One of the important things that a soccer player has to be able to do at any level, is to be able to promote themselves to prospective recruiters.  This is a valuable skill to learn, especially to the D3 player because more than likely when you graduate from college you will be a professional lawyer, doctor, teacher and not a professional soccer player.  So learning to promote and sell yourself to a college (or a potential employer) is a valuable skill to learn.

One of the first things to start off with is a soccer resume.  In your soccer resume you’ll want to list important info like name, address, contact info, height/weight, parents’ info, academic info (like GPA, SAT/ACT scores, graduation date, academic honors), high school info, and any other non-soccer related activities (volunteer work, organizations, other sports, etc.).

Of course you also want to list your soccer background.  Now in my humble opinion, I honestly don’t think that what you accomplished as a U10 or U12 player has any bearing on your future college career, so I’d leave that info off of your resume.  To me, the important stuff is what you have done from freshmen year in high school and beyond.  So start at that point and list the teams (high school and club) that you’ve played for, honors or awards you’ve received, position(s) you play, and camps that you have attended.  For your teams you can list your major team accomplishments.  For high school that would include things like district champions, sectional champions, state champions, and so forth. For club teams you can list major tourneys you have attended or state/regional competitions where you have had success (i.e. state finalist or competed in Region 1 competition).

Lastly and VERY IMPORTANTLY, be sure to include references.  These are people who have coached you recently (again not your U10 or U12 coach) that can speak to your abilities as a player as well as your personality and character.  This can be a high school coach or your club coach who coached you preferably junior or senior year.

The bottom line is this— you want to put together something that helps you get the attention of the people recruiting you.

Some sample soccer resumes to review are:

http://www.providence.edu/polisci/students/soccer_recruit/sample%20player%20resume.htm

http://www.satglobal.com/player_resume.htm

For some more interesting reading on promoting yourself as a soccer player, check out this article by Joey Bilotta:

http://www.active.com/soccer/Articles/Promoting_Yourself_in_a_Competitive_Soccer_World.htm

If you haven’t had a chance to take our survey yet, please do so on the right hand side of the page.  We will keep it open until the end of February, so let us know what you want to read more about.  And if you have any questions, please feel free to drop us a line at d3recruitinghub@gmail.com.