Alex Swenson, a former Division 1 coach, breaks down how high-school athletes get recruited: make a tight highlight video under 3 minutes with your best plays first, send it to targeted schools and post it on social media, then get in front of coaches at showcases or camps so they can evaluate you in person. Don't wait to be discovered.
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How do we get noticed? How do we get seen by college coaches as we navigate this college recruiting process? I know it can feel overwhelming at times, and like we're at a stoplight, the longest stoplight ever, and we're not really going anywhere. We don't know what direction to go. We're going to be talking about, again, how to get noticed, how to be seen, how to get good exposure in this episode. If you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swinson. I'm a former Division 1 college coach, scout, and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school, high school athletes and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. So if you get anything from this episode, whether you're on YouTube or on the podcast, please smash that like button right down here and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on the recruiting process and just how to get better on and off the field. Let's dive into it. So I have a progression from the start of the recruiting process into being seen, into getting good exposure all the way to the end to again, maximize our exposure and getting your name out there so people know about you do not have the mindset of, hey, I'm just hope I'm going to be found. That is how you get missed. Okay, so the first part of this exposure process is having a good highlight video. So why is a highlight video so important? Because we can streamline this process of getting you in front of college coaches who, with just a couple clicks of a button, Think about it. You can send a good video to all of the Division 1 schools, the 301 Division 1 schools, with again, a quick click of a button. And what's the purpose of a highlight video? So these coaches can see your skill sets, to see what you are good at. So what makes a good highlight video? It's showcasing your best qualities as a player and at your, your position. And you want to have everything on the front end to grab the college coach's attention. Do not have any lag time. So, like, in between plays where nothing is happening, cut all of that out as you go. And again, right away, you should be showing your best highlights. And if you want to do a quick introduction, do a quick introduction after some of your good highlights. Like, so having an introduction of yourself, me, talking like this for 30 seconds and there's really nothing happening. There's nothing that's grabbing the college coach's attention. That's how you get skipped. That's how they stop your video. Again, you want to get right to it right away. A good highlight video is no more than three minutes. You don't need a three minute video. Having like a five to ten minute video, which I see a lot of, it's just not going to be seen. The whole video isn't going to be seen. These coaches don't have that time. Alright, so something that's three minutes or less. The purpose of them of the video is to really get the thing rolling. You're not going to just get recruited right away off of video. It's very, very rare. Has it happened in the past? Yeah, but it's very, very rare. The purpose of this recruiting video is to get dialogue going for them, the college coaches to come see you live in person. Or we go to them. All right, we get an invite, a personal invite. Not necessarily like a blast email or anything like that. But a personal invite can be really important. So starting off with a highlight video and sending this to your target school, schools that are good fit for you, that might be a reach school, that might be a fit school, that might be a safety school, but you're sending that out to these college coaches. We can also next progression is use this video on social media. It's the same concept of just getting your name out there and again getting dialogue, getting them to see more of you. So they can either come see you play or we're going to to them very, very important. Then the next progression is them seeing you live in person. Most of these college coaches, especially at the Division 1 level would have seen you or heard about you before. They see you live in person. They very rarely kind of just wing it and just randomly see a good player. They have a schedule, they know who they're going to see. They have seen this player on video or they've heard about this player from like people like myself or your coach as you go through this. But the next progression is senior in person and that can be at showcases, that can be at camps, that can be at combines. If you are playing sport with combines as is, then we have tournaments too. Some sports are better. I work with a lot of baseball guys. Tournaments aren't the best way to go through this from the recruiting and exposure standpoint. Just because there's so many college coaches can't go out and see. They, they see very few amount of the total number of games at tournaments in the summer and fall. But getting directly in front of them and making sure that we're getting in front of the right college coaches. Okay. Some sports are sending volunteers out and things like that. And we want to get directly in front of the recruiting coordinator. Okay. Or the coach that's at your position that deals with their recruiting at your position and potentially the head coach. A lot of head coaches, especially at the higher levels, don't do a lot of the recruiting. They allow their assistants to go out and do the recruiting, and then they close the deal when they get you on campus. Okay? So that is really the progression as we go through this. And college coaches will see a player a couple times, a few times, before they make a decision. It has happened before where they'll just see one guy or they'll see him once and then they'll move. But again, that's rare. These good recruiting coordinators, these coaches at the next level want to confirm. And, hey, they might have caught you on your best day, they might have caught you on your worst day. You didn't have a great game, but they see it. They see your projectability, they see your athleticism, and they want to continue to watch you as you progress. And things can move quickly as we go through that. So, again, progression. Create a good highlight video, get on social media. Social media can be a good tool. You don't have to have it, but. But it can be a good tool because a lot of coaches are on that. And then we're getting in front of these college coaches. They're either coming to us or we are going to them. That is the best way to be seen, to get noticed and to find your dream school. If you have any questions, please let me know. I'll see you in the next video.
