(September 15, 2015) Once Sam Hauser identified why he was coming up short in the job market, he made the necessary changes and the results were immediate. An STAA member, Hauser has been hired as Sports Director at 1480 KAUS in Austin, MN.
A 2014 graduate of the University of North Florida, Hauser moves to Minnesota from Miami where he has spent the past year as a producer at 790 The Ticket. “If you want to be on air, like I do, the only way to learn and get comfortable is to just do it,” says Hauser. “Off-air practice is great, but the best way to get a feel for how you want to present yourself in any on-air capacity is to be on air. And smaller markets are a good place to start.”
Prior to getting the Austin job, Hauser hadn’t been getting as much response as he expected in the job market. He thought his youth was the primary reason, until he asked to be the subject of an STAA Member Makeover. The Makeover is a video where STAA takes a look at what a member is doing in the job market and shows them how to do it better. Hauser learned that it wasn’t his youth that was causing him problems. It was his website.
“The one that stuck in my head the most was [when STAA CEO Jon Chelesnik said] ‘A poorly formatted website is worse than having no website at all.’ It was a harsh truth at first, but one that I needed to face,” says Hauser. “When I first submitted my materials for the Member Makeover, I had no idea how amateurish and flawed my website was. And every time I applied for a new job, I found something that needed to be fixed. Having a website is great, but just remember, if you introduce an employer to it, it becomes their first impression of you, so you want it to impress them.
“I thought I wasn’t getting responses from employers because I’m in my early 20s and fresh out of college. But that wasn’t the problem. That was how I came off to them because my website needed work.”
For someone born and raised in South Florida, life in Minnesota represents a huge change. Hauser, though, is unconcerned. “At the end of the day, the position has, for the most part, been more important to me than the location. You have to be able to pack up and move to have the best shot at getting where you want to go. If that means bundling up and getting through the harsh Minnesota winter, bring it on!