Summer Recruitment Questions

[SNUIGC]

Hey guys, what's up? I just found this forum after a guy at CoC told me about it. I'm from the Mississippi State - Iota Gamma colony that was recolonized in the Fall and are 17 members strong currently.

Anyways, my question is, what are y'all doing for summer recruitment, if anything? Right now we have the usual info booth set up for whenever the people come for orientation, talk to them, etc. ...and we also know that our main push will have to come in the Fall.... but, it just seems like we should be doing something else right now.

Also, if y'all have any other ideas/tips for just getting started they'd be appreciated. (it sucks when even your execs haven't done anything like this before and we're all just starting out with not much of an idea how to "properly do" things.

[banditone]

WELCOME!!!! Great to hear from the Mississippi State group; I hope you stick around and keep us abreast of how things are going.

Now, for your question. I guess it depends on what kind of rush your school has. Are you in the midst of continuous "open" Summer Rush? Or do you only have a standard "formal" Rush the week or so before classes start?

- How is your Alumni Support? We used to have little BBQ gatherings in different area cities that were sources for incoming freshmen. We'd have them at our Alumni houses in said cities.
- Isn't the Ole Miss chapter about 70miles away? I'd see if it would be possible to co-ordinate some functions for incoming freshmen with them. That is a HUGE chapter with resources that are better then pretty much every chapter out there.

p.s. Love the website http://www.sigmanumsstate.com
YOu may want to shoot an email over to headquarters@sigmanu.org (headquarters@sigmanu.org) and tell them to update your chapters link on the nationals site (they are hela-slow about updating the links).

[Kevin]

Absolutely. Y'all are in the South, so you ought to be in full tilt recruitment mode about now. There are always the passive things you have to do (booths, posters, etc.) that might help to get a few kids by chance.

What we did when I was active was we'd have the whole chapter sit down and list every potential rushee they knew -- graduating seniors, etc. I remember once we did this by getting a list of incoming freshmen from the campus life director. We also obtain a list of incoming people on leadership scholarships and particularly focus on them. At any rate.. we list them and put their names on a big posterboard which hangs in the house. We then assign different people to these kids and have those guys make phone calls, hang out, etc.

Everything they do is documented on that posterboard so that we can make sure no one is falling through the cracks. Those guys generally stay in touch with the rush chain and EC so that we can reallocate resources as necessary.

-- it's been awhile. If there are any Mu Tau members lurking, please let me know if this is still what's going on.

At any rate, summer is a far better time to line up a class than Fall. You might want to pay a visit to another SEC school (or any school close by) just to see what they're doing and whether or not they can offer you anything.

[SNUIGC]

Well, our school has a pretty informal rush... they do sign an interested list and there is rush week and all that...but no formal house tours or any of that stuff.

As to our alumni support...we're...really not sure about that yet. It's been almost 20 years since we lost our charter and, just from sending out letters and all, a number of alumni have died, moved without updating their address etc. On a good note, there are still some around and have been writing a few checks, so, that should help us get started out. (plus, our dues are $550 a semester, which are high, but will help us get a bank account going)

Yeah, the Ole Miss chapter is about a 2 hour drive north... however, we've had limited contact with them... we've asked for some help but either they were busy or ignored us or who knows what. The Southern Miss chapter is about 2 hours away, as well... however, they have 7 members and need more help with recruitment than we do.

Kevin, the idea about the poster board actually sounds like a really good idea...except, we don't have a house so it'll have to be in one of our apartments. haha ...but, it's kinda cool, we actually have 3 apartments right next to each other where most of our people are going to be living at for the year.

We had thought about sending our a mass letter to everyone on the incoming freshmen list (which HQ said they would help and mail them for us)... which, hopefully might get some more interested people out there... like, say, send a letter and to those we know might be more interested a MD as well.

[Kevin]

The thing is -- passive means of getting guys like sending letters are expensive as hell. Further, they produce minimal results. Think about it -- have you ever heard of someone joining a fraternity because they got a really awesome letter? Nope.

That said -- we send those letters out as well... or at least we did a couple years ago when I was active. We'd get a list of all incoming freshman men, we'd go through the list and cross off a few names, then we'd do the mailing.

The only reason we did this was because there was another fraternity doing it and we wanted to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper and a whole lot more successful when you use direct contact methods. If the school has phone numbers, call up kids from your hometowns. Take them to lunch. Do that whole VBR thing when you meet them. I presume you've been to a recruitment institute by now? If not, some guys from your colony were surely at the CoC, so they just spent about a week or so living and breathing that stuff. It may sound hokey, but let me tell you, that stuff works.

Finally, if you'd like, PM me, I'll put you in touch with our recently graduated recruiting guru. Perhaps he could be of assistance?

[ZK761]

I know the chapter or colony can also sign up for a recruitment visit. Basically someone from Hq comes out and helps you guys out on how to recruit. It helps out a lot.

http://www.sigmanufraternity.org/recruitment/recruitmentvisit.php

[TrevorG]

I'm going out of a limb here and saying "Robinson Chapter!"

[Kevin]

I know the chapter or colony can also sign up for a recruitment visit. Basically someone from Hq comes out and helps you guys out on how to recruit. It helps out a lot.

http://www.sigmanufraternity.org/recruitment/recruitmentvisit.php

I'm going to sticky this link. Great stuff.

[SNUIGC]

I'm going out of a limb here and saying "Robinson Chapter!"

....Robinson Chapter? ?????

But, yeah, we haven't gotten to be able to attend a recruiting institute yet... want to go to one so badly, though. Ummm, Chris Healy and Jake Welshans (i.e. Director of Expansion and Recruitment/Expansion consultant) have been here alot... Jake was actually our live-on semester guy so that was really helpful and Chris was down at LSU being their live-on semester guy and he got to drop by every now and then. It's just...trying to think about what they would do and then trying to do it.

On a side note, though, this live-in guy thing they've started doing for new colonies is...amazing, really. I mean, it's so much help to have a guy that knows what he's talking about just hanging around for a semester and change... I mean, I would hate to see how it was back when they start it up and just leave.... I mean, how do you get your charter like that? It's just so...inefficient and doesn't instill the brotherhood that should be there.

Truthfully, we're only hoping for a candidate class of between 20-30 people...basically doubling the size we're at right now. Already have the facebook group set up, trying to get the website together, etc. It's just...having to go out and try and get people, I guess? ...oh and since we don't have a house yet we're talking to a sorority about using their house. Good idea or not?

[banditone]

Use it for what? Rush functions? If so that would be great. You really need a centralized place to rush.

I guess, now that I think about it, I don't remember going to the chapter house till school started. Most of my getting rushed took place at the Summer Rush Apartment, or at brother Lake Houses (our big Summer event is "Watersport Weekend" at a brothers lake house. Boats, Jetski's, BBQ, Girls. *sigh* take me back to the good old days!!!)

[SNUIGC]

Yeah, planning to use it to hold our rush functions... rush here is informal this year (again, ugh, prefer formal rush to this junk). Just, it makes things flow better, methinks. But, you should see our apartments we have close together...it's slowly turning into a Command Center... we actually have a laptop in the living room that's dedicated to Sigma Nu Rush Fall 07 with everything we could get on all the potential candidates... actually kinda stalkerish, but, we'll definitely know what they're interested in so we can talk to em.

We've also heard about creating a list of things to look for in a candidate and then judging them using that. How's y'alls feeling on that? I mean, I could see where it would help out trying to screen out some of the guys that we don't want to get in...however, truthfully, right now we need numbers WITHOUT sacrificing quality.

[Kevin]

From experience, let me tell you that blanket bidding is a horrible way to go about getting numbers. I won't lie.. it probably saved us a semester. It cost us in the long run though. We bid several guys we shouldn't have just to get that petition together. It was a tough job holding things together for a semester with a bunch of kids who didn't belong. After the petition was approved, several people got cut or dropped.. so problem solved.

It's just something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Lots of late night exec meetings where we were mediating disputes between guys who clearly didn't belong.

[SigmaNuHX766]

Yeah, blanket bidding was a bad choice for our chapter... we bid about 25 guys one semester after a lot of older brothers graduated a while ago, and our chapter GPA dropped from the highest on campus to about mid range. We've since gone back to "quality over quantity" for recruiting.

One thing we do here at ODU is an informational booth during the freshman orientation, and also facebook "flyers" (banner ads on the left hand margin). The school pays for and puts together welcome packages for all incoming freshman so we put our Rush Event schedule out there from day 1. Talk to your school's IFC to see if you can get something like that set up through the school... it's a lot cheaper than (free!!) going to Kinko's or Staples and running off thousands of copies and mailing 'em.

One thing to make sure to do at those informational booths... DON'T EXPECT THE FRESHMEN TO COME TO YOU! Walk out a few feet, shake some hands and meet some people! I see so many other fraternities on my campus sitting on their ass at those events, and their list of interested freshman shows their level of effort... some have less than ten contacts since the start of the summer! So far we have a list of 60 potentials, which we'll probably get a return of 15 bids from, in addition to upperclassmen friends getting bidded, legacy folks getting bidded, and the folks that just plain show up to the rush events and get bidded.

As a chapter we also collaborate on our friends and aquaintances that may be interested, and bid them in the fall... this is where most of our candidates come from. 50 brothers that each know 200+ people on campus means we have a LOT of coverage. Also real-life brothers are recruited as often as they can be.

Things I'm working on for the fall: A series of recruiting videos to be shown on Campus TV, radio ads to be played on WODU, advertisements in the Mace & Crown (student paper), and a "grassroots" campaign of getting brothers to go out in letters on the day of a Rush Event with a goal of bringing at least 1 person that they know or met that day... other fraternities on campus do that with great success.

Also, being that we live near the beach, we're doing some late summer day trips to VA Beach, and I'm bringing a bunch of potentials that live locally.

Any other ideas guys?

[SNUIGC]

The facebook flyer is actually a good idea...and, from what I remember doing it with out SA on campus, it was actually pretty cheap. The basket thing sounds like a great idea; however, our school doesn't do that....then again, maybe it might be a good idea to talk to our greek life guy and try to talk him into it. (then again, he's an asshole who doesn't care about his job)

Yeah, we usually have 2 people at the booth and then have the other 2 just walk around and talk to people. (limited to 4 people at the orientation, can't wear letters or show colors and everyone there has to wear the same greek life shirt, it really sucks) But, it was pretty amazing talking to people and seeing how we were the only ones who talked to them, just because everyone else was sitting at their booths.

That recruitment video of yours is pretty awesome... I'd love for us to have something like that... hopefully one of the new guys will be good with that stuff and can make one. (it's not hazing once they're actually a member lol j/k)


Also, another thing is that we ARE different from the rest... we are the only IFC chapter at our school with a minority (black) member....the rest are 100% white. ...not saying that's what we wanted, just, the guy is really cool, what we were looking for, can't really imagine our chapter being the same without him and that's all there is to it. So, but, I see this in 2 ways... 1. the racist guys won't join (which, we wouldn't want them, so, that's good) and 2. hopefully that'll boost other minorities joining chapters.

[banditone]

[quote=SNUIGC;1479094]Yeah, planning to use it to hold our rush functions... rush here is informal this year (again, ugh, prefer formal rush to this junk). Just, it makes things flow better, methinks. quote]

It seems like you'd guys would want Open rush as opposed to Formal. Reason being the lack of house.

Our chapter had the ugliest house on campus; so we were not fans of formal rush at all. Hell, I didn't even see the house till I had been pledged for a while over Summer. We'd get a BIG bulk of the class already set befre formal (20 to 25ish), and then maybe get 1 or 2 with formal to close out the class.