Potential Coaching Positions

I am trying to find out where I can locate information pertaining to college assistant coaching positions that are available. If you can assist me with where I should look I would very much appreciate it.
Coach Andrea Woodson

Dear Coach Wooden,
Traditionally almost all college coaching positions head and assistant jobs are listed in two major sources. The first is the Chronicle of Higher Education; a weekly magazine published with news and information about faculty and administration jobs at institutions of higher education around the United States. You can visit their web site at http://chronicle.com/. The second source is the NCAA Newsletter (see NCAA Online!). Virtually all schools use these two sources to meet government fair practice hiring laws by posting them there for public access and knowledge. There will gradually be more sources growing in the coming years with new on-line type services. We initiated more than a year ago our Coaches Information Resource Network (CIRN) database on our own BB Highway web site which has a job listing and wanted portion to handle this type of information. While it isn’t a major source yet we have noticed more coaches and schools using our resource.

Now the honest side of the hiring practice. While all school offering assistant jobs meet legal guidelines for federal compliance in reality many jobs interviews occur well before the closing dates on the jobs. In our world much of getting jobs or at least interviews comes from networking and contacts within an industry. If you are an unknown, even if you apply for a job, your chances of getting an interview or that job are much less than a person who has been a proven and successful assistant at a major school and is well known in the coaching industry.

To improve your chances of getting hired you must not only be a skilled and knowledgeable coach, but you must really work at networking. The National Coaches Association convetion at the NCAA Men’s Final Four and the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) convention at the Women’s Final Four are the place where much of this networking goes on. Other ways you can network and get exposure are by attending clinics, working the camps of bigger schools and colleges, demonstrating team success at major high school tournaments, etc. When you apply for jobs through the NCAA newsletter or Chronicle of Higher Education, word of those jobs opening has already traveled through the coaching “grapevine” for at least several weeks before the posting. You will normally have about a week to get your job application in or miss the deadline. You may have an outside chance to get hired but for most coaches the networking contacts within the industry will have somewhat narrowed the field to “realistic” candidates even as you send your resume.

However being in the “grapevine” and networking extremely hard won’t guarantee you getting an interview or a job. Having coached at the Div. I and Professional level it is still quite common to have to apply for 20-30 jobs to get one or two interviews, or have as many as 5-15 qualified candidates with experience who are just as capable as you of doing a good job if hired. So who gets the job. People, who are a known quantity, are reliable workers, and who have “strong recommendations” from well-known and respected coaches and administrators. This is where networking has its biggest influence. Once you are in the final selection process your own abilities will separate you from the other finalists.

This is in truth how the system operates.

Thanks for Asking the Coach!