SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN
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:
1. Prepare your thinking, not just your answers
You will be asked:
- Who you are
- What you believe
- How you lead
If you haven’t thought deeply about those things, it will show.
2. Be ready for uncomfortable honesty
Questions about:
- Failure
- Criticism
- Mistakes
These are opportunities, not traps.
ADs are not expecting perfection.
They are looking for honesty and growth.
3. Know the institution, really know it
Surface-level knowledge is easy to spot.
Strong candidates understand:
- Constraints
- Culture
- Challenges
- Opportunities
And they speak to them directly.
4. Anchor everything in real experience
The strongest answers sound like:
“Here’s what happened. Here’s what I did. Here’s what I learned. Here’s how it shaped me.”
That’s credibility.
If there’s one thing this research makes clear, it’s this:
Great interviews don’t reveal who the best coach is. They reveal who the right leader is.
And increasingly, those are not always the same thing.
For coaches, the opportunity is to become the kind of leader those questions are designed to find.
Dan Christensen is the Director of Collegiate Consulting for Bechler Leadership. Founded by Jamy Bechler in 2018, Bechler Leadership helps schools, athletic departments, and organizations build stronger cultures and maximize their potential. In the last three years, they’ve worked on 60+ searches, specializing in meeting the needs of “smaller” colleges. Dan can be reached at dan@bechlerleadership.com.