In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Jared Watts, Director of Talent at Vantaca, a community-managed performance software company based in North Carolina.

Previously, Jared worked on the agency side in executive search and spent five years playing professional soccer in the MLS. He played for both the Colorado Rapids and the Houston Dynamo, and was the 33rd overall pick in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft.

He captained the Under 17 World Cup team in Nigeria and he won the 2018 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup when he was playing at Houston. He was also finishing his MBA during his soccer career!

Listen in as Jared talks about his storied career as an athlete and his transition into the world of recruiting. He explains why recruiting might just be the perfect job for ex-athletes and how sports psychology can profoundly help in the business of recruiting. Finally, he talks about the life of an agency recruiter versus an in-house one.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• [02:15] What led Jared into soccer
• [07:50] Lessons learned from playing professional soccer in the MLS
• [11:39] Managing stress and anxiety as a professional athlete
• [13:26] Getting clear on the growth trajectory of the candidate
• [15:14] Applying the power of visualization to recruiting
• [18:44] Focusing on daily wins
• [23:50] Mindfulness practices
• [27:57] Dealing with loss and failure
• [30:43] Why the recruiting industry has a high turnover rate
• [33:02] How to develop a winning mindset
• [36:06] How recruiting for a software company is like recruiting for a D1 college sport
• [39:54] Jared’s approach to the interview process
• [42:20] Why recruiters always need the “agency mindset”

Key quotes:

• “[In professional sports,] you’re only as good as your last performance. There are no days in which you can take shortcuts.”
• “Just like in sports, recruiting is so much a mentality and the way that you react to situations that arise, whether that’s the pressures of performing or the ability to solve problems on the go, and solve them quickly.”
• “Visualization is everything. You’ve got to be able to see yourself succeeding, whether in sports or in the business world.”
• “It’s not about the recruiter. It’s about who you’re reaching out to and why they should be interested.”
• “The sign of a great recruiter is how many people come back to you that you haven’t placed, and want to work with you again.”