5 Tips For Making An Effective Video For Recruitment
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As we have discussed previously on THE BLOG, in these troubling times we are facing across the globe, the recruiting process can be challenging. Less opportunities to practice, play games, showcase tournaments, combines, etc. With the future continuing to be uncertain, one way that athletes and coaches are maneuvering around these challenges is through the use of the internet; more specifically game film and highlight tapes. Coaches are relying heavily on game film to analyze, evaluate, and recruit in the year 2021. To help with your recruitment process, you must have good film to showcase your talent, but what does “good film” actually mean? Today on THE BLOG we will be taking a look at our five key tips to making an effective tape to help with your recruitment process
Tip #1: Showcase Your Entire Skill Set
Highlight tapes and game film can be deceiving to the everyday viewer. With a wide range of special effects and professional production companies at the disposal to just about anybody around the world, anybody can get a video that makes them look like a next level talent. The issue with this though, is that coaches and recruiters are not just your everyday viewers! When recruiting, coaches are looking at specific minor details that set you apart from every other player. By having a wide variety of plays in your tape that showcases you full skill set, coaches can get a bigger picture about what you are fully like as a player. Anybody can make a tape that is full of goals, baskets, assists, but having those defensive plays, great reads, hustle, mixed into your video can really set yourself apart from the competition!
Tip #2: Put Your Best Plays First
In today’s landscape where meeting coaches personally is very difficult, you may be sending your tape to coaches who may have never see you play! It is vital to have a handful of your top plays at the beginning of your video in order to catch the attention of the coach. If the first minute of your video is filled with basic plays that don’t jump off the screen, more likely than not the coach will not watch the rest. You want to make the coach be interested in watching the whole tape so that they can see and analyze the full scale of you game as we discussed in the last tip!
Tip #3: Choose Your Audio Wisely
From our discussions with hundreds of coaches across the continent, THIS IS A BIG ONE!! You do not want to lose an opportunity or a viewer because in the background of your video you have a song that has vulgar language, loud mixes, or too many words. Having these elements to your video can be immediate red flags for some coaches and as we have talked about before on THE BLOG, coaches talk! If you do not want to keep the natural audio from the video, choose a song or beat that is very simple, something that acts as background music. You are trying to showcase your talent to the coach, not putting on a music video for the artist in your background song!
Tip #4: Include Contact Info, Team Info, General Info About Yourself
So you’ve made your highlight tape. You’ve gathered all the clips, you’ve ordered them accordingly, and you’ve picked an appropriate background sound. You post it on YouTube and a coach loves it! They want to get in touch with you, only problem is, nowhere on your video have you included any information about yourself! When you are posting or sending video all over the place, you do not know who will see it and who will like it, so it is vital to include the necessary information about yourself so a coach can look into you more and hopefully reach out. Some key things to include are:
- Phone (Home/Cell)
- School/Club
- Graduation Year
- Position(s)
- Your current coach contact info
Tip #5: Don’t Be Afraid To Seek Help!
Making a high-quality tape can be a life altering experience. It can be a gateway for you to find the right coach, at the right school, and start your journey as a post secondary student athlete. So you’re going to want to try your best to get it right! Seeking help from your coach, other teammates, or recruiting services (like us here at NLU Sports!) can really be beneficial to easing your nerves when it comes to making film for your recruitment process. These close contacts know you the best as a player and a person and would be great places to start if you have any questions about where to start, what to include, and where to post it!
With the landscape of amateur sport still very much in the air, especially at an international level, having a quality tape can really help jumpstart your recruitment process. Whether the clips are coming from a practice, game, or your local park, getting your name out there the right way during these chaotic times will only help you when we return to competition in the future.