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.
The Swedish top sports club, Malmö FBC, have signed a contract to use Sportidealisten’s service Virtual Sports Club Office. The floorball club, Malmö FBC, have made new a acquisition and strengthened the club’s children and youth activities by having contracted Sportidealisten as Youth Manager. Sportidealisten will support and focus on the children and youth section in the club, and work to ensure that everyone has the chance to play floorball and that Malmö FBC is the obvious choice as a meeting place for everyone.
Sportidealisten are happy to announce a new partnership with an inspiring sports club in Malmo, Sweden. Malmö Floorball Club have a big member base with lots of youth as well as two senior teams in the top divisions. The board of the club were looking for a new approach to take their club to the next level and found good value in Sportidealisten’s service Virtual Sports Club Office. The conclusion was that they needed to divide their tasks in the club to different people and that is where Sportidealisten’s service could come in a good fit to solve their needs.
Malmö Floorball Club (FBC) are innovators and together with Sportidealisten common values are shared when it comes to working smarter and trying new approaches that haven’t been done before. Malmö FBC’s vision is:
“Malmö Floorball Club is a lifestyle that, with passion and commitment, creates the boundless meeting place where personal dreams, diversity and entrepreneurial spirit are encouraged”
The Swedish top sports club, Malmö FBC, will strengthen the club’s children and youth activities with the support of Sportidealisten as a Youth Manager. Sportidealisten will support and focus on the children and youth section in the club, and work to ensure that everyone has the chance to play floorball and that Malmö FBC is the obvious choice as a meeting place for everyone.
Malmö Floorball Club is a sports club that chooses to make a difference! They believe in what they do and constantly challenge themselves. The feeling that everything is possible and the feeling of being able to be yourself and realize your personal dreams, are things that Malmö FBC wants to convey to everyone who in one way or another are involved with the club.
About Malmö FBC
On March 8th, 2007, Malmö FBC was formed. After a long process between board representatives from two former floorball clubs IBF Backalirarna and IK Stanstad, Stanstad’s members decided at an extra annual meeting to move Stanstad’s men’s team (div 2) to the city of Malmo, Sweden. Malmo, as a floorball resort, had long been a shadow on the floorball map and the two sports clubs wanted to create something bigger. This was the birth of Malmö FBC.
Malmö Floorball Club is a sports club with both a grassroots and elite focus, where the women’s / girls ‘and men’s / boys’ activities are given equal priority. Today, the gender distribution in floorball in Sweden is about 70% boys and 30% girls, but Malmö FBC believes that it can be 50/50 with the right attitude.
Sportidealisten supports the vision of Malmö FBC
“We are extremely excited to be a part of Malmö FBC. To be able to work for the sport I myself was raised up with and to be able to develop and contribute my lessons learned to leaders and players will be fun. We are looking forward to contribute and convey the societal benefits of sports to one of Malmö’s largest sports clubs. Getting to inspire tomorrow’s generation and being able to combine this with the sport I am most passionate about is very motivating”.
Jakob Wikenstaal, Founder, Sportidealisten
We are happy to start the collaboration with Sportidealisten who starts as a resource for our role as Youth Manager, one of the key roles in our club. We will gain cutting-edge expertise in the organization and build a long-term relationship with great opportunities for both parties.
Mats-Ola Nimgård, President, Malmö FBC
We are excited to be part of this journey with you Malmö FBC and let us enable more sports for the youth!
When you are in a situation where you need to increase your staff, you are also faced with a choice between several options. But question is, what is the best option for your organization? Should you ask your employees and volunteers to do a bit more? Or maybe you should hire a new employee? Maybe renting or outsourcing could be the optimal option? One of the aspects to look at is what is most profitable financially. In the sports world, we know how difficult this situation is and that usually we think it is too challenging to think about anything else than hiring or not hiring. With this article, we will help you keep track.
To hire in sports – more costs, but cheaper in the long run
When you hire in sports, you take on a great deal of responsibility and make an investment financially. Not only do you pay salary once a month, but also a variety of other costs. First and foremost, you pay for the often time-consuming recruitment process. Once you have hired someone, there is an employer contribution for each salary, pension costs and costs such as holiday and sickness compensation. Therefore, you as an employer even pay when the employee is unable to work. However, you do not need to add any extra compensation to a staffing company och consultancy, which usually means that it can be cheaper in the long run and you control everything internally.
For outsourcing and renting in sports – fewer costs and needs-based
When you rent staff or outsourcing your tasks, you usually pay a fixed hourly cost to the staffing company. This is generally more expensive than with an employment – on the other side there are many costs you will avoid. When you rent someone, it is the staffing company and not you who is the employer. This means that you hand over everything from salaries and employer contributions and various benefits to them. In addition, you can think more of needs-based, which means, you only need to get in new people during the period when it is actually needed instead of all year round. This means that you will only pay for the time that the staff is actually at the workplace and working, while you save time (which is also money) as you do not have to think about administration and recruitment.
What is most profitable depends on your needs
In terms of cost, there are both pros and cons to both alternatives. What is most economical for you simply depends on your needs in your sports organization. If you are looking for recruiting in sports for a long time to come and do not have large shifts in the workload, it can be most advantageous to hire staff in the sports industry. If you have a more varied need, where workloads vary season to season, then you would benefit to have people for a shorter period, which renting or outsourcing would be your best option. This is perfect if you want to avoid spending time and money on the administration, you have a lot to gain from hiring staff or outsourcing your workload.
Additional benefits with outsourcing in sports
If you get an assignment but do not have staff to carry it out, you get zero costs, but at the same time zero income because you don’t have people to carry out the work. When you as an organization really need that income you will be willing to pay more to really get the skills the work demands. When time is short and there is a big opportunity to bring in new income to the sports club renting or outsourcing could be a great investment in order to develop the sports club’s strategic priorities and ambitions.
Here are some additional benefits that could guide you in your future decisions:
• A way to meet tougher international competition. “Everyone chases time and has shorter and shorter foresight. Orders and deliveries, everything should be done in less time. If you do not complete the assignment, someone else will take over ”.
• Expert help when recruiting. Faster and easier to get the right skills. Opportunity to test staff and hire employees that you are happy with. You avoid costs for incorrect recruitment.
• The staffing/outsourcing company pays for long-term sick leave, rehabilitation and work clothes.
• Get help to organize and streamline operations.
• Cheaper to rent than hire fixed-term staff.
• Acquires freedom of appeal. It takes time and commitment to bring in and get rid of your own employees. Smaller personnel departments are required.
• Staffing and outsourcing companies like Sportidealisten are better than the National Public Employment Service at matching jobs with employees.
Curious to learn more about how you could benefit from outsourcing or hiring in sports?
During the spring of 2021, the world’s biggest football tournament, Gothia Cup was looking for a new colleague to join their team. Sportidealisten helped them on their journey to find their dream team. In this article, we will share about Gothia Cup and how we helped Gothia Cup to recruit a sports job seeker.
As you may know, Gothia Cup has been the highlight of the year for every young footballer. Not only is it a place for footballers, but it is also a big organization that requires a lot of work to be done behind the scenes. Below is a quote from one of many who has been part of the Gothia Cup tournament.
I am proud to be part of the huge Gothia Cup Family. The tournament is part of my life. It is amazing to see how Gothia has grown and I am so fortunate year after year to get to spend time with the young people whose lives are changed through this incredible experience. I love Gothia Cup!
Patricia Espinosa Mexico
About Gothia Cup
Gothia Cup is the world’s largest and most International youth football tournament. Each year, around 1700 teams from 80 nations take part and they play 4500 matches on 110 pitches.
Gothia Cup was first held in 1975. The tournament was started by the football clubs BK Häcken and GAIS and a local newspaper, since the early 80’s the tournament is own entirely and solely by BK Häcken.
The organization
The organization consists of eight full-time employed staff and during the tournament more than 2500 people work.
More than a football tournament
Getting involved in children’s conditions other than on the football pitch and outside Sweden has always been an important part in Gothia Cup. Their schools in Congo, Gothia Special Olympics Trophy and SKF’s Meet the World are an example of that.
Through the years, over a million players from a total of 149 countries have participated in the tournament.
Gothia Cup starts a new tournament in Mexico
Gothia Cup expands across the Atlantic Ocean. In January 2022, the first edition of Gothia Cup Cancun will be played.
– Mexico is a genuine football country, and it feels extra fun to be able to implement the new tournament now, to be able give the youths hope and faith about the future again, after such a long lockdown due to the pandemic, says Dennis Andersson, general secretary at Gothia Cup. Read the full story here.
We believe that it is important to make a tournament a lifelong memory. With moments for everyone – moments of harmony and fellowship – moments where everyone comes together.
During the spring of 2021, Gothia Cup announced a new role to help them with their event. The Tournament Secretary, Jonas Berglund shared this on LinkedIn and Sportidealisten’s founder Jakob asked him how the response had been. Jonas told Jakob that they have received many applications already.
Jakob asked Jonas if he wanted to post on the sports job platform, Sportidealisten too. And the answer was yes!
How did it go? You will soon find out, first we want to share how it works.
Do you need to create an account or how does it work to post a sports job at Sportidealisten?
If you are an employer looking to find a new colleague, you are able to post your job ads for free at Sportidealisten. You don’t need an account or pay upfront.
You simply send us an email or contact us here. You can send a job ad completely by yourself or getting help from us and we will set it up for you. We call this being flexible, adaptable and quality assurance.
Gothia Cup found their dream team at Sportidealisten
Now back to how we helped Gothia Cup finding a new colleague.
From the day Jonas said yes to us to post the job, it only took a few weeks until Jonas got back to us and told us this:
“We have now found a candidate that we have hired for the position. I even think she found the ad via your site! Wonderfully.”
Before the expired date was reached we took down the job ad and since Jonas was so satisfied with our help he also shared a quote from the candidate, Jenny who found the sports job at Sportidealisten.
What is it like to be part of Gothia Cup?
Jenny shares her thoughts on the new job as Tournament Secretary within the project volunteers, and what is it like to be part of Gothia Cup.
It will be incredibly fun and exciting to start my next chapter with the team at Gothia Cup. As a young football girl I fantasized about participating, now I look forward to helping and developing successful tournaments for youth teams, officials and the audience. After a long pandemic, we are all looking forward to return to big festive events and it is a super interesting time to join the team at Gothia Cup!
Jenny Söderman
Work at Gothia Cup
If you want to work at the team of Gothia Cup yourself, stay tuned for more opportunities coming up at Sportidealisten.
One of the things that will change the workforce in 5 years is “Remotopia”. It is all about working from home. Less than 5% of workers did their jobs remotely before 2020. Now, more than half of knowledge workers work remotely. Even though remote working arrangements are new to many sports clubs and workers, a lot of them have understood that they need to think and collaborate in different ways than before. In this article, we go through the concept of Remotopia, the benefits for an employer, the trends for the labor market and the hottest jobs right now.
At The World Economic Forum’s inaugural Pioneers of Change Summit where innovative leaders and entrepreneurs from around the world showcase their solutions, build meaningful connections and inspire change across the Forum’s diverse multistakeholder communities, four things were mentioned as changes of how we work in 5 years. One of these is “Remotopia”.
In the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a number of high-profile companies – Facebook, Google, PayPal, Shopify, Siemens, and more – have announced long-term or permanent remote work policies. But many in the sports industry have taken these steps towards a remote working environment too.
Remote working arrangements, which are new to many companies, sports clubs and workers, require vastly different ways of thinking and collaborating. For example, the emerging normalcy of distributed workforces will place even greater importance on soft skills such as communication, relatability, empathy, and flexibility. Even though the start of the pandemic had a big negative hit on the sports clubs all over the world, the majority have adapted to the digital setup and started to understand that they can work on a remote setup too.
The benefits of remotopia
Studies show that remote employees work longer hours and are more productive than in-office counterparts. Both workers and employers alike must learn to balance those gains with increased likelihood of burnout and feelings of isolation. Additionally, recruiting for knowledge workers can expand to new geographies and include previously underrepresented populations like disabled or chronically ill workers. These changing dynamics will move to the HR forefront in the years to come. Today you don’t need to find your next hire in your sports local area, you can actually find the right candidate living in another city!
Looking at today’s working environment most sports clubs have understood that they can complete more tasks remotely and have understood that this opens up new opportunities for the sports industry’s working force. As an HR manager, you can now hire and find more qualified candidates with the setup of a remote working environment. Also, you don’t have to consider the sports office as it was prior to the pandemic. Today the sports offices will be enough with space for some working areas, meanwhile, we will see more jobs being held on a remote basis. This means, fewer costs at the office and less time spent on travel, and more qualified time for work.
Remote jobs and skills in focus 2021
LinkedIn analyzed job trends in 15 countries around the world for its annual Jobs on the Rise report. The hottest jobs for 2021 can all be done remotely, according to work trends – meaning that people with strong digital skills will have a significant advantage in the jobs market. If you’re in the market for a new role, and you have the right skills for a position in e-commerce, healthcare, or digital content, you’re in luck: they’re all on the list of LinkedIn’s predictions for the hottest jobs of 2021.
The labor market will become more democratized since there are more opportunities for employees who may not be based in major urban hubs and this will open up access to fresh talent for employers. However, the key will not only be about bringing new great talents into your staff, but you also need to be prepared for how to introduce the new remote employees and sharing your culture and how things work in your sports club.
One step to consider when hiring your next remote employee is to assess your own team according to soft skills such as communication, relatability, empathy, and flexibility. If you feel that you are in need of strengthening these skills you could take the opportunity to upskill yourself and your team via all the great online education that you can find here.
If you’re in the market for a new role, and you have the right skills for a position in e-commerce, healthcare, or digital content, you’re in luck: they’re all on the list of LinkedIn’s predictions for the hottest jobs of 2021.
One of the things that will change the workforce in 5 years is “Remotopia”, which was mentioned at The World Economic Forum’s inaugural Pioneers of Change Summit where innovative leaders and entrepreneurs from around the world showcase their solutions, build meaningful connections and inspire change across the Forum’s diverse multistakeholder communities. Less than 5% of workers did their jobs remotely before 2020. Now, more than half of knowledge workers work remotely.
Even though remote working arrangements are new to many sports clubs and workers, a lot of them have understood that they need to think and collaborate in different ways than before. Skills to manage in 2021 and forward will be of greater importance on soft skills such as communication, relatability, empathy, and flexibility. Even though the start of the pandemic had a big negative hit on the sports clubs all over the world, the majority have adapted to the digital setup and started to understand that they can work remotely too.
The hottest jobs for 2021 can all be done remotely with employees who have strong digital skills. Positions in e-commerce, healthcare, or digital content, will be the hottest jobs of 2021. If you are looking for a job in sports, make sure to develop your skills today.
If you are an employer then hiring a remote worker could enable you to hire the best candidate available despite their location. This also provides opportunities to find talents with great digital skills that could help your sports club to be ready for the coming 5 years.
Find great people with a remote job
If you need help finding your next hire and want help finding a great future employee no matter if it is remote or not, Sportidealisten can help you. We know that finding the best candidates and sports job isn’t as easy as in many other industries and it takes a lot of time. That is why we are changing this, a niched platform where you can only find candidates and jobs from the sports industry.
Do you want to recruit in a smart way? Are you part of a growing sports organization and want to be part of our platform? We have daily new sports job seekers. Join today by posting a sports job free of charge.
No matter if you are recruiting for a small organization or a bigger one you will always need to ask some questions to your future employee in order to know if he or she could be a good fit in your organization and at the new job. In times like a pandemic when recruiting is mostly held remotely the interview questions are even more important now than ever before. In this article you will get 10 interview questions to assess a candidate’s soft skills and whether a candidate will be successful at your organization. Recruiting successfully will help you reduce churn, increase employee engagement, and find productive employees.
Top 5 difficulties expressed for retaining staff
Before the pandemic a 3-year European project, ESSA-Sport project was concluded in October 2019. A research aimed to create a debate within the sector on the key issues of skills and workforce development. The aim of the ESSA-Sport project, funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme, was to establish a European Sector Skills Alliance covering the full breadth of the sport and physical activity sector across the EU.
One of the highlights for this article is the Top 5 difficulties expressed for retaining staff.
Better pay by other organizations
Lack of career progression/pathways
Better pay offered in other job roles
Lack of financial stability for the organization
Lack of commitment to the job
Many organizations struggle to retain their staff but the question is more why they haven’t known these problems with their staff earlier and solved them before it is too late. One good way to solve these difficulties is to ask your staff how they are doing and listen to what they are saying both orally and with their body language. However, actually, everything starts at recruiting. When you hire a new staff member you should have understood the person and pointed down what their motivations are and how they view their future years at the organization. This is why we really want to help you avoid struggles with retention of staff and start with your next hire. Let us share a solid ground with questions to explore how your next staff member works and feels in different situations.
If you want to learn more about difficulties for recruiting managers to fill vacancies and more about the recruitment of sports employees and how to build a recruiting strategy, then you can learn more here.
The following questions are all suitable for every role you will ever hire, no matter level of it. At the end you can download our free bank of 47 interview questions.
First let us start with two questions for the hottest criteria, culture compatibility.
Culture compatibility recruiting questions
Culture compatibility is one of the hottest criteria that recruiters look for in candidates. When candidates align to your company culture, they are more likely to be engaged, productive, and less likely to churn within the first year. Here are 2 interview questions that you should be asking your candidates to ensure they fit in with your company culture.
What type of work environment do prefer and find motivating?
How do you handle stress/pressure?
Communication skills recruiting questions
Communication skills are necessary, regardless of an employee’s role. During the time at your company, hires will be required to communicate within your team, with different departments, and even customers and fans. These questions will help you understand your future employee’s communication skills.
Tell me about a time where you were the expert in a subject and had to explain to someone else. What was the subject and how did you go about explaining it to someone who was new or unfamiliar?
Give me an example of when you had to interact with a difficult client/customer. What were the circumstances of the interaction? How did you handle this difficulty? Were you able to change the experience from negative to positive?
Self motivation recruiting questions
Self motivation and commitment to your company are important soft skills that you’ll want in any hire. These 2 interview questions will help you determine if a candidate will be committed and happy at your company, or if they’ll churn immediately at the sight of a pay raise.
What motivates you to come to work everyday?
If you find yourself stuck doing repetitive work, how do you motivate yourself to continue and complete it?
Describe a time where there was a problem at work and you had to come up with a creative solution to resolve it.
Describe a situation where you faced a challenge in doing your job. What were the challenges, and how did you overcome them?
Team player recruiting questions
Will your new hire be nice with others? If they’re an individual contributor, then you may be able to get away with hiring someone who is not as much of a collaborator. However, the majority of hires will need to be able to collaborate or work within teams of various sizes. Use the 2 questions below to determine their preferred role on teams and level of collaboration.
If you notice a member of your team is struggling, what would you do?
Tell me about a time where a team you were a part of experienced some sort of conflict. What did you do to help resolve the issues?
There are several steps you could do to improve your candidate experience and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector. We have written about three smart recruiting tips on how to become a smarter recruiter today. The first solution is called Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). The second one towards smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. Lastly, when you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, talk with your network first.
We know that finding the best candidates and sports job isn’t as easy as in many other industries and it takes a lot of time. That is why we are changing this, a niched platform where you can only find candidates and jobs from the sports industry.
47 questions that every recruiting manager should ask
These general interview questions are a great way to assess a candidate’s soft skills and whether a candidate will be successful at your company. These are great tools that best-in-class recruiters use to reduce churn, increase employee engagement, and find productive employees. Do you want to get a bank of good questions to ask for different assessments? We will be happy to share that with you. Feel free to add value to your recruiting process and download our free bank of questions a recruiting manager should ask.
The sports sector is big but as an employer and a job seeker, there are still some challenges to tackle. In this article, we are discovering and sharing some facts, challenges, numbers and solutions about the sports labour market and recruiting. This gives you a good overview of the sports labour market and what the common types of employment in sports are. You will also learn what challenges employers in the sports sector are facing but also some advice and strategies of how to deal with these challenges.
The current state of employability
No one has missed that the labour market has taken a big hit during 2020 because of the Covid-19 virus. And this has also harmed the sports industry. During several months of 2020 many sport teams and organizations haven’t been in full operations and most have had empty stadiums and courts, which also means less staff has been needed. And for most of us, this means that there are fewer job opportunities out there, however, this means that there are a lot of great skilled but unemployed people to hire. Obviously if supply exists, it doesn’t mean that the demand is in place. On the employer and hiring side, we also have to consider that the economy is not as strong as before. We have a new situation to adapt to. Let us have another look at the current state of employment in general.
Only in Europe and in the United States, 3 million people lost their job from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020
– OECD
From The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) they have reported that people (aged 20-64) who were employed but got laid off in the European Union increased with 2 million people. From 0.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, to 2.3 million in the first quarter of 2020. While in the United States, these numbers increased by 1 million during the same period, from 0.8 million in December 2019, to 1.8 million in March 2020. In the image below you can get a better overview of this big increase with persons absent from work due to temporary lay off.
The numbers to the left show the percentage of the working-age population (Persons aged 20-64 in the EU; persons aged 16-64 in the United States). Persons absent from work due to temporary layoffs are counted as ‘employed’ in the EU and as ‘unemployed’ in the US. (4) last month of the quarter
The sports labour market in Europe is growing
Before the pandemic a 3-year European project, ESSA-Sport project was concluded in October 2019. A research aimed to create a debate within the sector on the key issues of skills and workforce development. The aim of the ESSA-Sport project, funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme, was to establish a European Sector Skills Alliance covering the full breadth of the sport and physical activity sector across the EU.
In order to get a good sense of the total employment in Europe and the total employment in sports, presented below are the numbers showing the total employment in the EU and the total sport employment in the EU.
TOTAL EMPLOYMENT IN THE EU and Total sport employment in the EU (persons aged between 15 to 64 years old) in 2018
Total employment was 223 843 000 people
Total sport employment was 1 765 728 people
– ESSA-Sport project
How many jobs do sports create?
Stated in the Position Paper, a joint call from the sports sector to the EU commission in order to get supported during Covid-19, it is mentioned that every 47th euro (€) is generated by the sport sector. It is also said that there are 5,67 million people involved in sport-related employment, which equals to 2,72 % of the total EU Employment (keep in mind that the numbers from ESSA are from 2018). To summarize this overview, this means that every 37th employee works in the sport sector. The sports sector is a big contributor to the European labour market.
The sport labour market is the total sport employment
If we would only examine the sport labour market we can see a big increase of employed people in sports since 2011, from 1 481 305 people employed in sports up to 1 765 728, which is an increase with 19,2 %. And the majority of these employments are employed workers (85,4 %) and only 257 796 people are self-employed (14,6 %). And not surprisingly 4 out 5 people working in sport has a full-time contract (80,8 %).
EU-28 sport labour market (=total sport employment)
2011 – 1 481 306 people working in sports
2018 – 1 765 728 people working in sports (an increase with 19,2 %)
– ESSA-Sport project
20 national coordinators and 5 European networks built this research and they also identified skills needs and future priorities for the sports sector, which we will pick out a few and go through. If you want the full report it can be found in a detailed European Report as well as National Reports.
In the ESSA-project one of the focuses, we want to further refer to is the data about the recruitment of paid employees. During a 12 month period, 3042 responses were collected. Nearly half of them (49,6 %) did recruit during this period. We will now look into the difficulties to fill vacancies, what the top three hardest roles to fill are and difficulties when recruiting.
Difficulties to fill vacancies
Even though not all respondents did recruit in that past year, almost a third (27 %) experienced difficulties filling vacancies (one third replied that they didn’t know). When they were asked which role that was the hardest to fill there was one role that stood out, sport coaches (73 %) while the second and third hardest roles to fill were experienced by 1 out 4 employers, which is still quite a lot.
Top 3 hardest roles to fill
73 % Sport Coaches
27.4 % Clerical and office staff
23.9 % Operational staff
Even if a role is harder to fill than another these are not the only challenges in recruitment of sport employees. Employers also expressed their difficulties when recruiting, where the top three difficulties show challenges like low numbers of skilled applicants, unattractive job posts and low numbers of motivated applicants.
Top 3 difficulties when recruiting
45.6% Low number of applicants with the required skills
44.1% Unattractive terms and conditions offered for this post
38.7% Low numbers of applicants with required motivation and attitude
Challenges for the sport sector
There are five key areas when it comes to challenges in the sports labour market and these key areas have been asked and answered by 2930 respondents in the ESSA-report. The key areas are the following:
Find people with right skills
Providing upskilling opportunities
Up to date training
Close collaboration between universities and employers
Inclusive workforce
What are the respondents’ experiences with these five key areas and what do we mean with challenges for the sports labour market?
Well, about half (50,8 %) of the people experienced it difficult to find and recruit people with the right skills to work as paid staff.
The majority (91,5 %) thinks it is important that staff have access to ongoing training to keep their skills up to date, but are lacking the implementation.
71,9 % answered that new training courses are required to meet the training needs of sport organizations
Four out of five (79,9 %) said that universities/training providers should work more closely with sport organizations
Most of the respondents (71,5 %) think that the workforce of paid staff and volunteers in the sport sector needs to be inclusive (reflecting gender, disability and minorities in society)
Note that all these numbers are prior to the pandemic of Covid-19. However, it is only one of a few reports that actually covers a big area in sports employability. With regard to the pandemic, it is not hard to estimate that numbers around employed people have decreased during 2020. But there are still great knowledge and insights from this report that is important to consider.
We know that finding the best candidates and sports job isn’t as easy as in many other industries and it takes a lot of time. That is why we are changing this, a niched platform where you can only find candidates and jobs from the sports industry.
According to the sports labour market, almost half (44,1 %) answered that the terms and conditions are bad, which tells us that there are challenges around the candidate’s experiences. Since this is an important part of the hiring process, we will provide you with some advice on how to build a recruiting strategy. A great hiring process involves both the hiring sports club and the job candidate. Helping your future employee with a good recruiting process will help you find and hire sports employees faster. Talent is four times more likely to consider your company for a future opportunity when you offer them constructive feedback, according to a LinkedIn report.
There are several steps you could do to improve your candidate experience and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector. We have written about three smart recruiting tips on how to become a smarter recruiter today. The first solution is called Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). The second one towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. Lastly, when you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, talk with your network first.
Talent is 4x more likely to consider your company for a future opportunity when you offer them constructive feedback.
LinkedIn
How you find great talents in the sports sector
2 out of the 3 top difficulties when hiring in sports covered the lack of skilled and motivated job candidates. These problems are part of how Sportidealisten came about. Finding sports jobs has been a big challenge as well as knowing where skilled and motivated top talents are. Sportidealisten was founded with the mission to connect future employees and employers in the sports industry and to provide impactful matches between hiring managers and job seekers in sports.
If you are a hiring manager we can’t stop talking about the importance to understand the job seekers. According to Glassdoor half of the job seekers prefer finding job opportunities on job sites, and this makes us proud to work as a niched job site for the sports sector.
51% of job seekers say they prefer finding job opportunities on online job sites. 45% hear about job openings from friends, while 35% go to a company’s site.
Do you as an employer have a mission statement? If you don’t you might be missing out the top talents. The majority of job seekers will only apply for jobs that have a clear mission statement. And even if you don’t have it clear on your website, make sure to have it clear in your job posts. This is something Sportidealisten can help you with.
One solution to the lack of motivated job candidates is to include your organization’s mission statement in your job post because more than half of the job seekers find their motivation from an employer’s mission.
79% of job seekers will consider a company’s mission before applying.More than half — 66% — of employees find motivation in a company’s mission, and 64% attribute their company’s mission to the main reason they stay in their current jobs.
Are you still not convinced of how to manage your hiring process? Let us then share what some of the employers we interviewed said about their best hiring advice.
Do the heavy work, build a job post that really match with what you are actually looking for.
I can only share my experience regarding tennis, and it is a rather small community, at least in Sweden. Everyone knows everyone. Just ask around and do not explicitly look for those with the best awards or achievements. Strive to get to know those who really love their work and are proud to work as, for example, a tennis coach.
As a summary we have discovered the total employment and the total sports employment in more detail. Despite that the pandemic of Covid-19 has made a skilled workforce in sports unemployed, there has been a growth for employment in sports during the past 10 years with an increase of 19,2 %.
Sport is a big factor for the European economy. Every 47th euro (€) is generated by the sport sector and every 37th employee works in the sport sector and most of these people are full-time employed. However, almost a third (27 %) of the sports employers experience difficulties filling vacancies, especially Sport Coaches, Clerical and office staff and Operational staff. And most of the difficulties when recruiting, where low numbers of skilled applicants, unattractive job posts and low numbers of motivated applicants.
Building a recruiting strategy will help you solve the challenges of finding skilled and motivated applicants. Start with learning more about your future employee. But also understand that job seekers look after job sites and they get motivated if they know about an employer’s mission statement that you should add in a job post.
Do you have any good cases or advice you want to share with the sports sector, feel free to share with us.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
When you are recruiting, you want to find the right candidate and preferably within no time at all. Question is, are you a smart recruiter and do you know how you can save yourself and your sport organization even more time?
There are three tips you could do to become a smart recruiter and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector. The secret to all three is thinking about the job seekers first, instead of creating the best looking sports job ad. If you can save the job seekers’ time, you will eventually save your own time. In this article, we will show you three smart recruiting tips on how to become a smarter recruiter. The first solution is called Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). The second one towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. Lastly, when you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, talk with your network first.
With inspiration from Lever, we have written three tips with our perspective of what you could implement to your recruiting process in order to become a smart recruiter in the sports sector. Instead of the classic saying “customer first”, think about “job seekers first”.
The average cost of one bad hire is nearly $15,000; average cost of losing a good hire is nearly $30,000
Before sharing three good tips to become a smarter recruiter in sports we have to clarify and get a good sense of the sports sector and employment. You don’t want to make a bad recruiting process, you want to be smart. If you think it is hard to find great candidates you are not alone. From a European study (ESSC-SPORT 2014) about employment in sports, the results showed that:
37 % have difficulties recruiting paid staff in sports.
however, 35 % report a growth tendency for their workforce in the next 2 years
47 % have difficulties in engaging their unpaid staff/volunteers
Getting a good sense of the global sports employment is hard. But looking at the EUs sports employment could provide you a good overview. Compared to the total employment of all sectors in the EU, jobs in sport still account for relatively small shares but the contribution of sport has steadily grown. Between 2013 and 2018, sport contribution to total employment increased slightly in nearly all EU Member States, and, at the EU level, it rose from 0.7 % to 0.8 % (Eurostat).
Eurostat has disseminated statistics on sport and specifically employment in sport together with DG Education and Culture. In 2018, employment in sport represented 0.8 % of total EU employment, ranging from 0.1 % in Romania to 1.7 % in Sweden. For the majority of EU Member States, sport employment shares reached 1 % at maximum; in addition to Sweden, only in the United Kingdom, Finland, Ireland and Spain, did this share exceeded 1 %.
In 2018, 1.76 million people worked in the field of sport in the EU-28: more than half are men (55%), a percentage in line with total employment. People in the age group 15-29 make up 38 % of the total employed in sport, more than double the share in overall employment, while the 30-64 age group accounted for almost 60 % (20 % less than the share for the total employment). Around 46 % of persons employed in sport have a medium educational attainment level (ISCED levels 3-4), 38 % have a high level (ISCED 5-8) and 16 % have a low level (at most ISCED level 2); these percentages are close to the proportions observed for overall employment.
Almost half (46 %) of the employed people in sports have a medium educational attainment level
Now, let us show you three smart recruiting tips on how to become a smarter recruiter. The first solution is called Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
FAQ
No matter if a potential candidate visiting your sports job ad or just looking through your company profile you should be prepared that not all information is clear to everyone. There will always be questions from potential candidates. Most people will try to contact you either via email or calls in order to ask more about additional details around the sports job, the culture, etc. Maybe you have already experienced those calls about simple questions regarding a job ad, which you perhaps can give quick answers about, however, this will take up most of your time from your daily work.
So what do we mean with FAQ? You should write down a list of potential questions you might get and provide answers to those and then publish these on the sports job ad page or a link to it. This will help the potential candidates but also you by adding value to the recruiting process. Make sure not only to make a FAQ for your sports job ad but also think about one FAQ regarding working at your organization.
Another good section to have in one FAQ is potential questions for an interview, but also additional things prior to the interview, for example, how to get there, what to dress or how an interview looks like at your work. You can ask your colleagues or someone in your network to help go through potential questions a job seeker might raise. This will help you identify questions from people that haven’t created and already know what the vacant sports job is about. These tips will make a great impression on future colleagues and for your employer brand.
Employer branding, is simply how you market your company to desired job seekers. You can do this by showcasing your organization’s unique cultural differentiators, and then working to amplify them so you can position yourself as a top place to work.
– Sarah Lybrand, Freelance Writer/Producer/Content Creator
With a FAQ section, you as a recruiter will not only reduce the number of phone calls, you will also save time to work on something else. You will also increase your employer branding and interests from job seekers by showing that you think about everything.
By helping your potential candidate, you will increase the likeability and the passion for that person to work for you.
Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.
The next step towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. When you have set up your ideal candidate persona, you should also know where this person exists, on social media channels, or via email or a phone call. But also knowing how to talk to them.
– Nearly 4 in 10 workers in sport employment are aged 15–29
– Over one-third of people employed in sport completed tertiary education
Once again, make sure to save time by saving the time of your potential candidate too. Are you looking for a person who is more used to a computer or a smartphone? Have you built your sports job ad or marketing plan with these behaviors in mind? If your website or sports job ad is designed to a desktop version and your ideal candidate persona only uses a smartphone or vice versa, you might lose out that person’s attention because of the wrong format.
The second aspect is if you are sharing and posting your sports job ads on social media channels if your ideal candidate is a daily and an experienced social media user. Sharing and posting your sports jobs where your future candidate is will be one of the differences between recruiting and smart recruiting.
Another aspect of this is your language. Is your language attractive to your ideal candidate? Do you use words that are more attractive to women or men? One service that is changing this problem is Textio, they help you find the right words by putting hiring and language data insights right where you need them.
Great job candidates walk away when you don’t speak their language
– Textio
Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.
How to hire someone smarter than you?
Last advice on how to become a smarter recruiter. When you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, you should talk with your network. If you are the responsible person for the recruiting process you might not know what the right skills are within a certain role you are trying to recruit for. This applies to the interviewer too in the recruiting process. The responsible people need to make sure that you know what you write about or talk about.
No matter if you work with HR and recruiting in a local grassroots sports club or a bigger organization, you should reach out to your network with people who have a similar experience. Ask them questions about the role you are looking for. Make sure to get the core so you feel confident when interviewing people for the role that you have less experience in.
Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.
Three tips about how to become a smarter recruiter
When you are recruiting, you want to find the right candidate. But you also want to do this in no time. Question is, are you a smart recruiter and have already done the tips we have shared?
What steps could you take in order to become a smarter recruiter and also improve your employer branding?
The first thing is to think about the job seekers’ perspective. If you can save the job seekers’ time, you will eventually save your own time and this solution is called Frequently Asked Questions. The next step towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. Lastly, when you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, talk with your network in order to know what to look for and ask about.
Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.
