creating credentials
'How do you build a career like this?'
I haven't done much of what my doctor parents would recognise as real work. A couple of months ago, I spoke to Oxford Brookes university students about my unusual career path, running them through my professional sporting journey and how it led to writing my first book Fringes.
The students were studying theories of talent development, hence their interest in my rugby pathway, but given that they were looking to build careers in and around sport once they graduated, they were also asking how to stand out in a competitive field. I gave them some advice with the caveat that I wouldn’t call what I’m doing an end point for me. I’m not an expert, nor am I ‘done’ figuring this out.
When I left professional rugby, I had a degree but not much evidence of skills that an employer would find immediately useful. I spent a year doing various bits of experimental work, finding out what I did and didn't like, and I began to pursue the only other thing I'd ever wanted to do as a kid apart from play rugby. Write.
I didn't have the confidence or the capacity to write a book straight away. I built up slowly, over time and in private. Once I got more confident I started ghostwriting content and publishing publicly. Then I made a website to showcase what I was doing. One particular project ended up proving useful.
I showed the students something I'd called Endgame. It was a series of interviews with former rugby teammates of mine about how they'd gone about finding new careers once their rugby days were over. I went through the criteria I had for the project, what I'd aimed to make and what I'd wanted to learn by making it. The reasons for doing the project were:
personal research - what had my peers gone on to do and how might it inform my decision?
learning web development - I figured out how to make a Squarespace site, something I later charged a few clients for.
interviewing - I developed questions that I thought would make for compelling answers and followed up on anything I felt could be particularly powerful.
writing - I got to write up what I learned from the interviewees. While most things were copy and paste, I had to edit and reword some of the answers to make them more digestible.
connecting with friends - some of the subjects were people I hadn't spoken to for some time. Others were rugby players doing interesting work who I was curious about.
I didn't make the project with a specific professional goal in mind but when I applied for a role at Life After Professional Sport (LAPS) I showed them what I'd made and they created a different role specifically for me. As Jack Butcher says,
If there's something you want to do, you need to show evidence of aptitude.
I said to the students that they were all studying the same thing and were all going to enter an extremely competitive line of work where opportunities are thin on the ground and salaries are often insulting. There are certain lines of work, of which professional sport is one, which are seen as appealing and so employers know they have people queuing up to take low paid roles.
[a quick aside on this]
A study of 138 football industry practitioners in the field of sport science and strength and conditioning found that 76% had a Master’s degree or higher while the average salary was £35k. Several Premier League teams have gotten in trouble for advertising low paid or unsalaried jobs for support roles in sports science, analysis or even in marketing. Nevertheless, these roles continue to crop up because people will take them. I had a (very good) teammate at one of my clubs earning £6k for the season to play full-time professional rugby. Someone will always be willing to take that deal so a team will continue to offer it.
To stand out in that field of Master's graduates you need to do something outstanding.
to be continued…