(Advancing the game column) Win in a tight job market

Tight employment makes it difficult for qualified school graduates to find jobs, advance once employed and almost impossible to peak in a career. As a result, talented professionals lose their edge, fail to grow, get complacent and become vulnerable in their jobs and at home.

Could there be a clearer indication of an industry suffering through these pains than when: more than 125 superintendents apply for every decent job that becomes available; a good superintendent can submit a solid resume to a dozen search committees and never get a call for an interview; assistants remain on jobs for six years instead of three; and the majority of superintendents are more fearful of losing their jobs than feeling secure in holding their jobs?

Welcome to the high-risk world of the golf course superintendent. At a time when there are too many turf management schools, more are coming on line every year. These schools are graduating more than 3,000 students annually into a national golf economy where there never has been more golf courses throughout the country facing forced sales and where there are 60 percent fewer new golf courses opening each year than at the recent turn of the century.

What should an aspiring superintendent do?

The correct answer can be stated simply but not translated easily into a robust career. First, get a complete education while in school and continue thereafter. Second, outprepare your competition when seeking a job. Third, plan ahead and know when to seek change in your career.

History shows the consistent weak link in the above scenario is how ineffectively superintendents (golf professionals and managers, as well) pursue jobs. In a profession that has made a limited commitment to teaching the art and science of seeking employment, is it any wonder golf course superintendents generally don’t know how to separate themselves from the field when applying for jobs. They seek to be included within the job competition because somebody always will be selected by a process of elimination, not win the competition because they don’t know how to win a job outright.

Typically, superintendents overload resumes in naive attempts to win jobs quickly, overlooking the far more imperative goal of getting interviewed. The resume should serve as a tease and not as a historical documentation of one’s career.

Interviewing superintendents tend to spend too much time discussing past jobs and not enough time presenting a plan of action for the available job. Experienced interviewees learn to reverse this emphasis.
The difference between applying to win a job versus applying to compete for a job boils down to taking a creative initiative and endless preparation. Examples follow.

1. Taking the initiative begins with the cover letter. It’s often simply thought of as a vehicle to introduce the resume, but the cover letter presents the unique opportunity to set up the entire application process.

No credible action plan can be presented to search committees without the candidate first gaining access to the good and bad details of current and past maintenance programs at a golf course. The cover letter is the means best suited for gaining access to this information.

For example, using appropriate professional language within a cover letter, a candidate would ask for access to (not possession of): copies of all recent USGA Green Section reports; recent department financial statements and current-year budgets; program operational records; appropriate personnel files with job descriptions; computer system profiles; in-house print, audio and video educational programming; and the opportunity to walk the course with a member of the green committee and, if plausible, the outgoing superintendent.

Only with this information in hand can a candidate prepare a deft plan of action capable of getting the job.

2. Taking the initiative continues with the development of a personal career Web site – a new concept in the highly competitive job-seeking world.

Development guidelines and the formats needed to prepare a personal Web site are available on the Internet and through professional consultants at a cost that should fall within a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. An enterprising superintendent should be able to design his or her own Web site at almost no cost.

The target audience for a personal-career Web site is the search committee the candidate approaches in each job application. The Web site should include text, digital photographs and graphics to profile the candidate’s academic record, assistant positions held, past and current superintendent jobs, special projects and accomplishments the candidate has been involved with at each stop throughout his or her career.

Presenting a superintendent’s or an assistant’s career Web site address within a cover letter will immediately realize the following invaluable goals: (1) virtually guarantee the candidate an interview; (2) take the pressure off the resume by presenting an easily accessed, highly professional summary of the candidate’s career; and (3) ease the interview process by pre-educating the search committee about the candidate’s career before interview.

3. Taking the initiative concludes with the job description. Because most clubs and golf course operators have yet to incorporate job descriptions within their management structure, this translates into the candidate basically drafting a first-time job description or amending an existing job description when applying for a golf course superintendent position.

Including a projected job description within an applicant’s plan of action is the equivalent of turning the light on in a dark room. Search committees that generally lack a good summary understanding of the golf course superintendent positions they attempt to fill fall in love with candidates who can deliver such program-defining mission statements into their hands.

Rarely can a job candidate trump a competitive field. This possibility exists today every time a candidate commits to total preparation through the creative use of cover letters, individual Web sites, job descriptions and other well-established practices.

Prepare now and play to win. It’s the only way to ensure solid times at bat in the current highly competitive job application market. First come, first served. GCN

Jim McLoughlin is the founder of TMG Golf (www.TMGgolfcouncel.com), a golf course development and consulting firm and is a former executive director of the GCSAA. He can be reached at golfguide@adelphia.net. His previous columns can be found on www.golfcoursenews.com.