While searching for great skills videos to place on the site, I was dismayed to see an awful lot of videos that would have been perfect if one or two aspects were tweaked.  Actually, it was very hard finding a video that was excellent in all aspects, so I created this guide to help you stay focused on making a tape that properly showcases your abilities and will most likely appeal to your prospective program.

In no way is this compilation of videos meant to make light of the athletes or the videos’ creators.  This is just a guide that points out areas of improvement and gives suggestions for better highlight tapes.  A well produced skills tape can make or break your recruiting chances if you are not already known in your area.

Include an Introduction

This video is a great display of the athlete’s skills.  The problem is there’s no introduction.  Give the audience a chance to get to know you and your personality with a short 30 sec to 1 minute intro.  This video is all work.  It needs to be balanced with a short bio of the athlete so that the audience can couple that information with the excellent display of skills.

Avoid sudden, loud music

This video has very good picture quality and good sound, but when the music starts, its kind of rough on the ears.  Remember your goal is to get coaches to watch your video.  If they are in office while watching this, the sudden blaring of music can be a turn off and interrupt others.  Its OK to have music to accentuate your skills, but just remember who your intended audience is and to keep the music at a level that wont overpower your video content.

Keep Your Athlete Calm and Focused

Here, the athlete seems kind of nervous during her introduction.  Her words are quick and its hard to understand what she is saying.  If you couple this with the bad acoustics in the room, all of the great accolades that she mentions can easily be misunderstood.

Avoid Bad Acoustics

Again, please pick a room with great acoustics to conduct the introduction.  Here the athlete is hard to understand because there is so much residual noise in the background.  You want to deliver your message to a prospective coach with great clarity.  Clear and balanced sound can make a dramatic difference when viewing a tape.

Edit Your Video Well and Don’t Make it Too Long

If you are the cameraman, try not to talk to much during the footage.  This can be slightly distracting for your audience.  This video would benefit from a subtle musical background to tone down the comments and drown out some of the wind noise. The cameraman, however does exhibit great focus on the featured athlete.

Also 9 minutes is a little too long for a highlight tape these days.  Most coaches are very busy and would prefer a short and to the point compilation of your athletic skills.  A recruiter can watch two or three other videos during the same nine minute time span.

Include a Conclusion

Finding a proper way to end the video gives the audience a sense of closure.  Too often, videos end abruptly, with no warning.  In this case, I would suggest the athlete re-cap name, high school, age, position, and then give a statement of appreciation to the audience for watching the vid.  Its amazing how much more memorable the video will become by using this technique.

7 Step Plan to a Great Video Resume

Follow this 7 step model for any other sport that you are interested in to create your own video resume.

1. State your name, age, hometown, high school, sport, and position.  Make sure you are calm and there is great sound quality.
2. List any accolades received during your athletic career, including team milestones.
3. List all academic accolades, especially favorable grade point averages and awards.
4. State your goals for your athletic career.
5. Showcase your skillsets in various areas of the game.  Focus on the skills that you are especially great at, making sure to capture the perfect shot for each skillset.
6. Make sure your video remains concise and organized.  An ideal length of video should be around four minutes.  This is an ample amount of time to get a large deal of information through to your prospective program.
7. End the video by re-stating your name, age, high school and sport, and tell the viewer that you appreciate them taking the time to view your video.

When you create your video resume upload it to Youtube and tell your friends to spread the word.

A Few Great Skills Videos

Here are some decent videos that serve as a good model for showcasing skills.