Example Career: Athletes and Sports Competitors
Career Description
Compete in athletic events.
What Job Titles Athletes and Sports Competitors Might Have
- Baseball Player
- Golf Professional
- Hockey Player
- Race Car Driver
What Athletes and Sports Competitors Do
- Assess performance following athletic competition, identifying strengths and weaknesses and making adjustments to improve future performance.
- Maintain equipment used in a particular sport.
- Attend scheduled practice or training sessions.
- Maintain optimum physical fitness levels by training regularly, following nutrition plans, or consulting with health professionals.
- Participate in athletic events or competitive sports, according to established rules and regulations.
- Exercise or practice under the direction of athletic trainers or professional coaches to develop skills, improve physical condition, or prepare for competitions.
- Receive instructions from coaches or other sports staff prior to events and discuss performance afterwards.
- Represent teams or professional sports clubs, performing such activities as meeting with members of the media, making speeches, or participating in charity events.
- Lead teams by serving as captain.
What Athletes and Sports Competitors Should Be Good At
- Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
- Stamina - The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Gross Body Coordination - The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
What Athletes and Sports Competitors Should Be Interested In
- Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
What Athletes and Sports Competitors Need to Learn
- Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
- English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
- Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
- Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
- Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
- Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
- Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
- Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
This page includes information from by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the license.