Coach K on Recruiting Talent

Born in Chicago, Michael William Krzyzewski, also known as Coach K, is a former basketball coach who held the position of head coach for Duke University’s team, the Blue Devils, for forty-two years. During his time as the team’s leader, the Blue Devils won five national titles, thirteen Final Fours, and many season titles and championships.

Coach K attended the famed military academy West Point in 1969 and served in the US Army as an officer, where he led the Army basketball team as captain. He was the assistant coach to the Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics and led the United States Olympics team to gold medal victories three times (in 2008, 2012, and 2016). The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has inducted him twice.

“Recruiting talent” is a term used in the labor market that describes the hiring process of locating, interviewing, staffing, and onboarding new employees. In sports, recruiting talent can look a little different. It might involve scouting talent at sporting matches and, depending on the players’ ages, conversations with family and school officials.

Recruiting talent begins with identifying and describing the team member position that needs filling. At this point, the company’s hiring manager may take over and write a detailed job description of the open role. The manager lists the open position on the company’s internal career site and external job boards where potential candidates look for job postings. After reviewing the applicants, sometimes with the help of an applicant tracking system, the hiring manager meets with qualified candidates for the interview process.

Once the hiring manager finds the best talent for the job, they’ll go through salary negotiations and make a formal offer. If the job-seeker accepts the position, the onboarding process begins, and the new hire begins work at the company on their assigned start date.

Recruiting talent differs slightly from talent acquisition, which refers to finding and retaining the right talent for specific high-level job openings that will help the company stay competitive in the long run. On the other hand, the recruiting process usually involves finding job candidates for current vacancies.

Organizations fiercely compete for the best candidates because they understand that talented individuals make a difference. Some of the reasons companies work hard to find and retain top talent include the following:

1. 1. High performers are more productive. A 2017 study of various work environments (including athletics, politics, and entertainment) found that top performers are four times more effective than average employees and even more productive when the job is complex and requires a specialized skill set.
2. 2. New markets require more specialized skills. The modernization and changes in fields like technology and manufacturing mean companies need highly skilled employees with new knowledge and the ability to do the job well. Since these job markets reflect relatively new requirements, the number of people able to fill the positions offered remains slim and competitive.
3. 3. Top performers are hard to find. Since companies value top talent when they have it, they do what they can to avoid losing their most valued current employees to other companies, leaving fewer available high-quality candidates in the job market. Human resources must employ a long-term recruiting strategy in which they know the best candidates in their field before they need the position filled (also called a passive talent pool).

Coach K spent over forty years putting together some of the most successful teams in sports history. His eye for talent and natural sense of the elements a team needs to excel made him one of the best in the business. Follow his recruiting tips to get the best talent you can find:

• A good team member has diverse interests and character. When looking for talent, Coach K believes a successful team needs variety. “I wanted guys who were interested in more than just basketball, so they would have balance,” he says. When looking at a potential hire, ask yourself not only if they have the talent to do the job, but also if they have curiosity and interest in learning new skills and growing. “If you just recruit talent, that’s dangerous, you know?” he adds. “But if you recruit talent with character, you got a chance to do something very, very special.”
• Don’t talk about the competition. Coach K believes you should never gossip or mention your competitors. Whenever he recruited a new player, he would tell them, “I’m never gonna talk about another team. I’m only gonna talk about our team and our program and our school. Because I’ve gotten to know you well enough, to me, this is the only place for you. So I don’t have to speak negatively about someone else to get you to come. I want you to come because you really want to play for me.”
• Get to know up-and-coming talent. Inevitably, talented employees move on. Coach K recommends preparing for this in advance, as he had to do with players who left the team. “They left after one year, a lot of them. Some after two years,” Coach K says. “You had to plan more in advance. Not just recruiting one class, but recruiting the class behind them also. At least getting to know people in that class.” Get to know the best talent rising through the ranks, so you know who to recruit when the time comes.
• Go after the person you want, or give everyone a fair chance. “I would be careful if I’m trying to fill a position, and there are a few people that I’m considering, that I’m being the same with all of them in what I am offering them,” Coach K says. “And if I can’t do that, the person that I would offer the most to, just recruit that person. If you really want somebody, go after him or her.” If you know someone perfect for the job, do your best to recruit them first.
• Keep it positive and sell them on your own organization. When you talk to a potential new hire, spend time telling them why your company is the best place for them. “I don’t want to spend any time talking about the other team, the other school,” he says. “I’m branding me and my program, not anyone else. I’ve felt comfortable about that the entire time I’ve recruited. And as a result, I think we got people who came for the right reasons and came confident that they would be successful in our program.”
• Make them feel appreciated and allow them to grow in their position. Getting someone hired may be easy, but retaining top talent has its own challenges. Coach K recommends expressing sincere appreciation for your team member’s contributions and keeping the job exciting and mutable. “Tell them how important they are,” he says. “And then try to keep changing their position instead of just having twelve things that that position is supposed to do, so that they can grow. They can get better.”
• Take the time to get to know the person you hire. When you’re desperate to fill an open position, you may want to rush, but Coach K recommends getting to know the candidate beyond their past job experience. “A lot of times, you just wanna fill the position,” he says. “I would still want a personal interview with the person. I would ask questions to try to get to know them better.” He recommends asking questions that reveal character. He adds, “I might even bring up a value or two: ‘Do you know that our organization is value-driven? How does that make you feel?’ And so there’d be questions that are pertinent to not just the position, but the heart and soul of our team.”

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