Providing Insights on Leadership and Success. Coach Bechler is a John Maxwell Leadership Team Member.
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Every coaching candidate has weaknesses.
That is important to remember. The goal of a search is not to find a perfect coach. No such person exists. Every candidate has growth areas, blind spots, and situations they have not handled as well as they would like.
But there is a difference between a normal growth area and a warning sign.
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Some coaching candidates are excellent talkers.
They know how to describe culture. They have polished answers about leadership, accountability, recruiting, and player development. They understand the language athletic directors want to hear.
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Most athletic directors have sat in coaching interviews that felt productive in the moment but became difficult to evaluate afterward.
The conversation was good. The candidate was engaging. The committee liked them. They seemed confident, prepared, and aligned with the department.
But when it came time to compare candidates, the room struggled.
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When athletic directors hire a coach, it is natural to focus first on the program.
Can this person recruit?
Can they coach the sport?
Can they build a competitive roster?
Can they connect with student-athletes?
Can they create a healthy team culture?
Those questions matter. But there is another question that deserves just as much attention:
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We see it happen all too often when our team at Bechler Leadership is doing a school’s search. Candidates come into the interview process not prepared to present themselves in a way that will help them win the job.
We did a national study with college athletic directors and those in the hiring process, for college coaches to understand what kinds of questions work best for them and help them understand the candidates the most. Based on those answers, here are four quick tips for coaching candidates about how they should better prepare:
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Hiring a college coach is one of the most important decisions an athletic director makes.
It is also one of the easiest decisions to misread.
Not because athletic directors are careless. Most are not. They work hard, ask thoughtful questions, involve key people, and carry the weight of knowing how much the hire matters.
But coaching searches are difficult because the most visible parts of a candidate are not always the most predictive.
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Many coaches assume the hiring process starts when the interview begins.
Athletic Directors would tell you it starts much earlier.
It starts the moment they open your resume and cover letter.
And whether you realize it or not, they are asking one central question:
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When coaches prepare for interviews, they often focus on:
All important.
But based on our recent research at Bechler Leadership, they’re not the primary focus.
We asked Athletic Directors a simple question:
“What’s a favorite interview question you ask when hiring a coach?”
The answers told a very different story.
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In college athletics, most coaches believe the hiring process starts when they submit an application or land an interview.
In reality, it starts much earlier.
By the time a search officially begins, athletic directors and search committees often already have a working list of candidates in mind. That list is shaped by reputation, relationships, trajectory, and trust, not just resumes.
If you want to become a serious candidate for jobs, you have to think beyond just applying to a ton of opportunities.
You have to position yourself.
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Every coach wants to know the same thing going into an interview:
“What actually separates candidates?”
Not in theory. Not in a generic “be yourself” sense.
But in real search rooms…what do Athletic Directors actually notice?
As part of our recent national coaching search study at Bechler Leadership, we asked Athletic Directors a simple but revealing question:
“What have candidates done to stand out during the interview process?”
Their answers were consistent, and instructive.
While many things matter in a search, three themes rose clearly above the rest.