If you were in Nashville earlier this month, good on ya. At Inside the League, we are pretty devout about the power of networking, and with 1,600 people there, there were plenty of people to meet.

Many of them were what I call “0-3s.” In other words, people who are still in the volunteer stage of their careers and have not even been part of a college personnel department for more than three years. Again, no criticism here. If you’re career-minded, you want to make the right decisions, and going to events like the Personnel and Recruiting Symposium, like our own symposium, is a good one. Still, there are other good decisions to make. One of them is to make sure you are conducting yourself in the right way.

To make sure the next generation of evaluators is on the right track, I reached out to several college GMs about what advice they’d give their volunteers with the new season at hand. One response, in particular, stood out to me, so I want to publish it — anonymously — in its entirety.

“We’re all on the same team. No job is too small. You’re going to be asked to help in a lot of areas outside of scouting. The quickest way to get fired is for me to hear you say ‘that’s not my job’ to a superior of a different department. If you’re working on something for me and somebody else needs your help, come to me and I will handle it.

“Be dependable. Attention to detail is vital. A lot of the work you’re going to be given is boring, tedious, not sexy. Inputting data, updating spreadsheets, typing up notes, etc. and I don’t have time to double check everything you do. But if I can’t trust you to do the little things, then how can I give you more responsibilities? Take pride in your work.

“The No. 1 most important thing I look for when filling those roles is attitude/mindset. 95% of being good in that role is willingness to do whatever is asked of you. I want somebody who is going to do whatever is asked of them, to the best of their ability, with urgency and a smile on their face.

“Be eager to work and help. And that’s with everything, not just the stuff you want to be doing. You should never be sitting around doing nothing. Ask what you can assist with or if you seeing something that doesn’t look right or needs to be done, be proactive. I would rather tell you to slow down than to pick it up. While also understanding your role and not overstepping, i.e. don’t make decisions that aren’t yours to make.

“You should act and carry yourself for the job you want, not the job you have. The way you dress, how you conduct yourself in the building, what time you arrive/leave. You never know when somebody is watching. Don’t give anybody a reason to think you don’t belong here. You’re not going to have a ton of interactions with everybody in the building, so giving somebody the wrong impression is going to be hard to make up for, because you may not get another chance.”

While that response was excellent, there was more. Here are a few highlights from other college GMs at both the P4 and G5 level.

• “My first thought is to be where your feet are and excel in the tasks you’re given! I think people are so quick to look forward to the places they want to be, working on the tasks they want to work on but you only get those opportunities if you do a great job with the work you’re given right at the start.”
• “Master the balancing act of curious and confident — (dig) to understand the why, not just what. Don’t be Capt. Obvious, thinking what you’ve discovered is profound. Find comfort in being the “designated disagreer. All are looking for confident truth-tellers that provide “stuff,” not fluff/word salads (or) ’empty calories.'”

Good luck this season! The college personnel community is growing at lightning speed and there are plenty of opportunities out there. Just make sure you’re smart about how you seek it.