraft.
I was part of creating a sports club several years ago, and it has steadily grown. However, the board had to work a lot with the operations making sure everything was working. The aim since the beginning has been to be able to hire one person full time. Today we have quite some time left in order to get a good economy and working tasks that are attractive to hire someone part or full time. Then the idea struck me; what if I, for example, worked 25 % in several clubs? Then I could build myself build an attractive work week.
The second reason was more about being more flexible with work hours and work spaces. In order to work in a sports club, you are not necessarily required to work in a physical sports office. A lot of work is today managed with your computer and your phone. By starting up Föreningskraft I also manage to be part of creating a modern work space, where when and where you work are decided by the employee himself or herself.
Right now, we are two people in the company and we are working with different sports clubs where the amount of work varies, from 10 to 50 % per sports club. In this way Föreningskraft has built a network with club officers, sports administrators and project managers, where we exchange experiences, competencies and helping each other. This becomes very valuable since many of the sports clubs only have one employee, which often makes the work quite lonely.
HOW TO GET A JOB IN SPORTS AND THE ROLE OF EDUCATION
You have been a student before and studied health. Can you describe and explain how your student experience was like and how that may have helped you achieve a career in the sports industry?
During my bachelor’s degree I got to know a little bit about everything. This was also the time when I gained an interest in evaluation and this has become a big help when several sports clubs are asking for help to evaluate their own clubs. The evaluations have been everything from surveys to interviews with parents, athletes, board members and coaches.
During my masters I learned how to think outside the box and approach different situations and challenges from different perspectives. This has been a crucial part of my career when I am working with sport clubs and their own club development and efficiency.
What steps did you take to close the gap from being a student to becoming a sport professional?
The first step was to start up my own sports club. Within that process I have learned many things about club development, how a sports club is being managed, what challenges comes along and how you can solve those. I have also further deepened my understanding about how a sports club is working and is structured. This is probably the main reason to why I today have the opportunity to work with several projects in different sports clubs.
What does a founder in sports do?
With your current role, what are your different tasks?
Since I am working with several sports clubs there are different challenges and tasks. To give an example, at one club I am managing and developing their website and guidelines. At another I am a project manager helping a club with different competitions and camps and in a third example I might work on coach development, invoices or efficiency within the organization. This variation gives me the joy working at Föreningskraft.
As the CEO of Föreningskraft my main responsibilities are HR, finance and marketing. I have the main responsibilities making sure customers as well as employees are satisfied and getting what they are promised.
Three important skills in THE SPORT INDUSTRY
What three skills are important to step into the sports field
Good questions! I believe in the following:
You need to be a person who is structured and can manage several tasks at the same time.
You should have gained some kind of volunteer experience. It is important to understand why people work for free and put in hours of work into the sports field without earning a single cent.
Lastly, you need a big passion for sports and the sports community. You don´t necessarily have to have any experience or passion for a specific sport, as long as you love sports in general. But knowing what’s required and understanding the bigger picture is key to bringing yourself and your surroundings into an engaged working place.
Do this if you would like to work in sports
What advice do you have for students or other inexperienced job seekers who would like to work in sports?
Create your own experiences! That is what I did when I built a sports club together with friends. By working with our own sports club I got to learn how to be a manager and as of today, I am a paid sport manager in a sports club, just to mention one of the roles I carry.
However, you don’t have to build your own sports club. You could also volunteer on bigger sporting events, or become a coach in sports. Another way to go could be to step into a committee in a sports club like the educational committee, where you can be part of the development in sports.
How to hire in sports?
Now, heading towards the end. You have recently hired your first colleague to Föreningskraft. Congratulations! Could you explain how you know that the time was now to hire? And how did you know who to hire?
For me it was all about timing. There was one job from a sports club that came in at the right time.
Föreningskraft has been up and running since the fall of 2017 and I have now become experienced with the job and I have achieved a good structure that suits me and the sports clubs. Together with a colleague, we can grow this company and reach the next level.
I received far more applications that I ever expected, which I am very happy about. Many of them were a good match for the job. And why I chose the one I have as a colleague today? Well I had done an analysis of the needs that the sports clubs had and I tried to match that with the applicants. I also considered the right applicant based on an engagement for the company, previous work experiences, education and personality.
Advice to hire in sports
At last, could you give other sports organizations your three best hiring advice?
Do the heavy work, build a job post that really match with what you are actually looking for.
Take a step back and look into your organization with an objective lens and ask yourself, what do the organization need right now? Then try to hire a person to fill that need.
Contact Föreningskraft and we will solve your sports club’s needs with the help of sharp administrators with a “doer” mentality.
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2020 started at a normal pace and a lot of people were looking forward to excelling in their studies or their work in the sports field. However, from early March, the whole world slowed down and unfortunately, a lot of people was fired from their jobs. Not only that, but a lot of people were also forced to be in quarantine or at least work from home. How did we all handle this global change? Not even everyone can work from home. Denmark’s biggest football club made sure they prepared for situations like this. Let us look into what they have done and what you can do in order to be adaptable and not missing out in the future.
Sport clubs most valuable asset
2020 was a big challenge for all of us. Tons of meetings were canceled and with a sports perspective, a lot of Annual General Meetings (AGM) were forced to be postponed. But in times like the pandemic 2020, we realize that we needed to do everything together, now more than ever before but with a flexible approach. 2020 was the start of the time to be digital and adaptable.
Image credit: Element 5 Digital
One sports club that was already prepared for the challenges of not running their General Assembly in a physical setup only was BK Skjold, Denmark’s biggest football club. Why? Well, they had already looked into and adapted a digital solution to voting online. In all these years, especially in Sweden, we have had quite challenging times when it comes to the AGMs. Despite the big football clubs’ big amount of supporters and members during the games, they are not showing up at the AGMs even though they have the right to vote and participate in the club’s operations. A normal amount of members on the AGMs for the biggest clubs could be about 250 when they have 5-10 000 members. For example, IFK Göteborg with an average of 12 000 attendance had 238 members with voting right at this year’s AGM.
And from a Nordic perspective, the AGM is the decision meeting where alla members can vote for decisions that can change the whole club´s future. To put it in other words, the biggest and most critical meeting of the year with a big impact by a club´s supporters.
Sure, there might be a lot of people who can’t make it for a specific date and time. But there are still a lot of people not showing up at the AGMs. But why haven’t most of us adapted ourselves like BK Skjold? With digital voting, more people can participate without the stress of time and place to be located.
BK Skjold, Denmark’s biggest club runs digital
Image credit: BK Skjold
A few years ago BK Skjold presented a digital voting solution to their 1800 members. A digital solution called Assembly Voting that could help the club to enable more members to take part of decisions and vote online. The start of a digital transformation was from one AGM where they had 12 participating people at one physical meeting. They thought of a digital solution with the vision to share democracy to the whole club, which means all the members no matter where they lived.
How to grow a member-driven sports club?
The end result for BK Skjold and their online approach can be viewed below according to their President, Jens Sørensen:
144 members voted that is more than 10 times as they usually get
They got 10 candidates to 4 board roles, which never happened before
They elected a qualified treasurer and an internal accountant – none of these positions have really been used for real during many years
24 people came to the physical AGM – that is twice as the normal number
They received 15 motions through the digital solution
9 of these 15 came from different members, which is another huge step for them.
What can digital voting do for sports clubs?
Thanks to digital solutions there are many great opportunities and reach is just one of them. From this story we can list several good benefits of digital voting in sports:
get more members to participate at AGM or other meeting points for members
makes it easy for members to be included and involved at different decisions
can create a bigger community and togetherness among the members
provides a greater variation among the suggestions about the club’s development
increases the input for the future of the sports club
gives members a greater insight into the club’s operations
builds transparency and trust about the club’s policy and decisions
Another thing that would be interesting to discuss is all the opportunities that arise with a digital voting system. Why not allowing the members to more often be part of the operations than once a year. As a member-owned club, you could and probably should involve the members more often than once a year. With the online voting system, you could run a voting process during one day or why not a week when you might want to decide if the club should create a special day for the fans or if the club should participate in the local community, etc.
Feel free to let us know what you would do or if you done this in your club.
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Tons of people start every year a sport management education in order to later work in sports, to get that dream job. There are also lots of unanswered questions or hidden tips of how you actually getting through your education and getting closer to that dream job in sports. Therefore, you will get some advice about what to know as a sport management student.
Networking breakfasts are both tasty and inspiring
In early February, our founder, Jakob Wikenstaal, had the honor to talk to current sport management students at his former sport management university, Malmo University. During the past decade, sport management program have built up a great tradition at the program where a few networking sessions are taken place throughout each year. This is usually a setup like a breakfast event (of course free breakfast, need to think about the students) where about three people from the sports industry come and talk about their work experiences and sometimes also ask for interns or other help.
In the past few years, these networking breakfasts have been developed into always inviting alumni to do one talk, in order to inspire what other graduates have been up to after the studies. Jakob have been invited a few times and he always felt proud being asked to do a talk and to have the opportunity to talk about his journey so far. It is always great to show that the future sport managers have a lot of opportunities ahead.
This is what sport management students should be aware of
What Jakob did talk about during this breakfast was about what sport management students should be aware planning ahead. Jakob always focusing on how far you can go by trying out new tasks and being curious to meet new people.
How to get a job in sports?
Many students in sport management enter their first days at the university and have a hard time understanding how and what they can do to get a job in sports. But that is nothing to be scared of. Jakob had the same challenges. It is hard to know what skills you have and what value you could add to your surroundings.
How Jakob made this trip? Well, he created his own path. Jakob has been (and always is) curious and asking questions to experienced people in the sports industry. He is also reading a lot of different books, news, and trends on the web. All of these sources gives him a lot of inspiration and knowledge. Make sure to have different perspectives with different sources, which gives you a critical and more creative and open mindset and this has also been a good benefit in his career.
Jakob Wikenstaal´s personal advice to find a job in sports:
When looking at jobs, one working title doesn’t say everything about what that job means and require and if you would like it
Ask people that already know
Go out and volunteer
Keep asking yourself if you do and have tried tasks that you enjoy
Be unique and have your own USP
When it comes down to your name and another candidate to get the job, you need to make sure the recruiter chooses you. How? Well, you need to be different. Be unique and make sure you show it. This will be your unique selling point, USP. Find out at least one thing that is your unique selling point, why YOU? In order to get there, here are four ways to become a bit better than your competitors:
Do more than your future colleagues/job seekers
Read a little bit more
Get to know one person more
Say yes to that extra task
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Do you know about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)? In Sweden, this is the main topic in the sports movement. Since the start of 2020 this is a law in Sweden. We all need to rethink how we work in sports and how we treat our children.
The Swedish sports movement:
About 20 000 sports clubs
About 3 150 000 participants/members in sports clubs (the majority are in the age 6-14)
About 900 000 volunteers
The future sports generation
The Swedish sports movement is an important part of Swedish society. A lot of children growing up participating in a sport. This makes the sports movement an important part of raising our future, therefore the importance of treating our children with their rights is a big one.
Every year the youth sports clubs are getting funds from the government, however, this requires that the organisations are running from a child rights perspective. This is still something that hasn’t been managed enough and therefore the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child became law in Sweden 2020. This means that all the volunteers in sports and sports clubs need to raise the knowledge level about Children’s Rights in sports.
What is in the Convention?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, or UNCRC, is the basis of all of Unicef’s work. It is the most complete statement of children’s rights ever produced and is the most widely-ratified international human rights treaty in history. You can read the full convention (pdf), or just a summary (pdf), to find out more about the rights that are included.
All children have the same rights and the same values.
Article 3:
It is the child’s best that should be a priority around anything where children are involved.
Article 6:
Each child has the right to survive and develop.
Article 12:
Children have the right to speak and be listened to.
What do these four articles mean and what can you do about them? Below are these further explained and in what situations they could be important to think about.
About the right to be involved, the same rights and values!
In areas with big houses and wealthy families, the sports clubs are doing good. The consequence, the less wealthy neighborhoods, and their local sports clubs are less developed and have fewer resources to include everyone.
How do we handle all sports that are splitting up the rules, like with ice hockey with ceratin rules for girls versus boys. Girls aren’t allowed to tackle.
What about para-sports? How can clubs and board members include more children in para-sports? Make sure to talk with your board and ask if they ever thought about including para-sports.
About the child’s best around anything where children are involved.
Sports aren’t made for children. From the beginning children aged 13-14 years old started to participate in sports. This could be one reason why we have to rethink youth sports.
If you think we can adapt the children to sports, think again. We have to adapt sports to children. League tables should be applied later because this reduces the stress on performance at an early age, which is one reason why many children quit sports early in their life.
Coaches are not all the same. Some learn by books, some by listening and some in other ways. We all need to rethink how to better teach and educate our surroundings in order to better treat children and taking decisions about children.
About each child’s right to survive and develop
How does it look with injuries in your sports club? Especially injuries at an early age. Will they be scarred for life and can’t practice any sport in the future?
Does any child in your sports club being bullied, discriminated in any way? Looks different, etc.
About the child’s right to speak and be listened to
For a lot of children, school and sports are very similar. They are both managed by adults and have fixed times. One consequence of this is that children get tired of school and thus they feel the same about sports.
What would happen if we could actually change this in sports and ask the children what they want to do and make it different than school?
Talk to children, because then you will know what they think! Maybe they want to play something that is far from your sport? Try it out.
Participation is one way to reduce the number of children that are quitting sports. The forecasts to stay are much better with participative processes. Try to propose different educations or activities. Just ask!
Do you have youth counseling groups? Or anyone under 25 years old at the board? Those are different ways of listening to youth.
Emergency plans if somethings happens or about to happen
You should develop an emergency plan! What can you and your sports organisation do if something happens, that shouldn’t happen? If a child gets hurt, who should you talk to? If an accident happens during a youth game, what should you do? There are several examples about this in the handbook below.
Handbook for how to work with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in sports
Thanks to a lot of different people, among these, the United Nations and two sports researchers, Johan R Norberg and Susanna Hedenborg, they have developed a great handbook for all of us. It contains summarized research and provides good overviews of how the convention could be interpreted in sports.
Furthermore, you can get good concrete tips on how to act and behave in your local sports club. For example, how to talk with children, how to involve them and understanding if they are worried.
The following three sporting organisations, Brynäs IF, Marathongruppen and Svenska skidförbundet are involved with United Nations in different ways today and are working with the Rights of the Child in sports:
Brynäs and UNICEF collaborating with a project called A good start, with the aim to give more children a good start in life with education, healthcare, and different leisure activities.
Since 2018, the Marathongruppen arranging “Stafesten för UNICEF” at several places in Sweden. It is a running race that supports UNICEF’s work to help more children with a good start as possible in their lives.
The Swedish Ski Federation (Svenska Skidförbundet) are working together with Håll Sverige Rent (a non-profit organization that promotes recycling and combats litter through public awareness campaigns and environmental education) with the project, All children have rights. It is a project that helps children to have fun and play in the snow, no matter your background.
Lessons learned
The Swedish sports movement is an important part of Swedish society. We are raising our future, therefore the importance of treating our children with their rights is a big one. This is still something that hasn’t been managed enough and therefore the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child became law in Sweden 2020. This means that all the volunteers in sports and sports clubs need to raise the knowledge level about Children’s Rights in sports.
It is hard to remember all 54 articles about the Rights of the child. But start with these four points to better understand youth sports:
Article 2:
All children have the same rights and the same values.
Article 3:
It is the child’s best that should be a priority around anything where children are involved.
Article 6:
Each child has the right to survive and develop.
Article 12:
Children have the right to speak and be listened to.
There are many things to keep in mind. But most importantly, we need to rethink how we are treating our future generation in sports. We need to talk with the children, listen to them, how to involve them and understanding if they are worried. It starts with you and me, right here and now!
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What does it take to work in sports and to work in the Premier League? It is time to share experiences and valuable tips from people in the sports industry. This month’s sports job spotlight is a person who started as a student and took the 1 % approach in order to find her dream job in sports.
How are you doing? I am happy to connect with a person who is sharing a passion for sports.
You recently got a new job in sports, congratulations! As a person who runs a sports jobs platform with the mission to help more people finding their dream job in sports, I would be curious to ask you questions about your previous role in order to inspire more people finding their dream job in sports 🙂
Hi Jakob, Thanks for your kind words! Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Ah, that is very kind of you. Let us get right into it.
First questions.
– Why did you decide to pursue a career in sports?
– How did you get involved with Southampton FC?
I wanted to pursue a career in sport as it has a wonderful ability to bring people together. I knew that it was an industry that would be exciting, with no two days being the same, whether that was as a player or in the back office within the club. In regards to data analytics in sport, I knew I wanted to be apart of an innovative industry after being exposed to the work of Billy Bean and Bill James. It fascinated me how you could quantify elements of an industry that at times runs on emotion.
I was very fortunate that following my masters at Loughborough University London, there was a job opening in the Research and Insights department at Southampton FC. The job mirrored exactly what I had learned previously in modules on the course – so it was a dream come true! Fortunately, I grew up in Winchester just down the road from Southampton so I’ve always been a fan of the club and used to play as a kid for the girls’ team so it felt like a bit of a homecoming.
Many thanks for these answers, Harriet!
That sounds like a great story. And, you got back home 🙂
I certainly agree with no two days being the same! So you did enjoy Loughborough then?
I loved my time at Loughborough and can’t speak highly enough of the place.
How to go from sport studies to a sports job?
How were your student experiences from Bachelor’s and Master’s and how did it help you to get a career in the sports industry? I mean, did Southampton FC only recruit you based on a Master?
And, what steps did you take to close the gap from being a student to working in the sports industry?
I’d say my masters definitely helped my chances of gaining a job in the sports industry. However, a lot of work outside of the classroom took place to make sure that I gave myself every opportunity to be exposed to the industry. I volunteered a lot at various sports events as a videographer, reporter and data analyst to make sure that I was getting in front of the right people to try and show that I was someone that they should take a chance on.
Happy to hear that Harriet. I had my guesses that you probably had done some extra work. At least according to me, I feel companies require something more than just an education.
And does Southampton FC engage and collaborate with any sport management/science university?
We have an academic partnership with Southampton Solent University currently 🙂
Okay. That is good. I guess most of the bigger clubs have some academic collaborations.
I haven’t but I’ve started reading up on it and it looks great!
We will actually host our next Sport Management conference in London at your university, which will be mid-September 2020. So pretty close for you and maybe your colleagues and network. We (the EASM board) will actually visit Loughborough University London at the end of November 🙂 Looking forward to visiting it already!
I hope you enjoy your visit! Yeah, I’m sure some of us would be interested in attending 😊
Thanks! I think you would like it. Do you also have any network and common events you go to among the premier league clubs?
There are certain Premier League forums that those higher up than myself attend, and we’ve started to see the likes of Facebook run Premier League only events for clubs to give them hints and tricks to getting the most out of their content on the site.
Aha. It sounds like exciting stuff ahead.
Advice on how to enter a new sports job
Last three questions that I am very interested to know from your perspective.
– What is your advice for other people just entering a new sports job?
Enjoy it! The sports industry can be a fast-paced place to work but that doesn’t mean that you should become overwhelmed and not enjoy the fact that you are hopefully working in a role or industry that you’ve always wanted to be in.
– What do you see as the top 3 necessary skills in order to break into the sports industry? It could be soft/business skills etc.
I’d say the business skills can be taught, but what can’t be taught is the soft skills of:
(1) Being tenacious – create your own opportunities if you have to. The sports industry is a competitive one to get into, so anything that can give you an extra boost to help you stand out is always a plus.
(2) Having an eye for details – Within sport, it’s all about the 1 percent for improvement in both performance roles and commercial roles.
(3) Being a sponge – Try and soak up all of the experience that others have around you and be willing to listen to what they have to say. Sometimes people can be quick to want to prove themselves, rather than respecting others’ opinions or experiences. I’m still learning every day from my colleagues, even those that may be younger than me as they bring something new to the business.
– What tips do you have for students trying to get a career in the sports industry?
Expose yourself to as many opportunities as possible and try and put yourself in front of people to grow a network. If you can show others your passion to work within the sports industry, then it becomes infectious and memorable so people are more likely to keep you around and recommend you to others. Also, as cliche, as it sounds, don’t give up!
Wow! I really enjoy reading these answers, Harriet. I highly appreciate you and your time to put down these meaningful words and thoughts. I can really align with being tenacious, the 1 % and being the sponge. I actually need to ask you one last question before we say over and out. How do you manage to stay up to date and adding that 1%?
I’m glad you enjoyed them – thanks for asking me! 🙂
I spend the first 30 mins of my day at work having breakfast and reading outlets like SportsPro, Sports Techie and looking for opinion blogs on LinkedIn. I really enjoy learning from others and Ryan McCumber’s conferences (F.I.S.T and Sports Analytics World Series) are great resources to meet others and share ideas.
Thanks for sharing that too! You have certainly given a lot of energy and inspiration to the readers and to those that are looking into working in the sports industry and especially in the football industry. With that said I want to say, all the best of luck with your new job and I am looking forward to following your career in the world of sports!
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