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IOC Athlete Career Programme

The Employment pillar is designed to provide support to elite athletes with their transition to the labour market. In an elite athlete’s life, one change is certain: they will retire from elite level competition and need to enter a new career. We have found that the earlier they begin to prepare, the better the experience will be.

Information and support is provided in this pillar through three channels to support elite athletes, and the information will continue to be enhanced over time:

1) Tools and guidance are published on this web site through fact sheets, with regular updates that are available to all athletes.

2) The IOC, the IOC Athletes’ Commission and Adecco cooperate with National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to organise outreach training seminars delivered on a regional basis to support Olympic athletes and athletes in training for the Olympic Games (Olympic hopefuls). For more information on these seminars, contact your NOC or athletes@adecco.com.

3) A number of NOCs have programmes in place in cooperation with Adecco to deliver personalised career services to their athletes. We have prepared an overview of these NOC territories with the corresponding Adecco country contacts. These local programmes are part of the IOC Athlete Career Programme, and have been created and customised based on long-standing experience and personalised support for the needs of elite and Olympic athletes. The employment pillar is based on a two-track approach: Career development and Job placement:

Career development
This includes a combination of modules customised to meet athletes’ requirements for their transition to the labour market. The personalised programme helps athletes to view their athletic successes and characteristics from the point of view of the labour market, and enables them to effectively communicate their skills and objectives to the business world.
Job placement
With a personalised approach built on Adecco's world-class job placement expertise, athletes are helped to leverage their unique backgrounds and capabilities with the labour market. The programme creates network opportunities and brings together employers and athletes for the perfect match and a successful working relationship.

Fact sheets

Your CV (Résumé) is a snapshot of who you are and can be! Does your CV represent you well in the eyes of others?

An interview will separate candidates who obtain a position from those who try for a position, just like the finals in sport. Are you ready to win?

Not all work experience is the same, yet doing a good job in your choice will make a difference in the long term. Select and pursue what is right for you.

You have a team of experts who contribute to your success on the field, have you started to create your team that will help your success in the labour market?

How many jobs are there and what do I want to do next? The more you know what you are good at, what drives you, and why, the better your choice will be.

Identifying passions, motivators and interests

Tips

Read the tips Discover some handy hints and tips to give you useful advice on subjects such as time management, media relations and many more.

Latest news

Latest news Read the latest news regarding the Athlete Career Programme.

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Athlete's Handbook

Glossary

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Analytic or scientific jobs
These jobs involve working with ideas to investigate or seek solutions to scientific, technical, social or other issues. Activities include observing, analyzing and interpreting results. The ability to develop theories, apply logic and explore ideas in a specialist area of knowledge is important.

Balance
Refers to balance within your life
Budget
A budget is a summary of intended expenditure along with proposals for how to cover it.

Career development
Athletes’ careers often develop in quite unintentional ways. However, when career development programmes and assistance are planned, their purpose is to help people gain the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour to manage their life-long, life-wide learning and work in a self-directed way.
Career interests
Career interests are your preferred work interests, such as working with people, writing stories, designing things or using tools.
Career values
Career values are the basis of what you really want out of work and your career. Values are the things that we believe in and which we think are important. Each person has a value system which has been influenced by their background and their philosophy of life.
Constraints
Constraints are barriers that you will need to overcome to develop and accomplish your plan.
Creative or artistic jobs
These jobs involve working with ideas to creatively express, present or perform them. An appreciation of design, style, form, beauty or related concepts used to develop or interpret an idea is important. Activities include writing, painting, singing, dancing, decorating, designing and performing.

Distance education
Education that takes place when the instructor and participant are separated by space and/or time. The gap between the two can be bridged through the use of hard copy material or technology - such as audio tapes, videoconferencing, satellite broadcasts and online technology.

Education
Education encompasses the activities of educating or instructing; activities that impart knowledge or skill.
Effective
Being effective is producing or being capable of producing an intended result or having a noticeable effect.
Employment
Employment is the state of being employed or having a job, or the occupation for which you are paid.
Environment
The environment covers the totality of surrounding conditions; the area in which something exists or lives.
Experience
Experience is the accumulation of knowledge or skill that results from direct participation in events or activities.

Guiding principles
Guiding principles are designed to assist in identifying and recognising the best possible outcome.

Helping or advising jobs
These jobs involve working with people to help, inform, teach or treat them. Activities include discussing personal issues, listening to people’s problems and providing advice, instruction, information or treatment to meet their needs.

Knowledge
Knowledge is the possession of information.

Life skills
Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.

Matrix
A matrix is array of quantities or expressions set out by rows and columns.
Mind maps
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea.
Motivation
Motivation is the internal condition that activates behaviour and gives it direction, and energises and directs goal-oriented behaviour.

Nature or recreation jobs
These jobs involve working with things in the natural world, such as conservation, handling animals, raising crops or livestock, or sport. Activities include growing and caring for living things, or an involvement with sport, leisure or the environment.
Networking
Networking is communicating with and within a group; "You have to network if you want to get a good job".

Organisational or clerical
These jobs involve working with data to order, process or retrieve facts and figures, or to develop or administer policies and procedures. Activities include organising, using or updating information (such as files or accounts), developing or following procedures or systems and the planning, budgeting and staffing of an organisation.

Persuading or service
These jobs involve working with people to sell to, influence, motivate, negotiate with or serve them. Activities include selling, promoting or providing goods or services, bargaining or presenting a point of view.
Practical or mechanical
These jobs involve working with things, using the hands or special tools or equipment to make, fix, install or adjust them. Activities include practical and physical tasks, which may require an understanding of how equipment or machinery works.
Priorities
Priorities means the status established in order of importance or urgency.
Proactive
Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty or anticipated issues.
Procrastination
The act of procrastinating is putting off, delaying or postponing an action to a later time.

Qualifications
Qualifications are meeting the proper requirements and having suitable training for a position or task - Certified: holding appropriate documentation and officially on record as qualified to perform a specified function or practise a specified skill.

Re-location
Re-location is the act of moving from one place to another.
Resume
Curriculum Vitae: a summary of your academic and work history.

Skills
A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined tasks, often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both.
Sports career termination
Sports career termination is a transition the athlete goes through when shifting from the mastery stage of their sports career (i.e. a stage where the athlete was able to reach the pinnacle of his/her performances) to the discontinuation stage (i.e. the end of the sports career). In this sense, sports career termination may be defined as the ultimate sports career transition, which leads to new or increased involvement of the individual in family life or a professional occupation.
Sports career transitions
Sport career transitions are those changes athletes go through when passing from one stage of their sports career to the next stage. Transitions happen when events occur to bring a change in the assumptions that an individual has about himself/herself and about his/her relationships. Athletes go through many steps or stages in the course of their sporting careers, for instance from initiation in sports (childhood) to development of skills (adolescence). Each stage represents a special challenge for the athlete and tests athletes’ capacity to adapt to the next career phase.
Stress
Stress is the total response to demands and pressures in your life. Causes of stress are called stressors. Stressors can vary from conflict in relationships, being overwhelmed by lots of tasks, poor performance or injury.
SWOT
SWOT analysis is a technique for understanding your strengths and weaknesses and for looking at the opportunities and threats you face.

Time management
Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals.
Tips
Tips are an indication of potential opportunities.

Work experience
Work experience may be paid or unpaid. It may be for a few days, a few weeks or a year. It may be observation, work shadowing, volunteer work, a structured work placement, a cadetship or an internship.
Work satisfiers
Work satisfiers are work situations which will satisfy you most.

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