July 26, 2012

Who has it tougher: Olympic athletes or job seekers?

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Citius, Altius, Fortius... After tomorrow night, we'll start finding out who will run faster, leap higher and finish stronger than the rest, in accordance with this time-honored Olympic motto.

As we prepare ourselves for another two weeks of wall-to-wall TV coverage, endless tear-jerking backstories and the most hideous mascots known to mankind, I can't help but find similarities between the athletes of the London Summer Olympics and today's job seekers. Here is job competition in its purest form, only set on the grandest possible stage. The athletes have submitted their sports resumes and endured a brutal, years-long screening process. Now, in front of the world's toughest hiring managers, they'll make their final "interviews" for the chance at becoming a gold medalist, which is sort of like a job, but with lots of great perks.

But do these mighty athletes face challenges that are really any tougher than those of the average job seeker? Let's compare and see how they stack up:

Competition. Today's job seekers have a tough time standing out, but it doesn't come close to what Olympic athletes face in their quest for gold. Think about the odds: More than 10,500 of the most physically gifted individuals on earth will be competing for about 300 available top spots. If gold medals were jobs, this translates into a ratio of roughly 35 applicants for every job opening; the ratio rises higher when you factor in the athletes expected to win multiple golds. During the worst days of the Great Recession, some hardest-hit cities, such as Detroit, experienced applicants-to-openings ratios of up to 13:1, but the worst it ever got on a national scale was about 6:1. Today, the national average is about 3:1. Advantage: Job seekers.

Compensation. Not long ago, this was a moot point, as all Olympic athletes had to be unpaid amateurs. But after decades of this rule being routinely flouted, the amateur requirement was dropped for most Olympic events by the 1990s. Today, each actual gold medal (containing only 1 percent gold) is worth about $650 and the U.S. Olympic Committee pays $25,000 for each gold medal won by Americans, but the fame it brings can reap millions of dollars in product endorsements. Still, despite the potential riches, the shelf-life of a champion athlete is less than half that of job seekers. Most Olympians hang up their cleats before 30, while job seekers keep plugging away well into their 60s and beyond. Advantage: Job seekers.

Networking opportunities. The life of an Olympic athlete is solitary, involving endless sets of repetitive tasks that are practiced until they become second nature. The same can be said of job seekers, who are constantly tweaking resumes, personalizing cover letters and rehearsing 30-second elevator speeches until they can recite them in their sleep. Both have periodic peer meetings each year, in the form of regional competitions, job fairs and networking events. It's almost a toss-up, until the actual Games begin. While job seekers continue their daily searches for new contacts, athletes are sent to the greatest job fair of all, the Olympic Village, where there's time to market their brand on TV, network with the world's greatest peers and coaches, and line up future sponsorships. Advantage: Olympians, by a nose.

Training regimen. Most Olympic athletes spend their entire adolescence and young adulthood obsessed with training, rising at 4 a.m. to sculpt their bodies into perfect machines for hours every day, often for only a handful of events. Most job seekers, however, spend almost the same amount of time in grade school, learning basic skills they will use in their professional lives. Some of them move on, amassing huge student-loan debts to gain progressively specialized knowledge in college and graduate programs into their mid-20s. Advantage: It's a tie.

Job interview pressure. Few experiences in life are as nerve-racking as facing tough questions in a job interview. For Olympic athletes, the Games are essentially job interviews, only with multiple judges, Swiss timing and more than a billion people watching you, live. And don't forget the commentators critiquing the tiniest errors on super-slo-mo instant replay. Advantage: Job seekers, by a country mile.

Consequences of losing. The phrase "Go for the gold!" is now a macho cliché, but really, underneath the swagger, most of the athletes would be content to win any medal; many are happy just to compete for their countries. Even skater Nancy Kerrigan had a decent career after she merely won silver in the 1994 Winter Olympics. The big difference, of course, is that there are no silver or bronze medals for job seekers. They may not have to wait four years for the next opportunity, but the typical job seeker always faces sudden-death overtime with every interview. Advantage: Olympians.

Final score? On paper, it a wash. But I'd have to say that looking for work — without the support of the media or corporate sponsors, and with your next mortgage payment always on the line — will always trump the toughest athletic challenge. No contest.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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brand, competition, interviewing, motivation, networking, self-confidence, skills, training

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Richard | July 28, 2012 8:20 PM | Reply

You should be comparing job seekers to Olympic contenders. Being in the Olympics is not like a job seeker, it's like someone already hired at a company that just keeps a small percentage of the people they hire. Advantage: job seeker.

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