Olympic Reflections #2: Interviewing
by Ross Fletcher, Director
Herd Freed Hartz – Executive Search
Olympic Reflections and lessons learned for recruiting
I was fortunate to work at seven Olympic Games (and a few Youth Olympics) during my time in broadcasting. For the duration of Paris 2024 I’m sharing a reflection a day.
I’ve never kept a proper count but I’m pretty sure the number of people I’ve interviewed for work in the last 25 years is comfortably over ten thousand. The biggest volume-per-day would always be at an Olympics. From snarky Polish hammer throwers to blubbing Bahamian sprinters, there was never a dull day.
When I was making the transition from broadcasting to executive recruiting, one of the biggest draws was the continuing need to interview people. Getting to know someone’s story and their motivations keeps me fresh – call it a daily curiosity.
A large part of my remit at an Olympic Games was to interview every medalist from every event I was assigned to cover, along with any other interesting athletes or competitors with emerging story lines. It was terrific grounding for what I’m doing now. There were so many different characters from all over world – throw in the stress of competition and it made for a powder keg of emotions and responses.
The gold medalists were often the easiest, for obvious reasons. The British triple-jumper Greg Rutherford was a particular highlight. After storming to gold in the London Olympics in 2012 he couldn’t contain his excitement, bouncing back and forth from the microphone while repeating the phrase ‘I can’t believe it – I’ve only gone and won the Olympics in my backyard!!’
The emotional interviews were always a highlight. I felt privileged when an athlete would be so open, natural and vulnerable in one of the biggest moments of their lives. Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas stormed to the women’s 400-meter title in the 2016 Rio Games and proceeded to spend our entire post-race interview in floods of tears after revealing how she had secretly battled through a nagging injury that even her coach and family had no knowledge of.
Then there were the snubs. For some reason eastern European hammer throwers rarely wanted to give me the time of day, even after winning a medal. I tried not to take it personally! We would have the comedy situation where I would request an interview, the athlete would blankly walk past me and then a poor media liaison officer would have to chase them down and plead for them to return for a chat. There was an archer who steadfastly refused to remove his glasses because he said he wouldn’t look as cool without them. And the translators who would listen to an athlete’s 40 second answer to my question and give a 7 second interpretation.
So I feel like I’m pretty well prepared for whoever and whatever is thrown my way in my new recruiting world. But I’m always prepared to be surprised – and I’d much prefer it that way!
If you liked this, you can also check out:
Olympic Reflections #1: The People
#olympics #interviewing #executiverecruiting