Employment Working for AFL clubs

[Silent Alarm]

How do I get drafted and paid $300,00 a year? I'm not 6'2 and I'm built like a rake...

But really – has anyone on Bigfooty ever wrangled a job at an AFL club? I'm talking about minor things like working at club shops, selling raffle tickets, working in the membership call centre. These aren't glamorous gigs obviously, but they're also going to have plenty of candidates and people keen. It seems these jobs are barely ever even advertised let alone your chances of getting one.

Has anyone here done it? How did you get into it?

Also, I've seen Richmond and Melbourne do short 40 minute clinics with some kids from the projects on Napier Street. I was just kicking the footy and struck up a chat with one of the young guys, and he said he was there part-time and it wasn't an AFL Sports Ready traineeship or anything. Didn't press him any more, but has anyone heard of something like that?

Cheers

 

[Teagueeee15]

How do I get drafted and paid $300,00 a year? I'm not 6'2 and I'm built like a rake...

But really – has anyone on Bigfooty ever wrangled a job at an AFL club? I'm talking about minor things like working at club shops, selling raffle tickets, working in the membership call centre. These aren't glamorous gigs obviously, but they're also going to have plenty of candidates and people keen. It seems these jobs are barely ever even advertised let alone your chances of getting one.

Has anyone here done it? How did you get into it?

Also, I've seen Richmond and Melbourne do short 40 minute clinics with some kids from the projects on Napier Street. I was just kicking the footy and struck up a chat with one of the young guys, and he said he was there part-time and it wasn't an AFL Sports Ready traineeship or anything. Didn't press him any more, but has anyone heard of something like that?

Cheers

Back in 2003 I wrote a cold canvass letter to the Carlton Football Club looking for work and I managed to get some volunteer work doing administration. The work itself was just like working in any other office, but the great perk that it did have was overhearing conversations between the people from higher up containing info that any journo would chop their leg off to break. It was quite depressing to realize that the club isn't run any different to your local footy club, so it isn't any surprise to me that they haven't had any success in decades. There seems to be a lot of lifers there who 12 years later are still working there, so it's either a great place to work where everyone is loyal or it's a massive mates club where once you're in, you're in for life. I tend to lean towards it being the latter.

They do advertise on the main job boards via agencies, but they won't disclose the name of the club in the job ad until you are further along in the process. It helps massively if you already know somebody who works there, otherwise volunteering will build up your network of contacts to be able to land a job one day.

 

[Brad Goodman]

Most shitkicker roles at AFL clubs (membership sales etc) will be advertised on sportspeople.com.au.

 

[RAPPA]

Pretty sure they're advertising for the Carlton coaching role.

 

[Michaels]

Managed to do a weeks work experience at Richmond back in year 10 (12 years ago). Had an absolute blast. Did some admin work, helped in the membership department but the highlight of the week was doing a day in the footy department. kicking the footballs back to players during drills, packed their jumpers, shorts, and drink bottles for that weeks game which was in Brisbane.

Ended up getting paid $100 and a heap of training tops, shorts etc of former players.

 

[stanga]

a mate used to have a shitkicker role in membership for port. now she runs the show for the afl on match days . so it can be done

 

[grumpythecat]

Try going through afl sportsready.

http://www.aflsportsready.com.au

 

[StingBitten]

Applied for player development manager at Freo. Didn't get an interview.

 

[tige19]

When i was playing for Coburg Tigers 10-11 years back I was at uni and was doing all the footy clinics at schools, I was really busy most days and its paid around $35 per session from memory. I would do 3-4 a day if I wanted to, ducking from 1 school to the next. Often the kids would simply think you were a player, you would be signing autographs and getting pictures taken, even managed to jag a young graduate teacher from the experience which was good fun... She only caught on about 3 roots in that I wasn't a player but by that time I had worked my magic and she was hooked. You can only imagine how easy it is for real players.

 

[mcuzzy]

Try going through afl sportsready.

http://www.aflsportsready.com.au

This. I know someone who wanted to work or an AFL club.

She did a traineeship at AFL house through sportsready. Not sure if she's still working there but she's working somewhere in the AFL.

Think she's doing a degree at the same time now though.

St. Kilda have a position open for a membership/ticket sales traineeship. 20k or so a year and you get up to a cert IV I think it is.

Might be some complications if you already have qualifications though, especially higher ones.

 

[getgaff]

Did some volunteer work in kids clinics for AFL Sydney last year and got to the interview stages for a role in Game Development particularly in the GWS region

 

[haydo]

Yeah I think AFL sportsready is the best place to try your luck. I had a trial run for Champion Data one day was cool, sitting in their offices on Southbank for 3 hours doing video footage editing from the 2013 AFL Grand Final for the clubs to come in and use as there training footage.

 

[Stratton_Gun]

It's hard af. I needed to do some volunteer work for my course and write a personal letter to every club. Its hard to even be a volunteer there

 

[Silent Alarm]

I would honestly just enjoy doing telemarketing for clubs, ringing up people about renewing memberships, stuff like that.

 

[Teagueeee15]

I would honestly just enjoy doing telemarketing for clubs, ringing up people about renewing memberships, stuff like that.

Unfortunately the Victorian clubs outsource this work to a third party, so you wouldn't be onsite at the club, you would be at some random call centre somewhere.

I was an admin trainee at Carlton and I got that by finding out who the HR Manager was and wrote a personalised cold call letter to them and it was successful. HR Managers tend to like it when you go to extra effort like finding out their name, as it differentiates you from other applicants. On my first day there I thought it was going to be some sort of elite environment, but it's not really run any different to your local footy club.

 

[Jukesy85]

It's hard af. I needed to do some volunteer work for my course and write a personal letter to every club. Its hard to even be a volunteer there

AFL clubs must be very hard to get volunteer work with, I've just tried to do WAFL clubs for my sport management uni course's volunteer work and it's still a fair bit of hassle. Luckily I managed to hook on with Claremont in 2014 and Subiaco this year (Tiges said they'd call back but never ended up doing so!) and easily got my hours done, and have managed to get this Subi thing going all-year and probably beyond - great work experience and they're going to give me some cash at the end of the year too thankfully!

 

[Silent Alarm]

AFL clubs must be very hard to get volunteer work with, I've just tried to do WAFL clubs for my sport management uni course's volunteer work and it's still a fair bit of hassle. Luckily I managed to hook on with Claremont in 2014 and Subiaco this year (Tiges said they'd call back but never ended up doing so!) and easily got my hours done, and have managed to get this Subi thing going all-year and probably beyond - great work experience and they're going to give me some cash at the end of the year too thankfully!

What do you do at Subi? Blessing in disguise that Claremont never called you.

 

[Jukesy85]

What do you do at Subi? Blessing in disguise that Claremont never called you.

Timekeeping for the most part, easiest job in the world - just gotta blow the sirens for the reserves and either watch the footy or play on my phone all game. Might get the call up to the league next year as our league timekeeper is 87, which requires a lot more attention (but obviously a lot of prestige!).

 

[MrKK]

West Coast were advertising a couple of roles recently, one of which in their finance department sounded like a slam dunk match for my skills and experience. I wasn't looking to uproot my family back to Perth or I'd have been all over it like a cheap suit.

 

[rdhopkins2]

I've done work experience and volunteer work at Hawthorn.

Had a 6 month membership/ admin contract with an AFL club which I could have extended. Ie. Gone back for the following season which would have involved me finding another role for 6mths elsewhere in the interim. Ended up declining. $15k for 6 months for many a 50hr week!