Recruitment Help!!!!

[ohMycron]

Be really aggressive with meeting people. Of course, I do not mean this in a mean way. Rather, I mean have every girl in your chapter go out and make new friends. Set a quantitative goal, like 5 new friends. They can be in class, at the gym, in their dorm rooms, at Starbucks, etc. Make sure the goal is not to gain COB women, but to make new friends. This is good because (1) you get your Sorority's name out on campus (Girls will say "Oh, I have a friend in XYZ") and (2) you will get to know women to see--prior to inviting them--if they are a good fit.

Plus, as everyone has said, personal invitations mean the most. COB is a whole different beast of an animal and needs to be treated differently. Good luck!

[LadyLion4Life]

Ok, so here is an update as to what I have going on now. I still need some help lol. I met with my exec. and advisers today just to go over stuff for next semester and this is what they came up with and will not budge from:
We are having three COB nights the second week back from class as a kind of informal formal recruitment. Don't know if I like this but, like I said they are stuck on that. I need to come up with themes for each of these three nights and I am at a complete loss as to what to do for this.
After these three nights the exec wants to do one COB a month. My adviser wants to keep up with us just going out and getting our name out there and befriending the girls on campus in hopes that they might want to join as well. I feel like at this point my adviser and I are just very scared about getting women to come out to these events. My chapter is very stuck in its ways about advertising via flyers for our COBs and I don't know what else to do. It's turning out to be a very frustrating position.

[33girl]

Printing flyers costs money. Unless the use of them is tangibly increasing the amount of money that comes into the chapter (i.e. unless the total amount of members you have is shown to be increasing as a result of the flyers) it is not a cost effective best practice. Therefore it should be trashed.

I guess my next question is to why the exec board has so much say as to what the recruitment chair can do? I mean, I was on exec and the only thing that I can remember us voting on relative to rush is the budget and maybe dates so they didn't conflict. We didn't vote on this will be the theme, we will do this, wear that, we have this many open bid parties. That's the rush chair's JOB. If we weren't going to let her do it, we wouldn't have voted her into the office, or have the office.

Anyway, have the theme for the week be "holidays." Valentine's Day, St Patrick's Day, 4th of July. Wear red the first day, green the second day, red white & blue the third day. One (very very short) game each night. And no skits. CONVERSATION is your focus. Also, each sister should be required to invite at least one rushee to the parties.

[Leslie Anne]

Originally Posted by 33girl

One (very very short) game each night. And no skits. CONVERSATION is your focus. Also, each sister should be required to invite at least one rushee to the parties.

I agree!!! NO SKITS! Unless it's right on target, a bad skit (or even a mediocre one) makes everyone uncomfortable. It also wastes precious time that should be used in conversation.

[LadyLion4Life]

Our previous exec decided things last semester for a few things regarding recruitment. Our COB nights are almost all conversation with a few ice breakers thrown in. A lot of you are saying each sister should bring a girl to the nights and we have tried to enforce that in the past. Our problem is that we only have one freshman in our chapter and a few sophomores. Do you guys have any advice as to how we could enforce the every women bring a PNM with this being the case?

[Musicwalksuhome]

Positive reinforcement. Maybe have a prize (like a gift card or something) for the two sisters who bring the most pnms to cob events or something. Make sure sisters are also meeting/getting together with pnms on their own. It could be as easy as asking a pnm to grab lunch or coffee after they have class together.

[FSUZeta]

with some chapters i have advised, it worked out better for the chapter to be divided into small groups of about 5 or 6 girls each, and each group had to invite 2-3 girls to something that the small group decided to do, after clearing it with the recruitment chair. for instance, group a invited their pnms to go with them for a coffee at starbucks, group b took their pnms out for frozen yogurt, group c took their pnms bowling, group d invited their pnms over to one of the groups apartments for a chick flick and pizza, etc. they are not hard core rushing these girls at the first meeting-it is more a get to know each other thing. hopefully, the pnms like the girls they meet and want to get to know more of your sisters at an upcoming event.

the recruitment chair shared a list of interested pnms(from a list provided by panhellenic) with the chapter to see if any members knew any of the girls. if anyone knew a pnm, that group had first dibs on inviting her to their event. the group also had the option of asking someone they knew from their classes, work or organizations that they belonged to. the recruitment chair approved the events and decided which week the events would take place. the groups notified the recruitment chair which pnms were meeting with. the events had to all take place during the same week, but the group could decide what day worked better for them. after the event had taken place, the leader of the group would contact the rec. chair, let her know how it went .

the next event would be an all chapter event when all the chapter and all interested pnms met together. someone from the group would pick up the pnm, escort her to the event and take her home. the group would take turns(rotations) showing her around and introducing her to the other members. this worked well because this allowed for the maximum number of members to meet the pnms and vice versa.

i agree with 33, i don't understand why the recruitment chair is not making her own decisions about recruitment events and why your ec is making all the recruitment decisions.

[33girl]

It has nothing to do with what year people are. Unless people are student teaching or have other off campus jobs, they should still be meeting new people of all ages!! I mean don't people purposely save easy peasy gen ed classes for senior year anymore?

Are any upperclassmen tutors in the chapter? RAs? People on sports teams? These people all have lots of access to possible rushees.

Also, when I say it has nothing to do with what year people are, that applies to PNMs too. Invite sophomores and juniors and not just freshmen.

"I don't know any freshmen because I'm a senior" is not an acceptable excuse to slack on helping the chapter to rush. If seniors have that attitude, they should just terminate themselves.

[LadyLion4Life]

The thing is our seniors have been giving us the "I don't have class with underclassmen, I don't know any" excuse consistently since I have joined. I don't know how to tel them that that is not an excuse because we have tried and they just get angry and get the whole "fine well then I just won't do anything" attitude. My sisters are extremely strong minded and stubborn and at times very frustrating to work with lol

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by LadyLion4Life

The thing is our seniors have been giving us the "I don't have class with underclassmen, I don't know any" excuse consistently since I have joined. I don't know how to tel them that that is not an excuse because we have tried and they just get angry and get the whole "fine well then I just won't do anything" attitude. My sisters are extremely strong minded and stubborn and at times very frustrating to work with lol

Very simple: "There's no such thing as 'I don't know any underclassmen.'"

Even when I was a senior, I worked at an internship with underclassmen student employees, and interacted with underclassmen in two other student orgs.

I think that 99% of seniors do interact with underclassmen on some level (unless they are student teaching or something like that).

Alot of times "I don't know any freshmen, sophs, or juniors" really means "I'm a senior and I feel like I've earned the right to coast and not help out with rush efforts."

If they choose not to do anything because they don't want to do what's suggested, then there needs to be a consequence for the inactivity.

Will it make you popular? No. But you will be sepaprating those interested in the growth of the chapter from those who are not.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by LadyLion4Life

The thing is our seniors have been giving us the "I don't have class with underclassmen, I don't know any" excuse consistently since I have joined. I don't know how to tel them that that is not an excuse because we have tried and they just get angry and get the whole "fine well then I just won't do anything" attitude. My sisters are extremely strong minded and stubborn and at times very frustrating to work with lol

It took me a long time to learn this, but informal recruitment IS NOT HARD. It really isn't. What's difficult is getting a chapter who thinks "We didn't get a lot of new girls this semester because we aimed for quality" and "I'm too old to meet new people", to completely change their way of thinking. That's your job. Because the reason you didn't get a lot of new girls is because you didn't MEET a lot of potential members. And you're only too old to meet new people if you're dead. A little extreme, but it's kind of true.

Keep in mind, however, that you can't just say to someone, "You're a senior, but you MUST know younger girls." And you can't just say, "We shouldn't have official informal recruitment events." And you can't just say, "Recruitment is easy." I'm no mind-reader, but I can tell you that everyone will come back with the same answers: "No I don't", "Yes we should", and "ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

You have to ask questions, such as, "Is this method producing results?" and, "Have you all been satisfied with our informal recruitment numbers?" and, "What can we do to improve?"

You have to show how your ideas will make the system better. My suggestion, though, would be to start off small. Don't go from having numerous informal recruitment events to having none. The chapter probably won't go for that. Suggest doing some things your way, and some things their way. After recruitment is over, have a serious discussion about what worked, what didn't work, and what will probably work in the future.

And go to Phiredup.com! Actually, their blog entry from 2 days ago ('Let's Leave the Big Top for the Circus') is something you should definitely read. Then... keep reading more! The people on that site know what they're talking about.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by LadyLion4Life

The thing is our seniors have been giving us the "I don't have class with underclassmen, I don't know any" excuse consistently since I have joined. I don't know how to tel them that that is not an excuse because we have tried and they just get angry and get the whole "fine well then I just won't do anything" attitude. My sisters are extremely strong minded and stubborn and at times very frustrating to work with lol

This is a great example of why everyone needs to be in at least one other extracurricular activity! What we did was to isolate 8 different organizations, and had at least two sisters in each. Freshmen join, and your sisters are there for the picking - no more excuses! Good organizations are those that have a "teaching" potential, like mentoring, or tour guides, or wherever a savvy senior can take a freshman under her wing!

[Blue Skies]

One of the wisest pieces of advice that I was ever given was, "Cultivate friends of all ages."

[LadyLion4Life]

Sorry for bumping this but I guess I still need help lol. My chapter had a round of COBs and they went ok, but not great (I blame a lot of it on our PR chair for doing no PR). That aside we had three nights with an average of 5 girls at each night We have a group of 6 girls who accepted bids, but our goal is to have 14. Everyone has lost hope now because 1)we did not get 14 the first time through and 2) another sorority had COBs a week after us and had an average of 25 women at each of their three nights. I don't know what else I can do to encourage my girls to get out there and meet PNMs. We are all a little shy, but this is getting bad (My chapter only as 25 women with 7 graduating). I have scheduled another two COBs next week because my president told me to but I don't know if they are going to help us. If anyone has any more suggestions for me as to what I should do in this situation please please help!

[KSUViolet06]

Stop worrying about the numbers everyone else is getting for COB.

Focus on you.

Think of this way, that's 6 more girls than what you had before COB.