Recruiting Coaches

[stotty]

This ought to be right up Kyle's fountain of knowledge. I'd like some help and ideas.

I have to recruit a couple of new coaches. I would like to get it right this time round as previous coaches have been disappointing and not that easy to remove once they become ensconced.

I was thinking of devising a basic written test this time around. A test involving say twenty questions. These could for example include: what is internal rotation on a serve? what is pronation? what is the racket drop? I was thinking of having a series of photos where the candidates had to mark where each of these positions occur. I could do this for all the strokes and see how coaches score.

I was also think of getting them to demonstrate their skills on court so I can assess their ability to run squads/groups.

I don't want to make guys nervous by being too formal but many of the coaches I have recruited in the past half lacked fundamental knowledge. An interview alone tells you very little.

I was wondering how other coaches on the forum recruit their assistant coaches?

Kyle, you must have experience in this field? Anyone else?

[klacr]

stotty,

our clubs our kindred spirits. I'm going through some hirings right now with my club.

In my career, I have hired many and have found jobs for even more. The pro recruitment and hiring process is a tough one.

I'm lucky since my club is a host site for USPTA testing and I am a tester I get to see many professionals come through my club and see their teaching, playing skills and tennis knowledge. I have hired a few from these tests and put them on staff and they have all been excellent and still with me to this day.
I have a few ideas for you but first...

I have some ground rules that I will share with you. I also give these to many clubs that ask for my assistance in the hiring process as well...

-There will never be such a thing as the perfect candidate. Look to see if they have the two or three major traits that you look for, everything else can be improved or trained.

-If they were perfect, they would already have had your job and would be mulling over your tennis career employment.

-Know the demographics of your club. Know their likes and dislikes. In the end, it's is their support and acceptance of the coach that makes you look like like hero or zero, not your preconceived and romanticized ideals.

-Never ever hire out of desperation. Desperation makes us sacrifice quality we worked so hard to maintain. Desperation makes us ignore the warning signs that a level headed, stress free mind would pick out in a heartbeat.

-Understand that any new hire is also an investment. You are investing your time to train, guide, manage and lead them. The club is investing it's money. How much you and the club invest in them is directly proportional to how much of their time and attention they invest in your club and ideas.

-There is a difference between a "tennis pro" and a "tennis professional". Understanding this difference is what will communicate the standards you set as well as impact your job security.

-Great players do not always have the ability to be great teachers. Great teachers do have the ability to make great players.

with those tips, let's continue.

Your formal tests on different terms and teaching IQ is genuine, but not sure of the labor laws in the UK, but I could easily see their being a problem as the test could be called skewed or biased based on your own opinions and beliefs and not what is best for student. right, wrong or indifferent, It will only take one bitter candidate that did not get the job to accuse you or club or wrongdoing and unfair hiring practices. God forbid they have a "learning disability" and say they could not properly read or understand the questions asked.

Also, how much are you going to pay these pros? A comfortable salary plus benefits plus a majority chunk of lesson percentage? Or a modest hourly wage that will be enough to keep a roof over their head? You don't have to tell me the amount, but you do have to realize that if the wage is just a small piece of the pie, don't expect them to know everything about tennis and expect them to make mistakes. I pay my maintenance guys a fair but not handsome wage. For the price I pay them, I cannot expect Type A, tiger blood, Rhodes scholar employees. Are they good at what they do? Absolutely! Would I love to pay them more? Of course? But do I expect them to be as knowledgeable as me in terms of my niche and expertise Of course not. If they were, they'd have my job.

A written test also brings up a language/terminology barrier. What you may teach as gospel may not be duplicated, despite the fact that both you and a pro have same result with student. It's amazing how many great professionals do not know what the "stretch shorten cycle" is, means or does. Yet , they use another visual cue or term that gets a student to do what is proper and technically sound. I say tomato, you say ta-mah-toe. Still the same delicious fruit that along with some balsamic vinegar and fresh torn basil and a ball of mozzarella makes a caprese salad delightful.

Before a candidate steps on the court, I sit down with them and have a frank and open discussion regarding all the policies, procedures, relevant financial info (lesson rates, salary, stringing fees) culture of my club and my expectations of them as well as their expectations of me. If I feel comfortable with conversation and they feel comfortable with it we continue to a field test.
The thing I do and encourage many pros to do is test the candidate in the field. Observe them giving a private lesson. A group lesson. A team clinic. I put all my pros on a 1 or 2 week trial basis. I give them specific lessons or clinics from some of my regular and program supportive members. I observe and get feedback from student. I also make sure my members do not pay for clinic or lesson if it is a disaster. But I will always pay the pro, because even if I don't respect or prefer his teaching, I do respect his time. I pay him money I keep in a "pro trial monies" account in my budget. This subsidizes the cost of the lesson so my members don't sacrifice their own money and I'm not paying out of pocket for a bad lesson. Often times, when it is a good lesson, the members insist on paying for it as they feel it was worth it.

After the trial period, I sit down with the pro and give them feedback and if I see them fitting in on the staff. If so, I market and promote them to membership and the process begins. If not, nothing personal and good luck to them.

I'm willing to spend a great amount of time on this process because if I am careless and not attentive to details, I will be spending twice as much time cleaning up a bad hire's messes and mistakes and dealing with fallout from membership, management and competing clubs knowing I made a gaffe.

If you have any other questions or need specific and direct advice, please do not hesitate to contact me. Send me a private message Stotty and if issues arise I am more than happy to discuss via email or phone. Thanks so much and good luck on your search. Invest in the process and dividends will be great.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[don_budge]

The Protege…and "The Sounds of Silence"

This ought to be right up Kyle's fountain of knowledge. I'd like some help and ideas.

I have to recruit a couple of new coaches. I would like to get it right this time round as previous coaches have been disappointing and not that easy to remove once they become ensconced.

I was thinking of devising a basic written test this time around. A test involving say twenty questions. These could for example include: what is internal rotation on a serve? what is pronation? what is the racket drop? I was thinking of having a series of photos where the candidates had to mark where each of these positions occur. I could do this for all the strokes and see how coaches score.

I was also think of getting them to demonstrate their skills on court so I can assess their ability to run squads/groups.

I don't want to make guys nervous by being too formal but many of the coaches I have recruited in the past half lacked fundamental knowledge. An interview alone tells you very little.

I was wondering how other coaches on the forum recruit their assistant coaches?

Kyle, you must have experience in this field? Anyone else?

Sounds a bit complicated to me. Try to find a player that you have coached….the best shining example of your method. Someone that respects you and your method. Someone that will work with you in your system. Someone to carry on the legacy. Someone that will pass it on. Give the team that "family" feel. Keep it in the family…like the Mafia. This is how the best programs in the past used to excel. Before the litmus test of certification.

The interview will be mute and unnecessary. Incidence of misunderstanding dramatically reduced.

[bottle]

Fabulous stuff from both Kyle and Steve, with implications for all fields of employment, not just tennis. Remember also however that possessive its never splits, although you probably won't care if the candidate knows that.

Funny how there are so many people in business and government who pride themselves on their hiring acumen but later-- if they have any honesty at all-- must admit to producing a disaster/disasters.

When I was an undergraduate oarsman, I had a say in hiring the university's first paid crew coach, and we made a good decision with tremendous implications for what happened later, specifically HIS hiring of his successor. When I was an English instructor later in the same state, I had a say in hiring a new department chairman. God what a mistake we all in that department made.

Sounds almost like I'm making an argument for autocracy. If the autocrat making the hiring decision is half as good as Kyle, Steve or Stotty, he will make good though fallible decisions.

In the men's intercollegiate rowing championship this year, the year when Brown's book THE BOYS IN THE BOAT took off: 1) Washington, 2) California, 3) Princeton, 4) Brown (not Harvard or Yale).

[klacr]

good stuff bottle.
Oh yeah, I've made some real doozies of hiring mistakes. From a girl I hired for juniors that did not speak during her classes (Don't ask), to a guy that lasted just 1 day because he was "offended" by us for putting him on court with "B" players and not "A" players.
I once hired a guy who began preaching to his students. Not preaching about his love of tennis. Preaching to them about God, about Jesus Christ our lord and savior. In Boca Raton, and on a court with Debbie Goldblatt, Susan Kaufman and Marcy Weinberg it was not the best move on his part, it was a worse move on my part. He was a pastor so I knew his faith in the almighty but I didn't know the almighty forgot to give him common sense and tact. Oh, and he tried to steal members and students from our club to teach them on the outside and make more money. Minor detail.

That's the thing with experience, you only get it just after you needed it. And I got it in abundance with those hires.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

Sounds a bit complicated to me. Try to find a player that you have coached….the best shining example of your method. Someone that respects you and your method. Someone that will work with you in your system. Someone to carry on the legacy. Someone that will pass it on. Give the team that "family" feel. Keep it in the family…like the Mafia. This is how the best programs in the past used to excel. Before the litmus test of certification.

The interview will be mute and unnecessary. Incidence of misunderstanding dramatically reduced.

Good point. And this is the way it used to be. I always used to recruit from within using young people I had watched grow up. No mistakes are made this way.

Alas, now I am bound by red tape. People have to be qualified and insured, which costs money and so cuts the more casual worker out.

To answer Kyle's questions, I take a fractional cut from all the coaches for every lesson they give. Some coaches are better paid than others depending on experience and age. All the coaches have clear boundaries and cannot encroach on each others work; coaching is very territorial in my neck of the woods.

Shorts exam tests are common here in the UK. They are designed to give you an idea about who you might be dealing with. They are not always based on finding out a persons knowledge of a given field of work, sometimes they are designed to find out whether someone is passive or aggressive, ambitious or unambitious, kind or selfish.

I don't like to make mistakes when hiring people, firstly because that person could undermine and threaten me if I am not careful, second because they could bad for the programme, the club, and the members.

Being the quiet dictator (hoping not to have the sticky end most endure) that I am, I generally pick the more passive types. I never hire anyone too clever or who shows signs of concealed motives. I have myself to protect while at the same time I seek the best team of coaches possible. Hope this doesn't sound too awful, it's just the way things are round here.

On the other hand, I am happy to invest in a coach once he shows signs of being the right material. I part-fund their qualifications and training courses. Over here coaches have to be licensed. It's not cheap.

I can see the downside of a written test. I can see the upside of a practical on court test. I am thinking my best way forward is to have three month probation period before offering them a signed agreement of work. In fact, I am certain this is the best way to go. This would be a more formal approach than methods I have used in the past.

[bottle]

"hoping not to have the sticky end most endure"

[klacr]

don_budge does make a great point and I so wish it was like that in my neck of the woods. But with the club policies and competitiveness of the high end clubs down here as well as insurance and red tape one must go through.
There is little margin for error at my club or neighboring clubs in my area.

I also get a cut of lessons and clinics from my pros. That is the standard. I also like to promote and hire within, but you can't always rely on that.

I make sure professionals know my expectations and it is crystal clear. No moonlighting, no poaching on others lessons, show up before student with basket set and court ready etc etc.

all the written tests and psychanalytic evaluating is ok, to a point. If you truly wanna see what someone is made of, put them on court. Many things will reveal themselves when they establish a prescence, create rapport with student and begin the teaching process.

keep me posted on the process stotty. Curious who you'll get.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[GeoffWilliams]

Good luck with that. Coaches either like people, like the game, like crappy players and people who suck and who will always suck, or they don't. Because almost everyone who buys lessons will suck. Decent people who love seeing improving results are hard to find.

[lobndropshot]

I guess you don't have to interview everyone who turns in a resume.

[don_budge]

What's the Deal?

I have to recruit a couple of new coaches. I would like to get it right this time round as previous coaches have been disappointing and not that easy to remove once they become ensconced.

Just out of curiosity…how many hours and what is the pay?

[stotty]

Just out of curiosity…how many hours and what is the pay?

The pay is low but increases throughout the year once the applicant has proven himself. The job involves 20 hours per week.

I recruited yesterday evening. A man of 35 who lost his city job and has just past his Level 2 coaching exams and is hoping to strike out on his own. I think he is a good choice and have offered him work for a year, assuming he completes his 3 months probation successfully.

He was interviewed then asked to demonstrate his on court coaching skills with groups and squads. He did well. I stopped short of the written exam as I am not sure it proves anything that worthwhile.

At the end of his 3 months probation he will have a sign agreement stating the boundaries and scope of his work.

[klacr]

Glad you give some veteran guys a chance as well. In the U.S. there is a big push to attract younger professionals and for the younger generation of professionals to step up. The average age of a USPTA certified professional is 47.5 so top brass sees this and wants some young blood developing and waiting in the wings. As a tester for the USPTA, I play the role of recruiter to the "U30" program as many applicants are young and I explain the perks over the course of a certification weekend.

http://www.usptaplayer.com/club/U30/...-us/who-are-we

http://floridau30.wix.com/uspta



But there are many things a veteran coach can bring to the table, overall life experience being the most obvious, but also a maturity, patience and understanding for the student as well as refreshing perspective of having a job that is actually pretty cool and something he hopefully is passionate about. Many younger professionals don't realize this until its too late, if at all.

Keep me posted stotty on this new hire's progress.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

Glad you give some veteran guys a chance as well. In the U.S. there is a big push to attract younger professionals and for the younger generation of professionals to step up. The average age of a USPTA certified professional is 47.5 so top brass sees this and wants some young blood developing and waiting in the wings. As a tester for the USPTA, I play the role of recruiter to the "U30" program as many applicants are young and I explain the perks over the course of a certification weekend.

http://www.usptaplayer.com/club/U30/...-us/who-are-we

http://floridau30.wix.com/uspta

But there are many things a veteran coach can bring to the table, overall life experience being the most obvious, but also a maturity, patience and understanding for the student as well as refreshing perspective of having a job that is actually pretty cool and something he hopefully is passionate about. Many younger professionals don't realize this until its too late, if at all.

Keep me posted stotty on this new hire's progress.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

How strange. Over here we have the opposite problem. Most coaches are young; older coaches are hard to retain as they burn out and opt to change occupation. Coaching is seen more as a younger persons job here.

My new recruit is good, and I am confident he will compliment the rest of my team. He arrives early and stands by his ball basket waiting for his first lesson, just how we like it. He is a 35 and a good player. I think coming to the career later in life may be a good thing.

Thanks for you help and advice

[klacr]

...My new recruit is good, and I am confident he will compliment the rest of my team. He arrives early and stands by his ball basket waiting for his first lesson, just how we like it...

Does your new pro how a clone or a twin brother? Sounds like a great hire. Could use a man with that conduct and professionalism across the pond to add to my staff.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton