SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

Not every candidate is going to enjoy the outcome of a coaching search.

Someone is going to get the job. Most people will not.

There will be difficult decisions, delays, HR requirements, committee schedules, reference checks, and circumstances that athletic directors cannot completely control.

So the goal of a good search process cannot be to make every candidate happy.

But it should be to avoid unnecessarily frustrating good candidates along the way.

As part of our 2026 College Coaching Job Search Study, we asked coaches an open-ended question:

“What frustrates you the most when you go through a search?”

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

One of the realities of hiring coaches at a smaller college is that you are not always competing on equal financial footing.

Another institution may offer a higher salary.

They may have better facilities.

More scholarship resources.

A larger staff.

A bigger recruiting budget.

For athletic directors, it can be easy to look at those differences and assume there is not much you can do.

Our 2026 College Coaching Job Search Study suggests otherwise.

We asked more than 300 college coaches:

“What can a smaller college with limited financial resources do to make an opportunity more attractive?”

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

Almost every athletic department says it has a good culture.

You hear words like collaborative, supportive, family-oriented, student-centered, and close-knit in job postings and interviews all the time.

But when coaches are considering a job, what actually convinces them that the culture is healthy?

As part of our 2026 College Coaching Job Search Study, we asked more than 300 college coaches:

“Which signs most strongly suggest that an athletic department has a healthy culture?”

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

By the time a coaching search reaches the finalist stage, it is easy for an athletic department to think primarily about one question:

Do we want to hire this person?

That is obviously important.

But the candidate is trying to answer an equally important question:

Do I actually want this job?

As part of our 2026 College Coaching Job Search Study (to be published soon), we asked more than 300 college coaches which parts of a finalist or campus interview would be most valuable to them.

The top responses were:

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

Most college coaching job descriptions tell candidates plenty about what the institution expects from them.

They list responsibilities, qualifications, compliance expectations, and application instructions.

But they often say very little about something candidates care deeply about:

What will I actually have to work with if I take this job?

As part of our 2026 College Coaching Job Search Study, we asked more than 300 college coaches:

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

What causes a college coach to look at a job opening and decide, “That’s probably not for me”?

Is it outdated facilities?

A struggling program?

Moving to a lower competitive level?

Those things matter. But according to our latest research, they may not matter nearly as much as athletic directors think.

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

The interview process should not be handled lightly by the athletic director and hiring committee. It is a huge opportunity to make a huge decision for the institution.

Recently, I shared an articlerelated to our recent national study with Athletic Directors about the coaching search process. In this article I discussed the focus of questions asked by ADs in the process. But, now I wanted to speak to those of you in those interview rooms, asking the questions.

Here are a few quick tips for making those interviews more effective based on what is working for other ADs around the country:

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

A formal interview tells you a lot about a coaching candidate.

But it does not tell you everything.

In fact, some of the most useful information in a coaching search comes before and after the interview itself. How a candidate communicates, prepares, follows through, treats people, asks questions, and handles the full process often gives an athletic director a clearer picture of how that person may operate once hired.

The interview is the performance.

The process often reveals the pattern.

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

Most coaching candidates can talk well about leadership.

They can describe their culture. They can explain their recruiting philosophy. They can talk about accountability, relationships, discipline, communication, and developing student-athletes.

And much of it may be sincere.

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SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN 

Hiring a college coach is one of the most important decisions an athletic director makes.

It is also one of the hardest.

A coach hire affects far more than wins and losses. It shapes team culture, student-athlete experience, retention, department morale, institutional alignment, and the long-term direction of a program.

That is why we recently gathered input from 60 college athletic directors across junior colleges, NAIA programs, and NCAA Divisions I, II, and III for our 2026 College Coaching Search Report. The goal was simple: better understand what athletic directors are experiencing, noticing, valuing, and struggling with in today’s coaching searches.

[Read more…]