Steps to Consider When Hiring an Athletic Trainer

When the time comes for a school or district to hire an athletic trainer, it is important to take appropriate steps to make sure that not only is the process as smooth as possible but also to be able to get the best possible candidate to fill the position.

Usually, if a school district is hiring an athletic trainer it is for one of two reasons. Either the school district has created a new/ additional position, or it is replacing an existing staff member who is no longer in that position because he or she left the school or has transitioned to another position within the school.

There are several factors to consider when hiring an athletic trainer. First, the school/district has to understand who it can and cannot hire. In the United States, only California does not have regulations for athletic trainers. The other 49 states and the District of Columbia have some type of licensure or regulation that is required to work. If the individual applicant possesses the ATC credential from the athletic training Board of Certification, he or she can get a license to practice in any of those states. In addition, Texas has a licensure exam whereby a candidate can become a licensed athletic trainer without possessing the ATC credential.

Another factor that the school/district should consider is the amount of time it anticipates the person will work. While a full-time position is the easiest to fill, something that may affect the quality and number of applicants may be the flexibility of the schedule.

Does the athletic trainer need to be on campus every morning at 7:30 and stay until the last practice is over, or can the person have a flex schedule and come in later on certain days? If there is more than one athletic trainer on staff, can they alternate early and late days while still ensuring that all events are being covered?

The school should also consider whether it is looking for a comprehensive care model where the athletic trainer is available for all practices and games while also working with student-athletes for injury prevention and rehabilitation, or whether it is simply wanting events covered with no expectation that the athletic trainer performs long-term rehabs.

Another factor that the school/district should consider is whether or not it wants to hire an athletic trainer full time or obtain services of an individual through a contract with a local healthcare system, physical therapy clinic or physician’s office. There are advantages and disadvantages with each employment model, and the school/district should thoroughly evaluate each model to see what is best for its system.

Finally, before hiring, the school/district should also determine factors such as salary, budget, benefits and daily schedule. These will all be things that a potential employee will want to know prior to accepting the position.

Once the school/district has determined it is hiring an athletic trainer, it needs to maximize the applicant pool. Ideally, the position will be for a full school year. This is from late July to late May/ early June. If the district wants to hire in the middle of a school year, it may have to shrink the applicant pool as many secondary school-based athletic trainers are hesitant to leave their schools in the middle of a school year.

The school/district will obviously want to post the job once it is officially open. While posting on the school website is no doubt required, it should not be the only place that the opening is posted. The National Athletic Trainers’ Association (www.nata.org) has a job board where the opening can be posted for a nominal fee. Depending on the state where the school/district is located, there are often organizations that have job boards where the position vacancy should be posted to maximize the number of applicants. A good place to start is the state athletic trainer’s association page, as well as state or regional coaches associations websites.

Don’t forget about social media when posting a vacancy. In today’s times with more and more people staying connected via social media, any school/district that doesn’t utilize that avenue is missing out on potential candidates. There are a multitude of athletic training-related groups on Facebook as an example. Administrators should enlist the help of either their current athletic training staff or the staff at other schools as they will most likely have access to share a job posting on those pages.

Once the job has been posted, the hiring process will obviously need to follow the standards for the school/district. Hopefully, for the sake of the school/district, there are multiple quality applicants so as to have good options when determining whom to interview.

When evaluating the resumes that have been received, it is important to know what the school/district’s ideal candidate looks like. Is experience necessary or is a new graduate going to be OK? Is experience with a certain sport or a certain gender sport important? Does it matter if the candidate has a background in playing a sport? These are just a few of the questions that need to be answered prior to evaluation of resumes to set up interviews.

When the school/district is conducting interviews, it may want to consider a screening process where a phone or video interview is completed prior to bringing the candidate to an in-person interview. Also, who will be involved in the decision-making process? This is very important to establish prior to the interview. If there is an existing athletic trainer on staff, that individual’s opinion should be valued even if the person is not the final decision-maker. If the position is for a standalone athletic trainer, then the athletic director may want to consider adding a female sport coach to the interview team to get that person’s perspective as the person that is ultimately hired will be working with both girls and boys sports.

If, however, there were no quality applicants or no applicants at all, the school/district may want to re-evaluate the position. There are three decisions that the school/district will need to make if it did not receive an applicant suitable for a job offer. The school/ district can choose to not hire and go without an athletic trainer, which is not optimal. The district can re-post the exact same job and hope for better applicants. This may or may not get different results. Finally, the district can improve the job description and repost it. Improving the job could be anything from increasing salary and benefits to changing what the day-to-day tasks look like. For example, if the job requires teaching a full load, the school/district could lower the teaching load or eliminate it altogether if able.

In conclusion, when a school/district is hiring an athletic trainer, there are things about the search that are no different than any hiring any other staff member. There are, however, aspects that are very specific to the profession that the school/district must take into account to get the right person for this very important position.