Recruitment Advice for a New Recruitment Chair?
 

I am the new VP Recruitment of my sorority, and I am planning for Formal Recruitment in the fall. This will be the first year in three years that my sorority will participate in all of the rounds of FR. In the past, we were only allowed by our national office to do the first round of formal recruitment; I have never participated in any more than the first round. Most of our women who have participated in FR before have graduated, so I don't have much of a knowledge base to draw on.

My chapter is very small, only about 25 people; we will probably have a ratio of 1:5 sisters to rushees.

I am most concerned about the logistical aspect of it, like bumping techniques, remembering names, etc, as well as how to firmly establish our identity to make ourselves known to the rest of campus. We are not very well known on campus because we have not done FR in a few years, so advice about PR campaigns to try on campus would be very beneficial to me as well.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Wow!, what an opportunity you have and what a challenge. I will try to give you a couple of suggestions.

IMHO, the ratio of 1:5 women to PNM is going to be your biggest challenge. This would be difficult even for a skilled recruiter to pull off. The first thing I would start to do right now is conversation work shops. You might want to have some conversation topics for each day of recruitment. If your President and Recruitment Chair (yourself) wont be tied up with PNM's- and I don't think you should be, you'll have to really be working the room. You might want to split up the Chapter so that your President takes half and you take the other half. Make it a point to go up to every group. It sounds like you might be in a rebuilding phase. If that is the case I would definitely talk about the opportunities PNM's will have to be involved, hold office ect. You will really need to "sell" the Chapter to the PNM's. All this can be done in a conversation workshop and you will probably need to do several. Then you need to practice. If you can arrange to work with another Chapter on campus that would be ideal. Work on picking up 5 people at the door and conversation. If you can get feed back from the group that would be ideal. Figure out what works and what doesn't.

Do the PNM's give you there cards with their group numbers, names and ID number? That is the easiest way to remember who you have talked to. If your first round is short you may not want to do any bumping. I don't think it is to unusual for a PNM to only meet one sister for first round only. Second and third round your groups may be a little smaller so it might get a little easier. Again, this is something you will need to practice to get right.

As far as getting your name out I would put ads in the University newspaper. They can be congratulatory things (graduation of members, other sororities and fraternities winning things ect) Wear your letters all day and every day.

I hope some of this helps you out.

I agree with AXOrushadvisor. The key is to get comfortable talking to five girls and getting a conversation flowing in that setting. As the week goes on that ratio will get better and allow you to have more natural conversations. You need to figure out how to involve multiple PNMs in a conversation without leaving anyone out.

Secondly, be prepared for heartache. It will happen. There will be women who will cut you JUST BECAUSE you have fewer members than the other chapters. Don't let this get you down. Have confidence in your chapter, in your sisters and in what you have to offer.

I will caution you in the "sell" the chapter arena. Be careful that you don't come off as pushy or desperate. It can be a fine line. Normal conversations are okay during recruitment, but every conversation can be turned at some point to how AEPhi has impacted you in some area. Try to make the sell natural and not forced.

Good luck!

Scream, holler and yell to get some help. There ought to be some kind of regional or district or even national/international recruitment expert in your sorority that can give you extra help. Plead and yell until you get it!
Until then, make sure you have up-to-date copies of all your sorority's recruitment handbooks, and read them thoroughly. You (or another officer) probably ought to also have a copy of the NPC Greek Book. You need to study it to understand all the various rules and agreements about how recruitment works.
Good luck to you!

Word, word, and double triple mcword. They're the ones who kept you out for this long, they need to hold your hands AND THEN SOME, not just throw you into the shark tank. (LOL at me typing too fast and it coming out "shart tank")

Call daily, HOURLY if necessary, to get someone to come there (not just over the phone or email) and show you what to do.

One piece of advice that has been given on here is DON'T try to talk to rushees one to one in the first rounds. Keep it in groups to make the difference in size a little less glaring. Also don't bring a chapter from another campus to help in rush, unless they are strictly going to be behind the scenes, helping decorate, hand out refreshments or at the very most briefly welcome the girls; rushees have said over and over again on GC that they sometimes went to chapters in this situation, and ended up talking to a girl not even from their campus for the whole time. They usually cut the group because of it.

I'm gonna go ahead and qualify this, a bit. If your chapter is looking at a 1:5 ratio, realistically, there are women who aren't going to give your group a chance. If you can identify them and hand them off to women from another chapter, it leaves your chapter members free to get to know the girls who are interested. Alternatively, you can just be sure you are bumping well enough that PNM's meet more women from your chapter than not.