Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My names Alistair Kirkwood I head up the London office of the NFL, which is the league that
runs American football in the states, it's the biggest sport in America.
I got into my profession in a slightly strange way, I was doing a degree in the Netherlands,
I had to do some work experience. What I did was I wrote a couple of cheeky letters, so
I wrote a letter to FC Barcelona, and I wrote a letter to a Vice President of the NFL, and
in both I tried to stand out from the crowd. In both cases I wrote the top ten things they
were doing wrong internationally, within about four days of sending the letters I got phone
calls from both of them, I then got interviews as a result, and got offers of interning as
well in both places. I think a lesson that I got from it was if you, if your going to
a competitive area then do something different. High risk. High reward.
I think youth is incredibly important to have around, viewers won't need to be the most
observing to realise that I'm middle aged and in a suit and yet I'm in a sport that
aspires to grow and become much bigger in the UK. We've had our average age of our fans
down in the last five years from 33 to 26, in order to do that we've obviously had to
grow and get out to a lot of teenagers as a result, and having people around that kind
of understand the mentality what actually it's all about is really important.
My top five tips would be number one don't rely on your love of sport alone, because
we're a sports craze nation and you've got to figure that 20 million other people love
sport and a lot of the time it's not about what you know, it's actually about how you
can transfer what you know to other people. The second is to have a clear idea as to what
you can offer to prospective employer. Too many people apply by just saying that their
available now for the most part people that are in business have a fine light amount of
time, there not really that interested in looking at a blank piece of paper.
The more that you can actually customise, do a little bit of research that would be
my third tip. Do a little bit of research maybe were there a weaknesses or whether there's
projects that there working on or something that there planning to do, and try and customise
what you think you know or what you think you can offer and try and sort that out.
The fourth would be understand the organisation as much as you possibly can. Before you apply
to an organisation, you need to try and do as much research on the Internet. Speak to
different people, in and outside the organisation as much as you can and listen, because if
you know what makes the organisation tick, you'll be much better at coming up with your
application. And then I think the final one is to think
outside the box, do things that are different to anybody else, and don't be afraid of rejection,
because the rejections will make you stronger and wiser in terms of what you need to do
going forward, so it's not about how many rejections you get, it's about finding the
one that's right for you.
I know that when I look to interview people and assess people I'll skim read the CV, it's
actually much more of what they can do on a day to day basis, so qualifications probably
help you get in the door, but they won't get you to where you need to be.
Whilst your in your internship, I think there are two things that you need to focus on.
One is come across as being a good team player that's willing to do absolutely anything because
you can very quickly get a reputation that's not complimentary and doesn't give you opportunities.
The second is have a really good attitude and get to know as many people within that
organisation, because its not just the people that are your line manages, it could be your
friends and allies, going forward for a few opportunities with that organisation, there's
lots of people so once you get in network the hell out of it