A story about the job I never advertised.
A few weeks ago I was approached about whether there was an opportunity to coach with us at Scarborough Tennis as they had heard good things.
Professional enough in communication, decent experience and importantly, limited friction in ease of employability. Tennis is an international game and there are great opportunities to sponsor coaches but ultimately it’s attractive to be already set up for 2 years visa minimum or be a long term citizen with no barriers.
I arranged a trial shift and they were solid. A style of coaching that I am not in love with (dual line feeding drills) but clearly trainable, engaging and organised around the court. I offered the spontaneously created role via email but said that after the weekend that I will send through our coach pack (10 page document about who we are what we do why we do it type thing) and an agreement.
After a long weekend camping I finished off the agreement and tweaked the coach pack a touch. I then opened my email where there was one from the potential coach politely explaining that there are offers from other programs and would it be possible to let then know what $ rate they will start on just so they can make a decision and let everybody know.
I wanted to show the applicant our values and our way of doing things. Also our unique culture and great beach lifestyle. I was gutted that before even there was a chance to understand our ‘brand’, I was price competing. I was about to click send and every part of my intuition knew that this was not a good sign to begin a medium to long term partnership. Finally I clicked send explaining how I just completed the document and then saw their email. I left it ‘up to the universe’ to see if they would be moved by the new information about who we are and where we are going. I also knew that our rates are never the highest bidder in the industry. Not the lowest either and attractive but also have a built in bonus rate for fulltime coaches (higher rates for above #). We also have an office manager helping fill gaps in your schedule and other little perks.
So after a few days a polite email came through thanking me for the time taken but for their own professional/financial growth they will be taking another opportunity.
I smiled and nodded to myself when I saw the email. As a business owner (especially a Club Coach) you really want your potential employee to ‘buy’ in to what you do. A purpose, a passion and an enthusiasm will be more valuable than the higher rate both to the business owner and the employee. You also tend to attract future opportunity when you prove your value to a new employee.
So for a job never advertised, it was an interesting experience. I didn’t really have a 20 hour per week position minimum (without impacting current coaches) but knew that next term was going to be tricky staff wise I went with it.
It wasn’t meant to be this time!
Rick Willsmore
Director
