“Everyone wants to work in sports.”

That was Katie O’Rourke’s first lesson after her collegiate gymnastics career ended. Speaking Oct. 15 at a Generation Next Forum during the Association of the U.S. Army's 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition, O’Rourke told the audience of specially selected young professionals that she instead pursued an MBA and accepted a job in property management.

She eventually found a position in sports and now serves as the senior manager of game presentation for the Washington Nationals. O’Rourke and three other Nationals employees—Matt Turer, director of social media marketing; Trevor Mann, manager of sales operations; and panel moderator Sean Hudson, director of community relations for military affairs—shared their best networking and job-hunting advice during the forum.

Hosted by AUSA’s Center for Leadership, the Generation Next Forum is an AUSA Young Professionals event designed to inspire the next generation of leaders.

O’Rourke, who is responsible for hiring and managing the people who provide the in-stadium entertainment during baseball games, recommends showing your personality, finding the qualities that will make you stand out and prove you’re right for the job. She even had one memorable applicant show up to the tryouts “in a full-on taco suit,” she said.

Mann encouraged the young professionals to “find a way to stand out that’s not traditional.” Anyone can email or connect on LinkedIn, he said, but the person who takes the time to find a hiring manager’s phone number and leave a voice mail, or who sends “a handwritten note with a copy of your resume in it” will stand out from the pack.

It’s those small gestures that will help a candidate fit within “the fine margins” hiring managers have for plowing through hundreds of resumes, as is typical for a sports team.

On top of that, he said, for young professionals, “the best way to network is always to come from an authentic place.” Focus on the “learning experience” rather than just what benefit you can derive from the interaction. “The more authenticity you bring to networking, the more it can lead to better things down the line,” he said.

For social media applicants in particular, the best thing to do when connecting with a potential employer is to include a portfolio of prior work, Turer said. “We get hundreds and hundreds of applications, even for an internship,” he said. “The portfolio matters more than a resume.”

The panelists agreed that young professionals should not be afraid to fail. Mann tells his sales force, “If you don’t fail a couple times this summer, you’re not stepping out of your comfort zone, and you’re not pushing yourself quite enough.”

That was true for the applicant in the taco suit. He got the job. His office nickname will forever be “Taco.”

— Tom McCuin