How Athletes Can Incorporate NIL Experience on a Resume

Last Updated on July 22, 2026

Many college athletes lack the internship or traditional job experience of their peers. However, the NIL era has given athletes opportunities to learn video editing, marketing, sales, communication, analytics, brand management, and entrepreneurial skills.

How do you showcase that experience on a resume though?

Prior to NIL, I spent a lot of time speaking in athletic departments to juniors and seniors about preparing for life after sport. Specifically, I’ve worked with athletes on their resumes and cover letters. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how my advice might change now that many athletes have NIL experience.

I’m going to focus this post on the types of NIL activities we see college athletes participating in the most, but you can apply this advice to any kind of NIL opportunity.

NIL Activities Can Be Valuable Experience

Don’t bury NIL under a secondary category like “Activities.” NIL is real on-the-job experience.

If you are communicating with brands, creating deliverables, meeting deadlines, tracking analytics, appearing at events, or negotiating terms, that is work experience.

Instead of simply titling this section “Experience,” consider something like, “Brand Partnerships & Content Creation Experience.”

Speak Their Language

If you want that NIL experience to really feel like it translates to the corporate world, it’s time to spruce up the language you use to describe your NIL experience.

Instead of saying you “posted for a brand,” say you “created and executed promotional campaign content.” Instead of “got free product,” say “completed in-kind brand partnership deliverables.”

Here are some ideas for how to talk about some common NIL experiences:

• Instead of: Posted about a brand on Instagram.
• Try this: Filmed and edited sponsored Instagram content for a local business, incorporating brand talking points, personal storytelling, and a clear call to action.

• Instead of: Got free clothes from a brand.
• Try this: Completed in-kind brand partnership deliverables by filming and editing product-focused social media content while meeting campaign deadlines.

• Instead of: Went to an event for a company.
• Try this: Represented a local business at an in-person promotional event, engaging with customers, signing autographs, taking photos, and supporting community outreach efforts.

• Instead of: Gave lessons to kids.
• Try this: Organized and promoted private training sessions for youth athletes, managing scheduling, parent communication, payments, and skill-development instruction.

• Instead of: Sold my own merchandise.
• Try this: Launched athlete-branded merchandise, coordinating product selection, promotion, and customer engagement through an online platform.

• Instead of: Made TikToks for brands.
• Try this: Produced short-form video content for brand partners, including concept development, filming, editing, caption writing, posting, and performance review.

Now your NIL experience isn’t just something fun you did to make a few bucks in college, it’s experience that translates into the post-grad world.

Avoid only listing brand names

There is definitely value in listing some of the brands you worked with, particularly if they are recognizable names.

However, the value is not just “I worked with X company.” Showcase what you did for that brand: content creation, audience engagement, campaign execution, etc.

Use metrics when you can

If you can quantify something, do it. Numbers leap off a resume, because they’re so rarely used, and they help take something from subjective to objective.

Here are some examples: “Generated an average of 45,000 views per Instagram reel,” or “Drove 5,000 link clicks.”

Don’t exaggerate your experience

Don’t feel pressured to make NIL sound bigger than it was. The goal is to translate your (perhaps non-traditional) experience into something employers can understand.

If you created one Instagram story for a local restaurant, don’t describe yourself as leading a national marketing campaign. But you can say you created sponsored social media content, followed brand guidelines, met a posting deadline, and represented the business to your audience.

Tailor it to your field

Your NIL experience can be translated to fit nearly any industry. I suggest taking a look at the requirements listed for the job and then tailoring the experience you list to show how/where you’ve gotten applicable experience. Here are a few examples:

For a marketing job, emphasize content, analytics, audience growth, and campaign execution.

For a sales job, emphasize outreach, relationship-building, negotiation, follow-up, and closing deals.

For a communications or PR job, emphasize storytelling, brand voice, community engagement, and media-facing professionalism.

For a sport management job, emphasize athlete branding, sponsorship activation, event appearances, and stakeholder communication.

NIL may not look like some of the internship and work experiences your non-athlete classmates had, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t professional experience. If you learned how to pitch yourself, communicate with a business, create content, meet a deadline, track results, or represent a brand, you built skills employers care about. The key is learning how to translate that work into language they immediately understand.

Here’s an example resume I made up to show you what a resume with NIL experience might look like.