First Impressions & Recruiting Biases

Hey, guys, Alex here. Hey, thanks for joining me. Today we're going to be talking about first impressions and also recruiting biases. Do coaches and scouts, when they're out recruiting, have biases? So we're going to dive into that. And as some of you guys know me as a recruiter and scout, helping you all through the recruiting process, mainly because of my background and my connections with schools and colleges and these coaches and relationships, because I was that scout, coach and recruiter and talk to these coaches to get insights of what they're looking for as we go. But I also love helping you all through just life in general, through your high school career or your teenager, if you're a parent, watching this as well. Just through my life experiences, what I've gone through, what I continue to go through, and I'd love to share in them. And hopefully it helps you or your son or daughter go through this process as well. If you guys ever have any questions, please email me. Comment down below. Be happy to help. This is why I do it. And if you like this video, please select the thumbs up button, like and subscribe. I put out a video every week. All right, so let's get into the first topic. First impressions, Bow. All right, first impressions. Before we get into email, video, and in person, what we're looking at there is, this is very important. Make sure you're not in the mindset of being too cool for school. And what I mean by that is being too cool to, hey, put in good effort. Too cool, too. When somebody talking to you, specifically a coach and scout, not looking them in the eye or having any type of charisma and good energy. Right. Everybody kind of knows that person. Whether you're in high school or just as you get older, you quickly find out that's not a good quality to have. And the sooner you can know that, the better. Okay? Do not be too cool for school. And, hey, go out with some enthusiasm. Wanting to learn, wanting to set a good first impression. Because there is no doubt a first impression is very, very important. It can set the tone. Now, somebody might ask, hey, I've had a bad first impression going on, whether it was in person or video or email. Can I recover from that? You can, absolutely. But there are some cases that you can't. These coaches have already written you off. But I've seen student athletes get back into the picture from their first impression. That might not have gone so well. All right. But we do not want to be in that boat because there's a chance that we will not get back into that. And honestly, it's a pretty good chance that you're not going to be able to recover from that. So. All right. That said, there are multiple first impressions that we can have. Yes, there are multiple first impressions. The first one is email. Usually this is typically how we communicate first with a coach, especially if we're reaching out to them. And some of this stuff is very self explanatory. But make sure you're doing your due diligence and hey, you're spelling the coach's name correctly and it's the right coach. I've seen time and time again this has happened to me when I was coaching is they sent it to the wrong coach. It was a template email, okay? And they just copy and pasted it, sent it to me. It was the wrong coach in the wrong university, okay? Not a good look. Automatic deletes. See you later, okay? And you're probably not coming back from that one, okay? So very important, make sure you do your due diligence. There's not necessarily anything wrong with the template email, but make sure you're putting the right name in school. And this needs to be easy to read. Do not have everything compacted in one paragraph. Spread out the wording, okay? Look at my emails that I sent, okay? I try to make it easy for you guys to read. I space it out where it's not. Doesn't look like a jumble of words, okay? So spread out and it's concise. It's not too long info. They want to see, hey, what are your measurables? What's your gpa? What's your test scores? And make sure you have your video. They want to see this stuff, okay? That is very important. Coaches contact and just a professional looking email. Again, your words are all spelled out. You have your periods, your grammar, have your parents, have your grandparents look it over real quick and make sure that everything looks good, looks professional. Okay? Video. This is another first impression. So they go to email to video. First impression, very good. You need to have clear video, okay? If they can't really see you or it's staticky or very far away, hey, that's not what they want. They can't see your actions or athleticism. The point of them looking at video is to see, hey, does this guy fit the mold or girl fit the mold of what I'm looking for, okay? As far as actions for that position, okay? If you're a shortstop, we need to be taking ground balls, okay? And to see your feet, to see your glove, we need to See if you throw as well, maybe the camera can first be at an angle to see ground balls. Take a little bit of a break, hit, stop record, then put it over by first base, take some ground balls there, throw it to first base so they can see the flight of the ball. Video, have it at a side angle. Okay? So they're seeing it like you're seeing me hit right here, but then also behind the catcher so they can see the ball flight. Very important. All right, this might sound counterintuitive, but don't introduce yourself. Okay? Don't. I know especially with parents it's sometimes hard to understand but right now all they're looking for is the athleticism and actions. They will get to this. Okay? When you guys interact with the coaches, that's going to be important. That's in person. Ok? But in video, don't worry about introducing yourself. It's a waste of time. We want it less than three minutes. It's about getting these coaches to watch the video and watch as much as we possibly can. Okay? So that's very important. So if they're introducing video and it's long, hey, these guys get a lot of emails, get a lot of videos. We want to get to the good stuff right away. So hey, you can have in the beginning of your video have your name, have maybe some of your measurables or something like that, your gpa, three to four seconds and then boom, goes right to the clips of you hitting the home run, hitting the double, making a great play action right away so we can start engaging and get a good response in person. This could be the first one and then we get to these again. So they might see in person first or it could be the last one. How it is right here, this is very important effort. Okay? They're coming one to watch your athleticism and everything from that. We're going to talk about that here in a minute. But as far as first impressions, they're going to see if you're going to be, if you're putting out, meaning your effort, you're going all out while you're playing the game and or practice, are you showing good effort because they're not looking for a cool guy. Going back to too cool for school is like, hey, you're kind of just jogging out, acting like you know, again, you're too cool for school. No, you need to be putting out, sprinting to your position, sprinting off and showing good effort. Okay. How you treat your coaches and parents, These coaches really look at this. Are you looking your coach in the eye. Are you responding well to him? Are you treating your parents right? So if they, before a game, they hand you a Gatorade or you're like, I don't want this Gatorade. This is the wrong color. Like all these little things, those are major red flags. How you treat your parents and your coaches is a big thing. Make sure you treat. You're treating your parents and your coaches with respect. Next one, how you respond to failure. This is huge. Okay? Coaches really want to see this. Okay? They might really like you. They, They've already kind of signed seals and delivery. They want you, okay? But they need to check one more thing off as far as failure. Because in baseball, we fail all the time, and this is how you respond to failure. So they might want to see you make that error or walk a guy or strike out and just watch you. Are you really bad emotionally? Do you go on and throw your helmet? You don't talk to your teammates, you blame your teammates, you blame your coach, you blame the umpire. That's a huge red flag and can be a big turn off, especially if they're watching you for the first time. Okay? So make sure you deal with failure in a mature way. Again, not too cool for school, okay? In this way, you. You want to be even level all the way through your successes and through your failures. Okay? It's good to be emotional when things are going well or you're trying to get pumped up. Absolutely. But when things are going bad and you get really emotional, that's a huge red flag of immaturity. Okay? And obviously you're working through that. You're going to get mature and mature, but you need to pay attention to that and you need to be self aware. Okay? Through those situations. Next one, and last one is eye contact. Okay? Hey. So when that coach does come talk to you, just have good eye contact with them. Don't be so worried about what you say. The coach will lead the conversation and feed you questions, and you just respond to those questions. Okay? But just have good eye contact, give the coach a good handshake and listen and then communicate with them as you go and ask specific questions that you might want to answer about. Hey, what is the day in the life of a student athlete at your university? Okay. What does fall ball look like versus spring ball and et cetera on from there. Okay, There's. We can dive into that. We'll dive into another video about questions to expect and to ask. All right, the next thing I want to go into. Let me move this all Right. Now that I have the whiteboard out of the way, do coaches and scouts have biases when they're out there recruiting? The answer is yes, absolutely. We all have biases. And what are those biases? Okay, it is physicality, it is size, okay? And then also hygiene. Hey, you can control your hygiene and your size to a certain extent. What I mean by size, hey, do you look the part? Have you been in the weight room? Do you have a good body in a sense of strong and physical? You can control that through one your nutrition. And in the weight room, now, can you control the your height? No. And if you're short like me, hey, it is okay, we can break through those biases and show that, hey, we are worthy and that we can come and compete at the next level and add value to the team. Alright? I'm 57 and I had to break through that. 57 is pretty short for a Division 1 player, okay? And you can go out and look on rosters and find short players all over the place, okay? But the reality is these coaches are looking for big physical athletes. Okay? What can you combat to again, break through those biases? We've already talked about your hygiene. Make sure you're put together, your shirt's tucked in, you look the part, you look professional, okay? And that you're in the weight room. But also your efforts. Guys, we've kind of talked about this already. Your effort, making sure you're put out, showing that you're a good leader on the field, how you respond to coaches, that is really, really important. Of course your athleticism. Okay? Of course, your athleticism. Guys, if you like this video, please select like and subscribe. And if you have any questions, please comment below and I'll get back to you. This video was based off a question that I had in one of my previous videos. I'll see you in the next one.