Student-athletes have a variety of strengths to showcase to employers when they enter the job market, according to a panel of alumni who have been there and leveraged those qualities themselves.<\/p>\n
The panel of former Furman student-athletes included Kena Hodges ’01 (women\u2019s basketball), now vice president of human resources and administration at Broad Street Realty, Adi Filipovic ’06 (football), now managing director at Resurgens Technology, James Perez ’15 (cross-country\/track and field), product owner at Duke Energy and co-founder of Stoke Performance, and Rachel Sindler ’21 (women\u2019s lacrosse), an investment banking analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Head Women’s Basketball Coach Jackie Carson ’00 moderated the panel, an initiative between the Malone Center for Career Engagement<\/a> and Furman Athletics<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘Commitment to the grind’<\/strong><\/p>\n Carson asked each to share what student-athletes could put on a resume or job application that reflects their unique skills and experience.<\/p>\n Filipovic said student-athletes should capitalize on their \u201ccommitment to the grind of doing the little things right and really believing … that if we all do the little things right, it makes a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Sindler said student-athletes can tout their ability to stay composed under pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile it\u2019s a different type of problem or experience, or the shot clock winding down, we\u2019ve all been through that as student-athletes, where you\u2019re under pressure and you have to perform well.\u201d<\/p>\n Hodges pointed to the willingness to trust others enough to delegate authority and the ability to take accountability for herself.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to hire people who are really good in those areas that I am not as good,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we all look good, we all complement each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Perez emphasized a student-athlete\u2019s particular ability to pivot in the face of failure.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to mess up in practice,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s done, it\u2019s over with \u2013\u00a0 it\u2019s the same thing at work. \u2026 Like Ted Lasso, you\u2019ve got to have the memory of a goldfish and keep moving.\u201d<\/p>\n Go beyond your team<\/strong><\/p>\n Panelists also offered advice that could benefit current students right away.<\/p>\n \u201cStudy abroad if you can,\u201d said Perez. \u201cI didn\u2019t. I really wish I did. I know it\u2019s very difficult and you\u2019re really competitive. If you can do it during the summer, just maybe try to make it work.\u201d He also urged new graduates to \u201cstart small, think big\u201d in a way that doesn\u2019t mean settling for less but does allow them to see where an opportunity could take you.<\/p>\n \u201cThat first job out of school might not be perfect, and it probably won\u2019t be,\u201d said Perez. \u201cKnow you can learn skills there and pivot into new careers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sindler pointed to the Malone Center for Career Engagement as a key resource for student-athletes.<\/p>\n \u201cI did use the Malone career center a lot, and I reached out to them a bit earlier on in the process because of the job and industry I wanted to go into,\u201d she said. \u201cI would definitely make the effort to have just an intro meeting with someone at the career center or in the Internship Office, because that can get things moving for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Panelists also urged current student-athletes to broaden themselves socially at Furman \u2013 an effort that would help them interact with diverse colleagues when they enter the workforce. While student-athletes have the advantage of starting Furman with their teammates serving as an automatic family, said panelists, that can also impose limitations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so stupid how insulated I was,\u201d said Filipovic. \u201cLike, \u2018Why do I need anybody else?\u2019 \u2026 But there was a whole university around. That changed over time, but it took way too long. The clock runs out. \u2026 You don\u2019t get to do the college thing again.\u201d<\/p>\n Added Hodges: \u201cThe world does not look like your team. That\u2019s just the reality of it. \u2026 You never know where these relationships will take you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Student-athletes have a variety of strengths to showcase to employers when they enter the job market, according to a panel of alumni who have been there and leveraged those qualities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-malone-center-for-career-engagement","category-top-four-news-1st-story","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}