{"id":16079,"date":"2016-11-28T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coachingvb.com\/?p=16079"},"modified":"2016-11-28T08:00:46","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T14:00:46","slug":"looking-back-on-my-job-search-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/28\/looking-back-on-my-job-search-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back on my job search thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently found myself reading the post I wrote at the start of my 2014-15 job search<\/a>. It was interesting to revisit my thinking at that time.<\/p>\n

This was December 2014. It was my third year at Exeter. I had in mind the completion of my PhD and likely the end of my time in England. There wasn’t much chance I’d be able to stay there in a primarily coaching capacity. The timing was such that my main focus was on US college coaching jobs. They were the ones opening up at the time, though I also had professional jobs in Europe in mind. I had to wait until later to go after them.<\/p>\n

I definitely expected to end up back in college volleyball at that time. While I knew it would be a challenge given my long time away, I felt like I had a decent set of credentials. I could go back as an assistant coach, but I figured at that point I was better suited for a head coach position. When it came to looking at a professional job, I thought it would be the other way around. I figured I’d probably need to be an assistant somewhere first to learn the ropes in that structure.<\/p>\n

It’s funny how things played out!<\/p>\n

Expectations vs. Reality<\/h6>\n

Although I applied for a long list of both head and assistant positions<\/a>, I barely got a sniff at any US coaching jobs at that time. There was one phone interview for a school in Texas (coincidentally). That’s as far as it went, though. It was such a poor response that I very seriously thought about non-coaching jobs.<\/p>\n

As you probably know, I ended up getting a professional job as a head coach in Sweden. I didn’t really understand at the time I wrote that old post how few assistant coaching opportunities there were for non-locals (or at least non-EU). Outside of the very top leagues (and clubs) the only real opportunities were as head coach for foreigners, and I didn’t have the right passport. I also wasn’t very well connected to hear about potentials positions.<\/p>\n

Of course things didn’t play out exactly as I planned in Sweden at Svedala. The team had one of the club’s best seasons, but I was cut loose early in the second half of the campaign. Fortunately, I already had some pokers in the fire, and was shortly thereafter hired at Midwestern State where I am now. I wouldn’t have guessed that I’d end up an assistant in Division II, but that’s where I am.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the Midwestern job wasn’t the only one for which I was offered an interview. I also got called about doing one for a Division III head coaching position. By that time, however, I had already started at MSU.<\/p>\n

What did line up<\/h6>\n

In that old post I talked about the sort of position I wanted, given the opportunity. It was one where I could build something – or at least be part of doing so. That’s something which never changed. It remains true today. It’s a big reason why I am at MSU<\/a>. The situation here is all about rebuilding a program. I may not be the head coach, but I still have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact.<\/p>\n

You can follow my progress in that regard via my Coaching Log<\/a> entries.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read a post I wrote nearly 2 years ago about my job search intentions and efforts at the time. It’s interesting to see how things went since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[268,339,341,387],"class_list":["post-16079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-r","category-volleyball-coaching-careers","tag-professional-volleyball","tag-university-volleyball","tag-us-collegiate-volleyball","tag-volleyball-coaching-job"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}