Lessons for Recruiters from the ‘24 TAMU Football Season

Lessons for Recruiters to Take Away from TAMU’s ’24 Football Season

As a Texas A&M former student, I can’t help but feel extremely proud to see that my alma mater is currently ranked #1 in the SEC. After a respectable amount of celebrating, I started to notice the similarities between building a successful football team and building a successful recruiting practice.

Nothing happens by chance, everything is meticulously planned, driven by good old-fashioned hard work and dedication. There is no other secret ingredient from my experience.

I feel that this breaks down further into 4 categories: The Game Plan, the Execution, Adaptability/Adjusting, and Winning Mentality. All add up to the makings of a successful football team and recruiting practice.

The Game Plan

There is no winning without an effective strategy and plan in place. If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Both football and recruiting come with their own set of unique challenges. No team takes the field without studying game tapes and running through plays to determine the best path to victory against that opponent. In recruiting, you must create a tailored plan for every search, and plan out how to address setbacks and objections. You need to have a vision of success before you can achieve it and break it down into bite-sized pieces to achieve that goal.

Execution

Performance is a huge factor in both recruiting and football. You must be consistent in the execution to start seeing true results. In recruiting, you must be consistent each and every day, with the intention of doing something great. Hit that 2-hour call block with no distractions. You planned for it, now do it. Same with football. It’s never just a single big play. It's consistently hitting the benchmark each time and being in sync with the team. That is where success is made.

Adaptability/Adjusting

Rarely does anything ever go fully to plan. In football, difficulties and setbacks faced during a game require the coach and team to make changes on the field to get better results. In recruiting, you can work you plan and still run into trouble in the red zone. Counteroffers, candidates and clients can lose interest, and misunderstandings can cause delays. Stay agile, acknowledge what went wrong, and what could be done better next time, and move forward from there.

The Winning Mentality

Not too many people achieve great success if they don’t believe they can do it. Having faith in your abilities and through hard and consistent work, success will follow. You must have positive self talk and know your worth in both the world of recruiting and the world of sports. Fine-tune your approach, check yourself when needed, and never lose sight of the end goal.

As an Aggie, I’ve seen the power of preparation, execution, and adaptability firsthand—both on the field and in my career. As recruiters, when we approach each search with the same focus and commitment as Texas A&M approaches every game, we can achieve our winning results, driving our clients and candidates to victory.