Recruiting the "Hard Way"
The most classic form of recruiting and the most overlooked is the age old recruiting of College athletes. After the College Football season is over the most anticipated day until fall kick-off is National Signing Day (NSD).
NSD is the first Wednesday in February and is when High School Football players sign binding letters of intent to attend a college or university. NSD isn’t reserved for the Notre Dame’s and Auburn’s of the world, but every school from the Football Championship Subdivision to Division III.
In preparation for this day, thousands of hours are put into evaluating and strategically determining the needs of the team, how the next class of players will fit into the preceding 3 years of recruits and their needs based on players transferring, injuries, grades or other factors that affect attrition.
Most teams will sign no more than 25 players in February, but that has to be balanced against loses from previous classes. Football programs are limited to 85 scholarship athletes at a time. Most programs have a coach designated as the Recruiting Coordinator. Other than coaching responsibilities, this individual is very much like a Chief HR Officer. They manage the position and class needs along with expected attrition.
Recruiting College Athletes is recruiting the “Hard Way”. The hard way in that most athletes are recruited by visiting them and watching their High School performance in person. Going into the homes of the family and selling them on the prospects of playing for their team and getting an education at their school. This is different than how mainstream recruiting occurs, possibly through an online web site or a recruiter who combs the internet looking for resumes.
You might think that College recruiting, and in particular College Football recruiting, doesn't compare with your ordinary mid-sized company but consider this data...
According to the Wall Street Journal College Football's Most Valuable teams by valuation are:
1. University of Texas $875M
2. University of Notre Dame $811.5M
3. University of Michigan $685.5M
4. The Ohio State University $674.8M
5. University of Florida $660.8M
6. University of Oklahoma $655.2M
7. University of Alabama $640.1M
8. University of Georgia $581.8M
9. Auburn University $537.6
10. Louisiana State University $529.8M
The success of these programs is completely dependent on their ability to attract and grow top talent.
This is Human Capital Management (HCM) in its oldest and most basic form. Businesses today are using analytics and metrics to determine their needs which are balanced against the business goals and financials. College Football teams are doing the same thing but in a more manual way. When a team has a “bye” week or week off, the coaches are likely traveling to their recruiting area of the country to watch games and meet with players with a goal of getting their commitment on NSD. Recruiting also makes up a huge amount of time before and after spring practice.
There are some in the industry who believe knowledge of HCM systems like ADP Vantage, UltiPro or Workday constitute HCM domain expertise, this is incorrect and is considered Transactional HCM. Human Capital Management is the process of developing talent, deploying talent and the ability to draw talent. Three things that any successful College Football program is doing today. The HCM system is the mechanism to track and manage the process from recruitment to retirement.
If your business is in the process of transforming and building out its ability to successfully implement HCM, introduce them to their local college coaches. Not only Football, but in all sports, where HCM has been occurring for the past 100 years.
