I am speaking to a group of athletes next month regarding career development and hope to gain some input from other recruiters to include in my presentation.

As a former athlete I understand the difficulty of juggling work, a sport and school, however, as a recruiter I am often faced with former athletes who have no experience--or no relevant experience--to bring to the table. While many recruiters accept transferable skills in lieu of minimum qualifications, consistency in recruiting dictates that I can't excuse an athlete who lacks relevant experience any more than I can overlook those qualities in other candidates.

My question is (finally), in your recruiting experience how have athletes compared to non-athletes overall and what advice (given their time restrictions and NCAA work restrictions) would you give to current student athletes to help them increase their chances of finding the career of their choice upon graduating?