The calendar has flipped to October, which for me is one of the two busiest stretches of my year. I am typing this while attending the Section Championship, and also have the REACH Pro-Am, Board Meeting, Chapter Meetings, PGA Annual Meeting, NYC Marathon (more on that below), and the Fall Teaching Summit before Thanksgiving. Add to that the interview process for Cape Fear Country Club and potentially a few other searches, and I'll be logging some serious miles between now and the end of the year. The good news is that almost all of those trips give me an opportunity to interact with PGA Members, which is honestly the best part of my job.

I have spent some time trying to decide what I want to talk about at the Chapter meetings, and I want to not only give you a sneak preview, but also explain why I think active recruiting people to the industry by PGA Members is the most important message I can deliver right now. I wrote last month about the efforts of the Recruiting team at PGAHQ, and their efforts have been valiant. But a small team trying to find success one person at a time is not a good enough strategy to solve our labor issues.

In looking for metrics to measure the success of the recruiting team, I believe the only metric that truly matters to PGA Members is the number of applications for jobs they have posted (specifically Assistant Professional positions). With that in mind, our team has been crunching numbers regarding the number of applicants for jobs posted on the PGA job Board. As you can see below, the data is...not great.

Carolinas Section Only - Assistant Professional Jobs posted 8/1/21 to present

• All jobs / compensation shown - 4.15 applicants

• All jobs / compensation hidden - 3.89 applicants

• Private Only - 4.99 applicants

• Public Access - 2.95 applicants

• All jobs / under $29,999 - 3.04 applicants

• All jobs / $30,000 - $39,999 - 2.75 applicants

• All jobs / $40,000 - $49,999 - 4.89 applicants

• All jobs / $50,000 - $59,999 - 6.83 applicants

• All jobs / $60,000 - $69,999 - 7.13 applicants

• All jobs / over $70,000 - 14.4 applicants

As I said, the data isn't great, and I think tracking it over time will give us the ability to see the success of the Association's recruiting efforts. However, in the meantime, we have an opportunity to recruit at the local level by utilizing our 2,000+ PGA Members to find people who want to enter the industry and give them a chance. I am planning to discuss this at the Chapter meetings with an emphasis on:

• the data above

• How to find talent locally

• The importance of "building a bench"

• Managing that talent in the current labor environment

Hopefully I can be both informative and convincing, and in the end I would like to find a way to track the success of all those hires. But that is a problem for another day (and another Board report!)

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

All Active Positions

PGA Compensation Profile - Carolinas Section Participation

Job Preferences - Carolinas Section Participation

Tab 1 - Names and emails of people who have applied to the Pre-Qualifier program. PQ applicants purchase and review the five qualifying level courses: Introduction to the PGM and the Golf Profession, PGA History, PGA Constitution, Rules of Golf and Career Enhancement to be eligible to register for the qualifying test through our third party test company virtually.

Please note that PGA HQ does not collect employment information at the time of PQ registration.

Tab 2 - Newly elected PGA Members