Meet Matt Dudek, Recruiting Expert & Teamworks Senior Account Executive
Prior to joining Teamworks as a Senior Account Executive, Matt Dudek lived and breathed the fast-paced, all consuming sports administrator life. After years in recruiting specifically, he established a unique approach to his success: he sees every piece of information as a pebble in the basket, a little nugget that could make all the difference in landing a recruit or missing out on top talent. To Matt, information is power, and in the game of recruiting, the more pebbles you gather, the better your shot at making memorable connections with top-notch recruits. Its those connections that can be the difference between winning or losing.
Getting Started in Recruiting
Matt is no stranger to winning. He fortuitously fell into the world of recruiting after a call that changed his whole career trajectory. While working with Maxim Crane Works and considering a career shift to teaching, he happened to be on an ordinary work call with the University of Pittsburgh that ended up prompting a job offer. The rest was history.
Matt started in the video department, moved to academic support for student-athletes, and then on to recruiting operations with Pittsburgh. Over the years, he brought his experience to various other schools (Rutgers, Arizona, Michigan, and Mississippi State), all the while leaving a wake of better processes and organization along the way.
The Evolution of Recruiting
He watched as recruiting evolved. Gone were the days of scouting local talent with video cassette tapes or relying solely on word-of-mouth discoveries. Technology turbocharged the process and leveled the playing field, making athlete content from across the country just a click away. Suddenly, it became a mad dash to connect with recruits.
But for Matt, it was never about a simple connection; it was – and still is – about forging genuine relationships. Thats where those pebbles in the basket come into play.
Personalized messages arent just about throwing in a name. Its deeper than that, Matt emphasizes. Thats where technology really served my process… I could track conversations and personal details in ARMS to then refer to in the second and third follow-up messages via Whistle. That’s what makes a difference – it’s the organization and personalization that builds connection.
The 3 Keys to Recruiting Success
According to Matt, the three keys to recruiting success are simple:
ℹ️ Information
🗄️ Organization
🗣️ Communication
He had an epiphany observing the impact of purpose-built sports technology:
I watched our Director of Football Operations seamlessly plan our team’s trip to road games and bowl trips using Hub and thought to myself – theres got to be something that can streamline our recruiting process.
Enter ARMS and Whistle
Seeing Hub as a solution for Operations led to Matts search for a tech solution that streamlined and augmented his three keys to success. ARMS became the cornerstone for organizing information and ticking off all those compliance checkboxes. And Whistle stepped up the game with personalized mass messaging, all neatly tracked in one place. The result? No more late-night war room messaging frenzies or delayed coach responses these tech tools revolutionized communication and follow-ups with prospects.
At least until the pandemic, when Matt took a backward step:
During the pandemic, I discontinued our partnership with ARMS and found myself back in the chaos of spreadsheets, manual tracking, and duplicate information in several places I quickly realized I had made a mistake, and my efficiency suffered greatly. There is just nothing that makes your recruiting life easier than ARMS and Whistle.
Today, Matt helps Teamworks partners leverage ARMS and Whistle to power their recruiting teams more effectively. As part of the larger Operating System for Sports,TM Teamworks harnesses the power of information, organization, and communication in one place. If you want to learn more about leveraging Teamworks products for the win, contact us.
