Managing your recruiting process is one of the hardest parts of being a recruit. There are so many more important things you feel like you should be focusing on: sports, academics, eating well, family etc. That's why it's incredibly important to feel like you have a grasp on your recruiting process and feel that you are giving each school recruiting you the proper responses. This guide lays out four easy steps that you can take to ensure that you are managing your time as a recruit effectively and efficiently.

Step 1: Do Your Work Early and Often.

The recruiting process can be tedious and time consuming and requires a lot of responses, conversations, and visits. The first step to managing your time and energy is to make quick communication a priority. For instance, when you get an email from a coach asking about yourself and asking you to send them a highlight tape, do not let that email sit in your inbox and go on with your day because you have more important stuff to do. Instead, you should respond as soon as you see the email. Crafting a well thought-out response, uploading your highlight tape, and getting it back to the coach promptly communicates that you are committed to their program, you are organized, and that you have good time management skills. If you don't drag your feet you can also go about your priorities without the looming stress of having to respond to an important email. 

This practice applies to all aspects of the recruiting process. Need to make a campus visit? Schedule it for your soonest possible available day. Need to call a coach and have a conversation? Make the call as soon as you can. In other words, when applicable, do your work now so that nothing can get in the way of your recruiting process and you can maximize your offers.

Step 2: Stay organized.

Organization is a practice that you should master  as early in life as possible because staying organized will keep you sane even in the most hectic times. In the recruiting process, organization can be the difference between getting an offer and missing an opportunity. In order to stay organized throughout the process, you can: 

–   Create  a folder in your email to organize all of your recruitment conversations. Make storing your emails in your recruitment folder the first thing that you do when you receive a recruitment email.

–   Buy a physical folder, binder or other organizational device to store your written recruitment information and letters from various schools. Having this folder will help you to easily access your material and may actually help you to make a decision when you need to compare schools.

–   Use an electronic or paper calendar to help you organize your calls with coaches and school visits. Even if you have a good memory, having a calendar to consult gives you one less thing to think about so you can focus on other priorities. 

Step 3: Follow Up

Coaches and athletic directors are busy people who are constantly bombarded with emails from recruits, players, other coaches, parents and fans. If they don't respond to your recruitment-related email right away do not take it personally. That being said, if  7-10 days have passed with no response to your original email,  then it is time to follow up.

Managing your follow-up emails is an important part of staying on top of your recruiting process and you should work to formulate a unique follow up email for each coach and not get attached to using a template. Make sure that your email is sincere and that you do not sound pushy. Your email needs to make the coach believe that their team is top priority to you and that their school is a top choice for you.

When following up, be sure to apply the aforementioned first two steps of this guide: communicate early and often and keep your follow-ups organized.

Step 4:  Be prepared

The phrase “Be Prepared” may be more commonly associated with the Boy Scouts, but it definitely applies to college recruits, too. If you want to ensure that your recruitment process can weather the storm you need to be prepared for anything to happen. Here's how you can always be ready so you don't have to get ready: 

–   Throughout the process, as often as possible, rank your schools either on paper or on your computer. This doesn't mean that you should openly treat schools differently, but you should still know which ones you are most interested in.

–   List multiple ways to contact coaches. Having a coach's phone number and email is the best way to ensure that you can sustain communication with that coach and that you won't lose touch. Make sure to store a coach's number if they call you. If you have interacted over email and in person, it may be appropriate for you to ask for their phone number, but if you have only interacted in person and over the phone, you should still be able to find a coach's email on the school's college athletics website.

–   Lastly, try your best to accommodate all coaches who reach out to you.  As Jake Ross Jr., head coach of the University of Michigan baseball team says, “don't limit yourself to one school.” Having an increased number of offers can help you be prepared for the unexpected and have choices when the time comes to make a decision.

To summarize, the recruiting process can be difficult and full of twists, but these four steps can help you to stay on top of the process. Applying these steps  will help you manage all of the information, visits, events, meetings and calls that you have during your recruitment process.

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* Originally published on April 7, 2022, by Jordan Cole