In Part 1, we talked about building your framework – your coaching operating system built from:

Your academic education
Your mentoring and real-world exposure
Your deep study of great coaches and authors

Now let’s assume you’ve done that work.

You’ve got Version 1.0 written down.
You know what you believe about training and why.

Now the email comes in:

“We’d like to invite you for an interview.”

This is where most young practitioners panic.
You don’t need to. But you do need a plan.

This blog is about how to walk into that interview and actually show them you can do the job – without pretending you’ve got 10 years’ experience you don’t have.

What You’re Really Walking Into

Most interviews will come with at least some structure:

A job description
Some key responsibilities
Sometimes a list of areas they want to discuss
Occasionally a task or mini project

Your first job is simple:

Read everything properly. Twice.

From the role description and any pre-interview communication, you should be able to answer:

What matters most in this environment?
Is it speed? Rehab? Gym? Data? Return to play?
What kind of athletes? What level?

That allows you to line up your own framework against their world.

But regardless of sport or level, there are a bunch of standard questions that come up over and over again.

The Questions You Already Know Are Coming

You know you’re going to get hit with versions of:

“Why did you apply for this job?”
“What appeals to you about this role/club/program?”
“What impact do you think you can have in this role?”
“What are your strengths?”
“What are your weaknesses?”
“Tell us about a time you disagreed with a coach. How did you handle it?”
“Tell us about a time you had an athlete who didn’t want to buy in. What did you do?”

You have zero excuse to be surprised by these.

If you’re serious:

Write your answers down.
Refine them.
Commit the key points to memory.
Practice saying them out loud (we’ll come back to this).

You don’t need to sound like a robot, but you also shouldn’t be fumbling like you’ve never thought about these questions before.

Your Secret Weapon: Steer Them Toward Your Framework

As a young practitioner, your biggest weakness is obvious:

You don’t have a long job history
You haven’t run your own program for years
You haven’t seen five full high-performance cycles end to end

Fair enough. You can’t fake that.

So don’t try to win the “experience” game.

Win the thinking game instead.

You do that by steering the conversation towards your framework.

When they ask:

“What would your first two weeks in the role look like?”

You don’t answer with random tasks.

You answer with structure, for example:

“In my first two weeks I’d be matching my framework to the actual demands of this environment.

I’d start by:
– Understanding the game model and coaching priorities
– Reviewing current monitoring and training structures
– Then mapping my key principles – strength, speed, loading progressions and return-to-play – against what you already do, so I know where I can add value without creating chaos.”

What have you just shown them?

You have a framework
You think in systems, not isolated drills
You’re not random

You want as many answers as possible to naturally fall back to:

“Here’s how I think about that, and here’s how my framework would handle it.”

That’s how you stand out from 50 other CVs that all look the same.

What the Hiring Panel Is Actually Afraid Of

Let me give you the honest version from the other side of the table.

When I’m hiring staff, my biggest fear isn’t:

“Are you a nice person?”
“Do you know the latest buzzwords?”

My biggest fear is:

“If you can’t do the job, I’m going to have to do your job and mine.”

If you:

Can’t coach
Can’t think independently
Can’t handle the level

Then I end up:

Fixing your sessions
Re-writing your programs
Cleaning up your communication
Or replacing you and starting again

That’s what senior staff fear. Time, energy, and risk.

So your job in the interview is to:

Reduce their fear.

You can’t magically create 10 years of experience.
But you can show:

You have a clear framework
You understand where your strengths are
You know where your gaps are and want to address them
You won’t be random and chaotic

That goes a long way.

Coaches Aren’t Worried If You’re Nice. They’re Worried You Can’t Do the Job.

Answer Technical Questions Through Your Structure

At some point, someone technical will throw you a question.

It might sound like:

“What do you think about ground contact time?”
“How do you approach speed development in this environment?”
“How would you manage lower-limb strength in-season?”

The goal isn’t to show off vocabulary. The goal is to show structured thinking.

Example – ground contact time.

A weak answer:

“Yeah, it’s important for speed.”

A stronger, framework-based answer:

“Ground contact time is a cornerstone of both running and jumping performance.

In my framework, I see it as an expression of:
– How effectively the athlete can generate force through the hip and knee extensors
– How well they can stiffen at the ankle
– And how that’s supported by global strength and specific plyometrics.

So in a speed-focused environment, I’d build this across general prep – where we’re building global force and tissue tolerance – then into more specific phases where we emphasise short-contact plyos and special exercises to target the positions and contacts they need in their game.”

You’ve now:

Linked a simple question to your framework
Shown understanding of mechanics, strength, and periodisation
Given them confidence that you won’t just throw random drills at the problem

You don’t have to name-drop authors, but you should be able to say:

“I took a lot of this thinking from Coach X / from Y’s work on special strength, then adapted it to team sport.”

Again: structure over scattergun.

Show You’re Hungry, Not Dogmatic

Important nuance:

You want to project clarity, not arrogance.

Good signals:

“This is how I currently think about it.”
“This is Framework Version 1.0 – I’m looking to refine it.”
“One reason I applied is that I know I can learn a lot from Coach X here.”

For example, if I’m on the panel and you say:

“I applied because I know speed is a big focus here, and I want to learn from the way you’ve integrated SpeedSig and on-field work.
I think I can contribute with my current framework around strength and sprint mechanics, and I know it’ll grow quickly in this environment.”

That tells me:

You’ve done your homework
You want to add and learn
You’re not turning up to tear the place down and rebuild it from Twitter threads

That’s a very hireable profile.

Don’t Act Like You Know Everything. Show You’re Ready to Learn.

You Have to Practice. Properly.

Here’s the bit most people skip because it’s uncomfortable:

You must practice interviews out loud.

Not in your head.
Not just “thinking through” answers.

Out loud.

Practical way to do it:

Write 10–15 likely questions

The standard ones above
Plus some technical ones specific to the job (speed, rehab, gym, monitoring etc.)

Stand in a room and answer them out loud

No notes in your hand
Full answers, not half-sentences

Shuffle the order

Don’t let it become a script
You want to be able to find your framework from any starting point

Practice in the car

Turn the radio off
Pose a question
Answer it like you’re already in the interview

What’s happening when you do this?

You’re practising the motor skill of speaking clearly and calmly
You’re hearing your own answers, which creates a feedback loop
You start catching sloppy phrases, vague points, and tighten them up

When you walk into the real interview, you don’t want the first time you say:

“This is how I’d approach my first two weeks…”

to be in front of the panel.

You want to be on rep 30 or 40 by then.

Expect Unstructured Interviews Too

Not every interview is a boardroom with three people in suits and a jug of water.

Sometimes it’ll be:

“Come down to the gym, we’ll walk around and chat.”

That’s not casual. That’s deliberate.

They’re watching:

How you think on your feet
How you talk coaching in a live environment
Whether you can connect your framework to what you’re seeing

I’ve hired people like this.

We walked the gym, talked:

Running
Lifting
How they’d handle certain situations

The guy I hired?

Every time, he went straight back to:

“Here’s what I think about that.”
“This is the framework I’d use.”
“This is how I’d apply it.”

Did I agree with every single detail? No.
Did I believe he had a brain and a structure I could work with? Absolutely.

That’s what you’re aiming for.

I don’t want to reinvent you from scratch. That’s scary. That’s workload.
I want to tweak, sharpen, and plug you into the system.

Two Coaches and a Coffee Podcast by Jason Weber and Darren Burgess

WE’RE ALWAYS SHARING CAREER ADVICE FOR YOUNG COACHES IN OUR PODCAST, LISTEN TO SOME EPISODE HERE

Putting It All Together

If we zoom out, the two parts look like this:

Part 1 – Build the Framework

Get your academics in order
Build a real coaching heritage (mentors + environments)
Study great coaches deeply, not superficially
Turn it into a one–two page framework you can talk to

Part 2 – Use It in the Interview

Identify the questions you know are coming
Write and rehearse your answers – out loud
Steer your responses back to your framework
Reduce the panel’s fear by showing structure, not randomness
Show you’re clear-minded but coachable and hungry to learn
Treat interview prep like training – high-quality reps

If you’re a young coach chasing your first real job in high performance:

Don’t pretend you’re something you’re not.
Don’t hide behind buzzwords.
Don’t rely on “I’m a hard worker” as your main selling point.

Instead:
Build Version 1.0 of your framework.
Then train yourself to communicate it under pressure.

That’s how you separate yourself from the pile.