How To Write An Overseas Basketball Resume [Step-by-Step Guide With Pictures]
Basketball resumes and professional work resumes are not the same.
In fact:
Overseas basketball resumes (i.e. players looking for professional jobs) and general basketball resumes (high school and university players) should vary quite a bit.
That’s why it’s important that players know the difference so they understand what to include, highlight and prioritize when contacting:
Overseas Pro Teams
Overseas Pro Coaches
Overseas Pro General Managers
…and more.
After years of tweaking, editing and feedback, I’ll show you one of the main reasons of how I’ve been able to earn multiple overseas contract offers throughout the world: my overseas basketball resume.
How to make an overseas basketball resume
First things first - understand something:
You are writing a resume specifically tailored to the basketball community, not the general public.
Big difference.
Athletes - and athletics - by its very nature are a very visual and physical (i.e. “doing”) thing.
If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be basketball players.
Instead, we’d be happy sitting and working at a regular 9-5 desk job.
That means - regardless of what resume format you choose - there are a few unbreakable rules in basketball resumes:
Keep the text to a minimum
Avoid huge blocks of text (one bullet point can’t be more than 2 lines)
Keep lots of “white space” (just means keep a lot of space free of text, let the resume “breathe”)
No one-word lines (waste of space)
No weird fonts
Do these three things and I guarantee you, you will make your basketball resume:
Easier to read
Easier to follow along with
Easier to highlight the sections you want coaches to focus on
Increase the odds of landing a pro contract
Now that we got the general guidelines out of the way, let’s get to the actual Step-by-Step guide.
Step 1: Include Personal Details (Name, Height, Weight, Position, passport(s), DOB)
While this info may seem like a given, this can literally make or break your basketball resume right from the start.
Often, overseas basketball teams are strictly looking for certain:
Height requirements
Weight requirements (big guys who can bang down low)
Playing positions
Nationality types
That means you could be the best player in your region but if you don’t fit a certain criteria, you’ll immediately be looked over.
Be up front and say exactly what your measurements are.
Get this information right out of the way and lead with it in either the upper right or left-hand corners.
And be sure to write:
Height in both feet (‘) and centimeters (cm)
Weight in both pounds (lbs.) and kilograms (kg)
Remember:
You are applying for an overseas basketball job.
That includes the whole world.
Not everyone in the world uses the same measurement system.
So make sure your resume as easy to follow along with as possible - regardless of who’s reading.
Finally:
No matter what passports you have - list them.
I can’t stress this enough.
I banged my head against the wall for years trying to get into overseas basketball until I realized passports/citizenships are maybe the the most important ingredient in professional basketball.
So even if you think your passport is useless and there is no pro league in that specific country - list it.
Often there are many surprising benefits to specific passports (e.g. a Caribbean passport can allow you to play as a national in Europe).
For privacy purposes I didn’t include my date of birth in the above example but you should do that when sending it off to teams.
step 2: add a personal picture
Not only are personal pictures acceptable in overseas basketball resumes but they should be encouraged.
Remember:
Overseas basketball is an extremely visual field of work that has a huge element of marketing.
Pros team want to know how you look so they can:
Understand how you relate to their demographic
Understand any interesting quirks you may have (in my case, my goggles)
Understand how they could potentially market you on social media
But don’t over do it.
Keep it to 1 picture and have it at the top near/beside your personal information.
Make it visible but keep it professional.
In general, I’d stick with:
Head shots
HD pictures
Power poses (e.g. holding a trophy, receiving an award etc.)
Work with what you have.
If you have no power poses then an action shot can work as long as it’s zoomed in on the face.
If you don’t have an action shot then every player can manage an HD head shot with their cell phone.
The point is:
We are trying to express a certain image here:
We are a professional
We are a commodity
We are a successful player and we’ll bring success to your club too
Step 3: career highlights (achievements, awards)
After we have the “essential personal details” out of the way, we need to grab the team’s attention right away.
We do this by highlighting about 3-5 of our best career highlights or achievements.
Highlights are where we want the pro coach’s eye to immediately land when they open the resume.
That way, the coach will be more interested to read on.
We dictate where they look, not the other way around.
For our career highlights then, we need to:
Increase the font size from the rest of resume
Bold the font
Keep each bullet point to a single line and make it as short and concise as possible
That means if your resume is:
Overcluttered
Filled with text and can’t breathe
Not bolded or increased in text size for important points
…Coaches won’t be able to focus on the most important point(s) of your resume.
If you can’t focus on a single point of anything - what do you do?
Glance, skim and move on.
For example:
Look at this resume I had from earlier in my career.
3 huge mistakes here:
Look at my career skills profile: Not only is it not bolded, focused or kept to a single line for each bullet point, but it is actually in a smaller font size than the rest of the resume. We want to emphasize these points, not minimize.
Way too overcluttered: Club logos, personal details, player comparisons and career highlights leave little “white space” and make it a little overwhelming to look at.
No focus point: My personal details, player comparisons, club logos and career achievements are all about the same size and distributed evenly. Where are coaches supposed to look?
step 4: previous playing experiences (team/location, stats, highlight film)
The meat and potatoes of the actual basketball resume comes in the Playing Experience Section.
Think of this in bullet points of 3:
Year - Team Name - League - Country
Season stats (pick 3-4 of the most impressive stats you have from that season, remember this must fit on one line)
Highlight film (YouTube share link)
We’re trying to pack in as much information as possible here so it’s critical we keep this as concise as possible.
Each different team - or experience - you have should be in groups of 3s as outlined below.
Doing this method, I packed in 6 different playing experiences in my resume - that’s over 10 years!
Posting your Team Name, League, Country and Year is pretty straight forward.
But a few things to consider when attaching stats to your resume:
If there is a verifiable link for your stats and it’s not too long of a URL, add it
Make sure to hyperlink your stats link if you have it
Remember your stats must fit on a single line so only pick 3-4 of your most impressive numbers
Some key points on highlight films that you attach to your resume:
Have all your highlight films ready on YouTube.
YouTube is the single easiest way for coaches to receive and watch videos
Avoid annoying email transfers at all costs, this will discourage coaches from pursuing you
YouTube has a feature for short-link URLS, attach this instead of the long-form URL (saves space)
Make sure to Hyperlink the YouTube link in your Word or PDF document
Finally:
Do not bother with Full Game Film.
A resume is a broad introduction to your skills/experiences.
Teams have to first be interested in your size, moves, play style etc. before they will even consider watching minutes of an unedited game.
If a team is interested, they will ask for a full game - trust me.
step 5: basketball and social visuals
This final step is a bonus to any players who want to make certain their resume stands out.
Consider adding:
Former team logos, emblems
Call to actions (your email, social media, website etc.)
Interesting visual background layouts
All of these elements help to spice up your resume a bit more and can really make it pop.
Ultimately:
This won’t necessarily be much of a deal-breaker but it could definitely help in upping your presentation and overall professionalism - something that works in your favor in the future.
CONCLUSION:
With all of this in mind, this is just one element of how to contact overseas basketball teams.
There are still many other important factors including:
How we make a convincing basketball highlight video
How to get overseas basketball coaches’ emails
How to send a proper recruiting email to overseas basketball teams
How to use social media to contact overseas clubs
…and more.
If that’s something you’re interested in, then consider subscribing on the side bar as I’ll be covering all of them in-depth just like this.
The 5 steps to creating a successful overseas basketball resume:
Add personal details (name, height, weight, position, passport, date of birth)
Add a picture personal picture (HD head shot in a power pose)
Career highlights (achievements, awards)
Previous Playing Experiences (team, location, stats, highlight film)
Basketball and social visuals (former team logos, social media, email)
What element were you missing in your overseas basketball resume before?
Which of the 5 steps will you add in today? I’d love to help if you have any questions.
Comment below!
Jose Colorado is a five-year professional basketball player helping others achieve their goals of pro basketball through a proven, research-based approach.
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