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Liam Henshaw

Post it before it's perfect

Published about 2 months ago • 2 min read

Hey Reader,

The best piece of work you produce this year is worthless if it sits in your drafts.

I say that because I watched it almost happen to one of our members.

A month of polishing

Early on in the Recruitment Room, Freddie built a recruitment project - a task on right-backs at Dundee United. He shared it inside the community and the feedback was good. People told him, plainly, that it was strong.

So what did he do next?

He sat on it for a month.

Tweaking the weightings. Adjusting, second-guessing, refining. Convinced it wasn’t quite good enough to put on LinkedIn yet. All while the people who had actually seen it were telling him it already was.

Boxing Day

He finally posted it the day before Christmas.

On Boxing Day he woke up to a stack of messages from people asking how he had done it.

Not one of them mentioned the weightings he had spent a month agonising over. They saw the work, understood what it showed, and wanted to know more.

The month of polishing bought him almost nothing. The decision to post is what did everything.

His own words, looking back - his biggest regret was not posting more. Held back, every time, by the same thought. “It’s not good enough.”

Perfectionism is a tax

The polished version in your drafts helps no one. It gets you noticed by no one. It teaches you nothing you did not already know a month ago.

Perfectionism feels like high standards. Most of the time it is just fear wearing a smarter jacket.

The work that moves your career forward is the work people can see. A good-enough report that is public will always beat a perfect one that is private.

Freddie’s rule now is simple - get it 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort, then post it. Learn in public. He will be the first to tell you he was slow to take that advice.

If being seen is the scary part

For a lot of people, the fear is not really about quality. It is about being seen.

If that is you, there is a softer first step, and it is the one Freddie used.

Post the work somewhere smaller first. A community, a group chat, a place where the feedback is honest but encouraging. Get a few people you trust to react to it. That is usually all it takes to realise the thing you were scared to share was fine all along.

Then you take it public with the fear already taken out of it.

Perfect was never coming

Nobody has ever been hired off the report they were too nervous to post.

Freddie kept going. He posted his work, imperfect, week after week. He is now working full-time in football, as a recruitment analyst at Cambridge United. The habit of letting his work be seen is a big part of how he got there.

The gap between the people who break in and the people who stay stuck often is not talent. It is that one group lets their work be seen, and the other keeps it in a folder, one tweak away from ready, forever.

Post it before it is perfect. Perfect was never coming anyway.

Save your spot in the Recruitment Room

The Recruitment Room is where you get that first round of honest feedback - from me, our mentors, and a community doing the same work - before you ever post anything publicly. It is the place to take the fear out of being seen, the same way Freddie did.

Doors are open now for our July intake. They close at the end of the month and won't reopen until October, with only 16 spots left.

→ Join The Recruitment Room

Any questions, just reply. I read everything.

Liam Henshaw

Join The Recruitment Room: sign up here​

Football Recruitment Roadmap: read here​

More Writing & Advice: read here​

Podcasts I've Done: watch here​

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Liam Henshaw

Helping new, aspiring and current football professionals progress in football.

I am a data analyst and scout working in professional football. Subscribe and join over 5,000+ newsletter readers every week!

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