How to interview well for sport jobs
By Leo Isaac, January 2012
Prepare for interview questions
If you are interviewed for a job in sports administration, you should contemplate questions such as:
- How would you deal with a situation in which a club member approaches you, criticises the club and complains about the poor management of an event the club is running. (Beware the hypothetical question! You are likely to get at least one in an interview)
- Give an example of when and where you have given a presentation or talk to a group of people. (You need to show strong communication skills)
- What experience do you have in developing sponsorship plans and programs. (All sport clubs want more sponsorship money)
- What is your understanding of how the privacy laws would relate to a sport and recreation organisation? (It is handy to know some basic law principles and concepts in any administration job - do some study)
- How would you go about communicating with large numbers of people using the membership database. (It would be really useful to be able to demonstrate computer literacy, for example to be able to "Mail Merge")
- What experience do you have as a volunteer or working with volunteers? (As a sports administrator you need to be able to win over more people to assist the organisation as volunteers)
- Do you have any problems working on weekends or evenings?
- What is your knowledge about the structure of the sport in Australia?
Body Language
When being interviewed try to avoid a variety of “distracting”
mannerisms such as:
- Swivelling on the chair (if it is a swivel
type)
- Placing your hands on the desk and then proceeding
to “pick skin” on your fingers/nails.
- Leaning forwards over the table and getting
too close
- Placing hands on your hips
- Scratching your head
- Crossing your legs (unless you are a female
and not wishing to be a Sharon Stone)
- Balancing your foot on top of alternate knee
- Slumping in chair or trying to look too comfortable
or laid back.
Interviewers will make judgements about your personality based on
your body language.
What you should do is:
- Shake hands with interviewers warmly nListen
hard for the names of the interviewers and use them if you can
remember them.
- Maintain an even eye contact with all panellist
not just the person asking the question.
- Keep your hands in your lap, don’t go
overboard with hand gesticulations and don’t fidget.
- Sit in a comfortable position but your
body posture needs to be upright to indicate “you are working
in this interview”.
- If possible raise a smile now and then.
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