Tips for getting elected recruitment chair for a weak recruiting chapter?
 

Hi everyone! I came here looking for advice because I really really want to be elected recruitment chair of my chapter this fall. Here's some background:

-My sorority is the smallest on campus and we are weak during spring formal recruitment
-Overall pretty strong sisterhood but we have a reputation as being "weird" and "accepting everyone"
-I am currently social chair on Panhellenic and on recruitment committee, so I have leadership experience

Does anyone have any tips for how to get elected recruitment chair? I really want my chapter to know that they can trust me. I have a bunch of ideas that I think can change our outcome and I think I can change our chapter's reputation for the better but I obviously have to win their vote (I'm not saying there is anything that would cause me NOT to though!) I love my sisters so so much but it bothers everyone that we don't do well during recruitment. The girls we got this past spring are AWESOME but we lost so many of the ones we wanted to a newer chapter that doesn't have a reputation yet. In the spring of 2014 before I joined (I joined fall 2014 informally), our chapter got almost 40 girls and was barely under quota. This year we only got 25 I think, and at least 6 came from informal recruiting AFTER formal was over.

Any advice would be appreciated! Even if it's not about getting elected, but actually helping my chapter's rep! Thanks :)

In your opinion (and don't necessarily answer it here, just think about it) why is recruitment such a struggle for your chapter? If you can identify one or two reasons, then what would you do as recruitment chair to change those things for the better? Those are the types of things I would want to know at elections. I would more likely to vote for the sister who had put the most time and thought into planning and executing an improved recruitment.

Thanks for your answer! I think recruitment is a struggle for us because we don't have as strong of a presence on campus (maybe because we're smaller, but we definitely can improve) and we aren't selective. For campus presence, I think social media is a huge huge deal, and that's an easy fix. I also think wearing letters often is important (our publicity chair is encouraging wearing letters on Wednesdays next semester) and getting involved in general. We have a lot of representation on Panhellenic council so that's good, but I think doing better during Greek week and participating in others' philanthropies could really help us out. I don't know if I can change our selectivity or not because I don't know how it really works, but our advisors make us invite back EVERYONE with a high enough GPA for the first two days of recruitment. Girls get invited back even if no one liked them, and I really think that makes us look desperate. I don't know if I would have the power to change that or not. I also think other chapters bash us a bit because our newest pledge class told us they did (outside of recruitment, not during). We can't really say that's the reason though because EVERY chapter gets bashed at least a little. We may also lack good conversation during recruitment- a lot of girls are GREAT at talking but there are a select few who, even though they were told not to, complained to PNMs about conversations being awkward and days being long. I'm not going to blame my chapter but I might mention improving workshops to help conversation skills. (this is what I could remember off the top of my head)

Tell your advisors that their "invite everyone back" strategy is hurting rather than helping -if they don't believe you, show them greeek rank and other sites where people talk about such things. Advisors who think this strategy works are oftentimes from chapters that never had to worry about it and were super selective. If they won't listen to you, go over their heads to whoever is next highest up in the chain of command. Be sure to back up your complaints with facts (since they started making you invite everyone, your return rates have dropped 25%, etc.).

You also might want to pass a bylaw (for now you can strongly suggest) that every sister must be involved in one campus activity outside of the sorority. No, jobs don't count. No woman wants to join a chapter whose members do sorority and nothing else - it contributes to the "snobby" stereotype.

Honestly, I think the "inviting everyone back" reputation can and does persist in environments when a chapter IS NOT inviting everyone back. Look at the Indiana system where the "weakest" chapters are cutting lots and lots of women - and they still get that kind of reputation. You probably won't get very far trying to change the invitation system, and I would recommend putting your efforts elsewhere.

Your advisor is following the RFM (Release Figures Methodology) numbers that are given to all the chapters on your campus. There is pressure for every NPC organization to follow the RFM guidelines for each campus, because there can be penalties (less leeway, fewer quota additions, etc.) for NOT following the guidelines. There was an extensive discussion about it in this recent thread:
Dealing with mean PNMs


Here are other great threads on the topic:
The Best Strategy for a "Weak Recruiting" Chapter

Low-tier recruiting strategy


Do you know what DOES help with allowing you to release more women? Recruiting better. I have been the recruitment advisor with chapters that suddenly had significantly higher return rates than previous years', and thanks to RFM, there's a "flex list" that automatically releases extra women when you have a higher return rate. I've even gotten frantic early-morning calls to add more women to the flex list because we were able to release even more women.

Ok, end of RFM rant.

To your question about getting elected:
Do you research and your homework. Have a great plan as to what you'd do to improve recruitment. In my experience, most women don't really campaign for positions during sorority elections - but if you want the job - show the women that you have a plan and strategy.

Talk to the current recruitment chair and recruitment advisor. Let them know that you're interested in the job and that you'd like to learn more about what they think you should know about the job, what they're experience has been, what they would like you to do this year. It can really help get the buzz going for you if the previous recruitment chair is publicly backing you.

To be successful in your job:
I notice that most of your suggestions are PR-related. That is all probably going to be the job of the PR chair, so recognize that you're not going to be in charge of a lot of that. It can be a good cooperation with your PR chair, but it's a little tangential to your main job.

Your focus: CONVERSATION!!! I say this in almost every thread that pops up on this topic: the number one issue for most weak-recruiting chapters is CONVERSATION. To quote what I said in another thread:

In my personal experience, the #1 problem that weak-recruiting chapters have is that members aren't very good conversationalists. If you look through the recruitment stories on this site, it's an extremely common pattern: PNMs complain of awkward conversations at their least-favorite chapters. And it's a cycle: strong chapters tend to recruit the star conversationalists, weaker chapters tend to recruit the women who don't shine during formal recruitment and cocktail conversations.

Check out a couple of books:
I Heart Recruitment
How to Win Friends and Influence People


I bet that most people in your chapter don't have a very accurate picture of who your best recruitment conversationalists are. This happened in my chapter, too. We assumed that the most outgoing/well liked people in the chapter were the best at recruitment conversation, and this is not always the case. Look at having alumnae and/or advisors come in an do assessments (mock conversations) with each woman to figure out who's good, who needs work, and what people need help on.

Work on studying your PNMs ahead of time - KNOW them. Know how to pair them to your sisters based on shared interests in the first rounds, and then on personality in the later rounds.

If you're not pairing your PNMs to your sisters, figure out how to do that.

Did I mention work on conversation? Ya - do that. Also make sure that your sisters can talk easily about any aspect of your sorority and know what activities other sisters are involved in.

Read through the recruitment stories on here - you'll easily see what kinds of things are consistently influential to PNMs (hint: decor is rarely a factor, so keep it elegant and simple if you can).

Good luck!

Would it be a bad idea to mention possibly changing this when I'm trying to get elected? I don't want to make any empty promises, but if this is something that actually could happen I would like to do it.

As far as requiring people to be in more activities, I think that is already a requirement in our chapter! I don't know of anyone that is NOT in another activity.

Wow thank you for such a thorough response! You have some really great tips. I never thought about the fact that social media wouldn't even be my job. Our PR chair literally just started and I think she'll do great things- we have elections in the fall but our PR chair dropped and she was elected with only two chapter meetings left in the year.

I will definitely focus more on conversation. I'm worried though because girls at our workshops often get really annoyed about recruitment conversation- the ones who have done recruitment before seem to feel like the information is redundant and some people just complained about how much they hate recruitment. Any advice to change this attitude? I think our past recruitment co-chairs did a great job yet some girls still had a bad stigma attached to the whole process.

Your sisters may be thinking of recruitment conversations as interviews where they ask and answer questions. Instead, they should think of themselves as the ultimate hostess whose job is to make each pnm feel like she is understood and welcomed as an individual. Thinking like that will help them go beyond the boring routine questions about major, hometown, etc (which turn off the pnms, too) and launch into each pnm's unique passion. A good conversationalist doesn't need to share that passion; she just needs to have a genuine interest and be able to draw her conversation partner out more.

So if the pnm mentions that she just got back from New Zealand last week, the sister would follow with "Seriously, you spent the summer in New Zealand? OMG, I'm so envious! I've always wanted to travel more and New Zealand is definitely on my list. How long were you there? What experience left the strong impression on you while you were there?" From there you can branch out naturally into other travel related topics, following the pnm's lead. If she has a great sense of humor, you may wind up swapping stories about the worst people to be seated next to on a long flight. If she seems more philanthropy focused, your conversation may veer into mission work opportunities abroad. The point is to let it flow naturally and steer it toward topics that allow the pnm to expand on her passions. That's the kind of conversation that makes the pnm feel special, like she made one of those mythical "connections".

Great conversationalist don't do the majority of the talking. They gently steer the conversation and pay close attention to their partner's verbal and nonverbal clues, but the other person unconsciously winds up doing most of the talking. That's the skill you should strengthen in your chapter. The "hostess" has to be totally engaged in the moment, not thinking about how hot the room is or wondering when she'll be bumped or why her boyfriend didn't call last night. For people who are naturally engaged in the moment, this type of conversation comes easily. But the rest of us can be taught this level of focus.

I really like the hostess analogy! Our current recruitment chairs received survey results and one of our negative aspects that was mentioned (I don't know how frequently, but nevertheless it was said) was that we talk about ourselves too much. I think girls do that when they get nervous and when they can't come up with more generic questions like major and hometown they freak out. Really though, shouldn't we focus more on expanding more on each question? Ex:

"So what's your major?"
"Psychology."
"Oh that's really awesome I have so many friends who are psych majors! Why'd you choose it?"

Or is it better just to get those questions out of the way asap and move on?

I want to caution you that you may have to handle this gently if the newest class hasn't been through recruitment on the chapter side yet. If you say, "we had to invite back everyone" and they didn't know that, they may feel bad. That's not to say the topic is verboten, just that it possibly has to be handled with care and you should think in advance about who has what information and who might be surprised by this.

Very very good point. Should I just mention how I want to help narrow down what types of girls we are and aren't looking for?

I think a more positive way to do that would be to suggest set recruiting goals - 3-5 qualities that you want in your next NM class ( GPA, talent - artistic, dance, sing,etc). Then when you are selecting the women to invite back you measure them against these goals.

We did this this past year and it worked out okay but could be improved- we use a program called selectasis during formal and you rank based on five qualities including GPA (which the advisor ONLY voted on, so really 4 qualities), and we voted on descriptions for a solid hour at a recruitment workshop. I think doing this outside the workshop would be better!

One of the best things you can do this far out from an election is to start leading by example. If you see social media as something that could improve your chapter, even if it will fall to a PR chair, start making your own accounts models of positive PR. Be the woman who gets jazzed for other philanthropies and encourages her sisters to show up in mass. Take the time to look polished every time you wear your letters or chapter apparel. Basically just be the best XYZ you can be and let your actions showcase the love you have for your organization. That kind of enthusiasm is important not only for a recruitment chair, but for any exec member!

Thanks for your response :) I will start making more of an effort when I wear letters- I don't think I ever look like a complete slob going to class but I usually wear my letters with my hair up and leggings. Even if I wear them with Nike shorts like other chapters on my campus, I could make sure that my hair and makeup look pristine.

What do you mean by account models?