They’re really going the extra mile.
Athletes jockeying for corporate roles are garnishing their resumes with marathon and other fitness achievements to stand out.
Brad Thomas, a recruiter based in New York City, told the Wall Street Journal that applicants pushing personal records is a bona fide trend in the hiring space.
He recalled one engineer who thought they would be a lock for a role for reasons beyond a skillset needed. Instead, the candidate thought running 15 marathons, among other competitions would land the gig. They also bragged about landing a sportswear sponsorship.
However, when Philadelphia-based career coach Eliot Kaplan warns that in the wrong context, it could have an applicant hit the showers early.
“If you’re applying for a job at Equinox, it’s obviously a different story, but if you’re just applying for a normal job, what are you trying to say with that stuff?” he told WSJ. Thomas added that it can come off as not-so-graceful bragging, too.
“And it could offend me if I’m a sedentary-type person.”
Regardless, it seems many applicants are keeping pace with the trend.
Jaclyn Amaro, a 36-year-old, part-time public relations pro in New Jersey, included her six marathon finishes and other fitness feats when she applied to her current job.
“I want to show a little bit of my character and personality, to show that I’m hardworking and ambitious,” she told the outlet. “I put it in there as a way to show that I have passions and am working towards something.”
A Nashville physical therapist, 29-year-old Jacob Travis, brought the debate to the public a few weeks ago.
During a run, he posted a video defending the practice.
“You’re going to learn so much more about me from seeing that I’ve trained and ran a marathon than the fact that I was secretary of my fraternity my junior year of college,” Travis said on camera.
“You look at ‘marathon runner’ and the employer immediately knows this dude’s an idiot. But he’s a determined idiot and I want him on my team.”
Some executives, like John Major, a vice president of Norgay Partners, also see the rationale in the “new wave” trend.
“It shows that you have the ability to be intrinsically motivated to do something that you’re not being told to do.”
He added, however, that it applies mainly to lower-level applicants rather than those eye senior positions.
However, not all athletes who work in corporate jobs are sprinting to put their time on a resume.
Chicago marathon runner Kamille Fajardo, a 32-year-old tax adviser, called her remarkable feat “a very private and personal achievement.”
On top of that, she fears putting athletic achievements down will only feed into an overachiever culture and create unfair expectations of the worker.
