How Can Athletics Help Me Get a Job?

“A healthy mind is a healthy body” is something you may have heard a couple million times, but the sentiment bears repeating. The idea of engaging in physical activities (sports, martial arts, working out) is not only for physical benefit or gain but also gives you mental benefits. If you look at the top investors, business people, or CEO’s, they all have some type of schedule that involves physical activity. Now doesn’t it sound great to put your athletic activities on your resume?

How to Talk about it on Your Resume

Determination, strength, resolve, a powerful work ethic – all of these things are essential in your professional life and are most definitely found in athletes. If you have played on a team sport, consider mentioning your experience in working with many different people to achieve one common goal. No matter what career you enter into, you will need to interact with someone else at some point. Those hiring you will appreciate the fact that you have been in an intense environment that requires teamwork for success.

For non-team sports, or even activities like working out, you can think of a time you were learning a new move or skill, perhaps you are a fast learner? Perhaps you were resilient and it took you 100 tries to do it correctly but finally you got it; maybe you wanted to give up but you did not let yourself. All of these things are priceless, your character and learned resilience are priceless and very much worth putting on your resume.

Skills you can discuss on a resume resulting from athletics include:

Teamwork – talk about times you had challenges with team members and how you resolved it. Talk about what it feels like to work with others to achieve a goal. Mention how you showed leadership in your team or how you were a great follower – both are vital in all walks of life.

Strategy – Whether you are a part of a team or training by yourself, you have a goal you want to reach and you need to consider how to get there. Strategy is having a plan or a series of actions to achieve that goal. Having strategic thinkers on a team at work is invaluable so be sure to explain how you understood strategy, implemented it, and achieved a goal!

Motivation – Every athlete has a moment when they don’t want to get on the field, go to that practice, do one more run, or just be there that day. So how did you help yourself get over it? How did you keep going? Companies love to hear those stories because they know you will have those days at work as well.

Overcoming Failure – In every athletic endeavor, there is failure. Failure to reach your goal, failure to win, or failure to be better than you were yesterday. When that happened, what did you do? If you didn’t quit, companies want to hear that story! But even if you did quit, if you can show it was because it was the right time to walk away, that can be a useful example as well.

Strength and Resilience – Employees who need constant management and reinforcement, are needy, and can’t manage themselves make more work for other people. Explaining how athletics helped you be strong, both physically and mentally, and show resilience can help them see you as a good employee, even before you get there!

Time Management – Any athlete has had to manage their time. Many people say, “I don’t have time to work out” or “I don’t have time to play” but an athlete has made the time. How did you do that? Companies want to know!

Discipline – In order to pursue your athletics, you had to make hard choices and they weren’t one-time choices, either. You had to demonstrate discipline and companies love to know their employees have that skill. An employee who can identify what is right and then stay on that path is vital!

Focus – In athletics, losing focus can result in injury so you have learned that skill. What does it mean to you? Be able to talk about why focus is important to you achieving your goals and how it has applied to other areas of your life.

Goal-Driven – Just like strategy, athletes have goals and they want to reach them. Being able to share a time you had a goal, worked towards that goal, and achieved it is a great interview story.