Open Recruitment
 

Hey Everyone! I'm new to GreekChat and just thought I would ask for advice about my chapter's current position.

For as long as my chapter has been on campus at my school (which is 70+ years), we have never done informal recruitment. Giving open bids on my campus is kind of looked at as your sorority is in trouble, and is not perceived in a positive light in the greek community. Recently, we have fallen below campus total by about 8 members due to some membership eligibility issues with our older members that needed to be taken care of. The executive officers have talked to our advisors, and we really feel that we should give out open bids since recruitment numbers don't seem to be looking to go up any in the future and it would be a good chance to get quality girls that may not want to go through a big formal recruitment like we normally have in the fall. My question to you all is how we should get started. We have contacted our greek life cordinator, read our sorority manuals to see what guidelines nationally we have to follow, and met to try to get names of girls on our campus that possibley might be interested. What kinds of activities should we do with the Potential New Members? How should we present this idea to our chapter? We want to be as positive as we can to get the rest of our chapter excited about the possibility of new sisters! :D We have no idea what else we need to do, and neither do our alums because they never did informal recruitment either, so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

There are numerous ways to go about it. You can schedule structured events to invite the PNMs to if you want, similar to formal recruitment, but on a smaller scale. You can also just invite women to sisterhood events that are already scheduled. Some chapters prefer to do COR in small groups.. like 5 or 6 sisters go to dinner with 2 PNMs, or they go ice skating, or bowling, whatever types of things are popular to do on your campus. None of the events should include alcohol or men. You can try to get your members to each invite one woman to an event. You can offer incentives to members who bring someone along. You can issue wide invitations by chalking sidewalks, posting fliers or posting ads in the newspaper OR you can selectively invite women that other chapter members already know or who have given their names to the office of Greek Life. The thing about it is, pick things that fit your chapter. Have a committee meeting, talk about these ideas, and try to come to a concensus on how you want to go about it. Your own GLOs membership procedures should give you clues about how many women have to meet the PNMs and how many times you need to meet them. Have Fun! Wear your letters with pride and don't be ashamed that your chapter is doing this. Chances are, at some point, all the chapters will end up doing it. If you present the ideas to the chapter in an enthusiastic manner, that enthusiasm should be contagious!

Good Luck!

Dee

I would NOT do chalking or flyering, especially since you state that open bidding is not common on your campus. Even if it is, this isn't always the best method to find women who truly want YOUR sorority - it often attracts women who simply want A sorority. What you are after in this case are women who truly want to be with your sisters and share your ideals. Direct invitations to girls you already know from members are the best method in this case, and keep it low key.

I know on my campus all of the sororities participate in informal recruitment. Generaly we conduct it like Formal recruitment on a smaller scale. we have three nights where we get to know girls. The first night anyone can come, the second and third are invite only. I think it is good to have more than one event like this so that you really get to know the girls before you give bids. The first night is generaly a open house get to know greek life and the girls. The second night is less laid back where ou are trying impress each other. the third is like pref when organizations will take the nwe members to dinner some place nice or have the event catered. All the events are kept clasy. i think this is a system that might work well ofr you since your sorority doesn't have much informal experience. :)

I assume you are in a national sorority, and that your chapter advisor won't be a lot of help because you haven't had to have informal recruitment before now. Talk to someone at your national office, or maybe a regional advisor. They may have some ideas for you based on what has worked at other chapters.

I'd stay away from big advertising campaigns, since you say that doing informal recruitment is looked on as a sign that the sorority is in trouble. I would do something low-key. Approach unaffiliated women whom you already know, invite them over, and make sure they meet a lot of the sisters... then choose your new members.

Good luck!

Thanks!
 

Thank you all for responding and giving great advice! Yes, I am a member of a national sorority, and our chapter advisor is currently contacting our national headquarters.

That is exactly what I had in mind! I agree that the "big advertising" may not attract the type of girls that we are looking for and is not the way that we would want to about it. Thanks again for all your help!

There are always girls in your classes that are not in a sorority. Also sometimes a boyfriend's friend's girlfriend. I am sure you do not have many slots. Try to go about it slowly. Could you imagine inviting 25 girls to a COB event when there are only 5 slots. That would definitely leave a bad taste for sororities in those other girls. You also would want to have some level of choice. Try not to invite girls that the chapter would not like. We did this by having girls bring in names that they would consider inviting. The chapter then had a chance to discuss her and decide if she should even get an invite. Saves on some hurt feelings.

I use to be "open rush chair" in college
 

We just had small socials with personally invited girls who had shown interest in us in the past. And, yes the girls we invited were obviously interested in us so we showed an obvious interest in them.

We NEVER invited "just anyone" because of the chance that they werent eligable due to grades or finances or whatever. (before anyone gets upset i dont mean "just anyone" like a bad thing i mean like flyers where we don't know who is interested in being adpi and who is interested in a party)

Also, the pnms didn't know enough about greeks to think that we had open recruitment for any negative reason, like a poor formal recruitment (like greeks might think). They always just thought (and rightfully so) that we had some open slots and we chose them from all of the independents at school to invite to a social with a chance to give them a bid.

It was always a positive thing and the girls we gave a bid to in "open rush" were some of the strongest leaders in the sorority. Last years president was a COR girl.

Update!
 

Just thought I would update everyone on our current process:
We presented the idea to our chapter, and they all are extremely excited about the possibility of getting new sisters! We came up with names & are looking to start our recruiting process as soon as possible! This is going to be a wonderful opportunity for our chapter and I can't wait to see all the great girls that are interested!

If open recruitment is looked badly upon on your campus, no need for the big advertising and such. Do nice invitations to people you already KNOW who aren't affiliated and you think would be good fits for your group. We did that with our "wish list" of women that people met and didn't go through recruitment, and it worked well. Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

I agree with the no big advertising thing.

If you and some sisters are going to dinner, invite a pnm you are interested in. Have 5-6 members there, I know sometimes that's enough to hold a membership selection session..........with those 5 or 6 women speaking on this pnm's behalf. If you think about it, sometimes that's really all a pnm meets in formal recruitment, when you make your decisions that way. Anyway, good luck, if you are only 8 below total you shouldn't have too much trouble finding women who are interested. Great places to look: unafiliated roomates, friends from class (especially with the dawn of a new semester, lots of new faces), etc. '
GOOD LUCK!!! It seems my chapter was ALWAYS doing COR, and I was the Recruitment Vice President and on the recruitment committee when I wasn't RVP so I'm very familiar with the process if you have any other questions. :D

Yah!!! Update!
 

Just wanted to update yall and tell you that we extended 8 bids last night! Our open bids went wonderfully, and we now have 8 of the most awesome girls on campus as a part of our chapter! Everyone on campus has been nothing but supportive of us. One of the girls in a different sorority actually told me that she wishes that her chapter could give out open bids! So maybe we were able to help our campus perception on open bids be a more positive one!

Again, thanks for all the kind words of encouragement and advice! I really appreciate it!

If other chapters might like this and most of campus it at total, you could consider raising total to reflect this. One of the reccomendations for figuring total is "largest chapter size." This would let everyone but the largest chapter participate.

Also, the new NPC resolutions allow for more than one recruitment type per year. Our NPC area advisor suggested that we hold a spring informal recruitment to get the girls who are intimidated by the formal recuitment stucture, or those that just didn't know enough about Greek Life that early in the school year.

Just to think about...

congratulations
 

greeklove on your successful recruitment!!