KANSAS CITY, Kan. - The Ottawa University Athletic Department recently hosted Career Athletes, LLC on campus to conduct student-athlete seminars focused on “Developing your Career Game Plan” and “How to Sell Yourself as an Athlete.”
Based out of Olathe, Kansas, Career Athletes is the nation’s largest and oldest online organization linking together current and former student-athletes, business organizations, and athletic departments. For the past 12 years, Career Athletes has conducted over 900 campus training and development seminars in front of more than 260,000 student-athletes.
Two hundred and fifty student-athletes were in attendance on August 30th as Career Athletes Vice President of Training and Development, DJ Washington, spoke to everyone in attendance.
“The entire Ottawa staff should be recognized for their support of their student-athletes beyond the playing fields. More than 25 athletic administrators, coaches, and student life personnel were present to support such an exciting event on campus. It was my responsibility to ensure these student-athletes are well-prepared for life after collegiate athletics in the real world,” said Washington, who also addressed the group from a former athlete’s perspective.
In addition, Career Athletes was able to bring this event to campus through the sponsorship of national employer partner, Northwestern Mutual. Northwestern Mutual provides a top 10 internship program that targets competitive individuals looking to create an expansive network.
“Getting the chance to connect with the student athletes at Ottawa University was very successful. I was impressed at how assertive students were in taking action on their future. I was able to connect with great individuals and am looking forward to following up with each candidate over the next few weeks,” said Director of Campus Recruiting for the Northwestern Mutual RPS Financial Group in Kansas City, Lyndsey Hedge.
“I truly believe these students have what it takes to be successful in not only an internship with Northwestern Mutual but beyond graduation as well. It was a great experience and I am excited to work with Ottawa in the future.”
The seminars for student-athletes are geared towards using a unique skill set they obtain while competing in college athletics and how to use and articulate these skills and traits at an interview or on a resume.
“The seminars on our campus were a great way to kickoff the year and our partnership with Career Athletes,” said Director of Athletics at Ottawa University Arabie Conner. “DJ did a great job challenging our student-athletes in regards to thinking about their future beyond OU. He also did a nice job reinforcing and directing them to the resources that are not only available through the Career Athletes networking site, but also the vast resources available to them right here on our campus with our career services and Adawe LifePlan Center.”
Topics covered in the seminar are: knowing your competition, identifying skills learned through athletic preparation and how to use these skills to your advantage after graduation, networking, preparation for an interview, and how to differentiate yourself from others. All student-athletes received professional career preparation manuals to be used as a guide throughout the seminar and in days to come.
Career Athletes welcomed staff from Ottawa’s Athletic Department, Career Services and Alumni Department to the seminars.
Nori Hale, Director of Corporate Relations at Ottawa said, “I am so impressed with what Career Athletes offer to our student athletes to better prepare them for the job search and careers after college. This insight and business acumen needs to be heard by all students, but targets the student-athlete and his/her particular strengths and challenges.
“What a great enhancement to Career Services! The presentation was very strong and concise, the small group interviews the next day gave a real edge to the serious student athlete, and the website provides much supporting and ongoing information. Thanks so much for partnering with Ottawa University,” said Hale.
Student-athletes also have career education resources available 24 hours a day through the Career Resource Center in their account at careerathletes.com. Members can also utilize the Virtual Career Coach to stay in touch with Career Athletes representatives at a later date.
Marianne McGoran, Athletic Department graduate assistant at Ottawa and former basketball student-athlete at Wilimington College said, “Career Athletes’ presentation is so extremely useful and applicable to today’s student-athletes it’s incredible.
“What Career Athletes does for student-athletes is great and influences those people to work hard and smart in having a successful future. Thank you for your presentation; our students can take your information and apply it to their own lives.”
To learn more about Career Athletes and to create your FREE online account, go to www.careerathletes.com or call 913-397-6625.
About Career Athletes, LLC:
Career Athletes is the leading provider of a wide range of dedicated career development services and software within collegiate athletics. Since the inception of our roots back in 1998-to-date, athletes in every sport, from over 1,200 individual colleges and universities nationwide, have utilized Career Athletes as a valuable tool in their transition from athletics to the workplace.
Career Athletes possesses the largest member based community of current/alumni student-athletes, representing a growing legion of athletes, athletic departments and hundreds of national, regional and local employers. Today, our on-campus training and development seminars to student-athletes are the most relied upon in the nation, with over 900 seminars conducted and over 260,000 student-athletes educated on-campus within college athletic departments at the NCAA, NAIA and Junior Colleges level.
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