Hockey of Tomorrow Innovator Series: How Shift Group is Disrupting Recruitment in Tech, One Athlete at a Time

Innovators
08.08.2022
30
min - read
Thomas Bordeleau
Innovators
08.08.2022
30
min - read
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Planning for a Career Outside of Sports

As an athlete, lining up a long-term career opportunity outside of sports must be planned way before hanging up the skates or leaving the field. That’s because most high-level athletes don’t make it to the professional ranks in the first place.The NCAA released an academic study in 2020 highlighting the odds of an NCAA athlete rising through the ranks and earning the opportunity to play at a professional or Olympic level.The study points out that the odds of an athlete earning a degree and pursuing a more traditional professional career are much greater than playing a sport for a living. It’s estimated that 86% of Division I athletes earn a degree. 71% of Division II athletes and 87% of Division III athletes do the same.Contrast that with some of the numbers related to making it in professional sports. The study estimates that out of 4,232 men’s ice hockey players playing in NCAA programs in 2020, only 961 were made eligible for a professional draft like the NHL. Only 217 players got drafted (many of which were from other Major Junior leagues across the United States, Canada, and Europe, not the NCAA).Tallying up the numbers, professional teams drafted only 71 NCAA players out of the original 4,232. That’s a success rate of just 7.4%.The success rate in other sports is even lower. For example, 0.8% of men’s basketball players and 1.6% of football players make it to the professional ranks.

Source: NCAA

How JR Butler’s Personal Struggles Led to the Founding of Shift Group

When JR Butler was five years old, he and his father knew that JR’s older brother Bob was destined for the NHL. Bob was seven years old at the time, and his father’s belief that his oldest son was good enough to make it came true in 2010 when Bob debuted for the Ottawa Senators.But in those early years, JR realized he wouldn’t necessarily get the attention he wanted from his father, who also coached high school hockey for 25 years in addition to raising his children.JR played college hockey at the College of the Holy Cross from 2004 to 2008. He considered himself a leader in the locker room, but it was in college where JR would face challenges with both alcohol and drug addiction.He would party and drink every night and still find a way to be the center of attention in the locker room. But as time passed, JR would see teammates like Keith Yandle and Chris Bourque continue to excel in hockey while finding himself stuck in a terrible situation.At 26 years of age, Butler says he somehow managed to blow through $800,000 in one year, with most of the money spent on alcohol and cocaine. By the end of that year, despite having all that money, he found his bank account in the negative.In talking to JR and learning about his struggles with addiction (and then his success in recruiting), it’s evident that his life’s motto holds true. He says, “how you do anything is how you do everything.”That’s why it makes sense that before he realized he would become a successful recruiter after hockey, JR had to hit rock bottom with his addiction first. He describes his relationship with addiction as a heavy one:

“I remember when I finished playing hockey, and my dad told me to get off my butt and get a job. I realized I didn’t have a game plan for the next step in my career. I took the first job that anybody would pay me for, and it was then that I realized I wanted to help other athletes develop their own game plan.”

Eventually, JR realized he needed to make a turnaround in his life, and in 2012, he finally got sober. He’s been that way ever since.Now in his present-day profession as a recruiter helping athletes get jobs in tech sales, JR realizes that he didn’t get sober until he applied himself.

Butler got his first job as a tech sales associate in 2008 and stayed there for a year. A decade later, he would find himself working as a tech firm's VP of Enterprise Strategy and Execution.While he didn’t necessarily plan to start his own recruiting firm just a few years ago, Butler soon realized that more and more people in his network were asking to connect with one another and looking to fill tech sales jobs.He had athletes on one side of the ledger, not knowing what they would do next with their lives and tech sales executives on the other who trusted him because of his own experience. They needed access to more talent.In continuing to connect with people, Butler forged relationships at some big companies beginning to trust him wholeheartedly. After recommending his third or fourth athlete to a job and seeing them get the gig, it finally hit him. He realized he could charge money for this service and went to one of his more prominent clients and asked to get paid. They agreed, and the early beginnings of Shift Group became a reality.

Source: NCAA

Shift Group’s Business Model and Talent Roster are a Win-Win-Win for Everyone

While Shift Group is doing quite well focusing on opportunities in tech sales right now, JR Butler’s long-term vision is to expand the company’s horizons and have athletes working across different industries, including insurance, medical, finance, and more.The company is also looking to continue adding diverse talent to those industries. Shift group is quickly becoming one of the leading recruiters in the tech sales niche for helping employers find and hire female applicants and racial minorities.It’s clear that with all of the early success that Shift Group is experiencing, there is a huge demand for what JR and his business partner John are doing for athletes.The Shift Group team looks to continue fulfilling that demand, but it’s not just because of the desire to expand the business. As JR says, “The text messages and success stories we hear from athletes are worth much more than the paychecks any of us get in exchange for doing the job right.”It’s easy to see that the company is dedicated to making a clear and definitive impact when you consider that part of the profits the company earns go towards people suffering from addiction, first responders, and military veterans.Serving those groups hits home for JR because there are military veterans in his family, and of course, he has a clear and obvious connection to those struggling with addiction.Shift Group is shifting what it means to be an athlete looking for a second career, and in talking to JR directly, it’s clear that it’s changed his life and giving him a reason to keep expanding his business and his mission.

Innovators