Congratulations! You finished college swimming, now what?

by SwimSwam 3

April 03rd, 2015 Big Ten, College, Lifestyle, News

Courtesy of Emily Green. Follow: @ohhh_emm_g 

People talk about the end of a swim career as bittersweet. By the time most people finish their college swimming career, they’ve spent a good part of the last decade in the pool. You get warned about the nostalgia of going back to swim meets, missing the long bus rides, and the extra time on your hands. But no one warns you about the transition period. By the time college swimming is over, you’re in the last 3 months of your college career, expected to graduate with your degree and become a productive member of society. Seems easy enough, right? While you were spending the last four years of your college career in the pool, your classmates were doing internships with Fortune 500 companies. While you were up at five, running stairs and hitting the weight room, your classmates were networking and making professional connections. This is a reality slap that I am currently experiencing. With three weeks left in my college swim career, and four months until my college graduation, one part of my life is ending and the next is just beginning. I feel behind. I feel like I should be more prepared. I feel like I don’t have an answer to the “What are your plans after school?” question because I can no longer answer, “swimming”. As dreary and hopeless as that all sounds, I still think I’ve gained more out of swimming than I could from any job or internship. So what now?

1.     Pump up your resume with the professional skills you’ve gained from swimming.

Try phrases like “Devoted 20+ hours per week to athletics” and “Organized and implemented team building initiatives” Words like leader, role model, dedication, and team work can all be utilized. The skills you learned in swimming are easily transferrable to the corporate world.

2.     Connect with all the old swimmers you know.

There’s a girl who graduated three years before you even got to your school, but she has a job at a company you’re interested in? Give her a call! Swimmers love talking to swimmers, whether about a recent meet or about their career. This is your own form of networking. Swimming makes us have a special connection, so use it.

3.     Look for companies that specifically hire college athletes.

Athletenetwork.com is a great resource to find companies that are in search of newly graduated collegiate athletes. There are nationwide companies who understand the hard work and commitment it takes to be a collegiate athlete, and are looking to make you part of their team.

4.     You know those on campus services like job fairs and the career center you were always too busy with practice to go to?

Well you have this amazingly free schedule now, and it’s time to give them a visit. Often you can meet employers first hand and chat about their company and yourself. This is a great time to brag (yes brag you deserve it!) about finishing collegiate swimming and all the great skills you gained from it. Meeting these companies first hand gives you a much better chance to be hired than just sending in a faceless resume.

5.     Be thankful for all that swimming has given you.

Although this is a stressful time, and it’s easy to blame swimming for taking away all of your free time during college, being a collegiate swimmer is an elite status and something to be proud of. Employers will take notice. As you transition from one team to a more corporate team, never forget what swimming has taught you and always be grateful for your four years.

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s
8 years ago

Find a way to work at least part time over the summers, especially if you are interested in a field that requires some technical or industry specific knowledge. The F500 company I work for likes to hire former interns for that very reason. Ultimately remember it’s extremely competitive out there!

Also remove half naked pics (or party pics, or …) from your twitter/facebook/etc profile, even if you are a swimmer. Potential employers look at all that stuff.

mikeh
8 years ago

Keep swimming! The best part of our sport is that no one will ever force you to stop if you don’t want to. Masters swimming has been such a blessing to me; I thank God for it. I bet some college swimmers will be surprised at how fast they can swim without 9 workouts a week. Be a lifelong swimmer!

Sean Killion
8 years ago

An excellent recent article from First Round Capital supporting your thoughts above:

“When TalentBin first started to take off, and we realized how fast we needed to build our sales team, we made a landmark choice: Instead of hiring seasoned sales execs out of the powers that be in the recruiting world (think CareerBuilder, Indeed, and so on), we focused all our energy on landing new, hungry grads out of high-caliber universities like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and more — with preference to athletes and others who had demonstrated grit and success on a team.” http://firstround.com/review/the-anatomy-of-the-perfect-sales-hiring-process/

I don’t believe that most student-athletes understand what they truly have to offer. Wether it’s a F500 company or… Read more »