Values Based Recruitment

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[violetpretty]

Based on some of your terminology, I am assuming you read I Heart Recruitment.

The whole premise of the book is increasing the size of your pool of potential members by getting out there and meeting women. Obviously, grades aren't the only factor in how your chapter would select members. The thinking is that because you have a large pool of potential members from which to choose, you can find women who are a good personality match (and other factors your chapter is looking for) AND good grades, so that you don't have to choose between personality and grades. Quantity drives quality, right?

I would suggest that at first, don't present it to the chapter as a whole. I'm sure it wasn't everyone saying no, I bet there were a few girls that were all for almost everything you said. Get those girls together and start talking and make a plan. Where should that plan come from? I Hear Recruitment (as mentioned above) by Colleen Coffey and Jessica Gendron from Phired Up Productions. It's exactly what you are looking for.

I'm in D Phi E too, so if you want, send me a PM with your e-mail and I can send you some of the stuff for Values Based Recruitment my sorority uses to give you some more ideas. And maybe if you say to members that aren't cooperating as much that "hey, this stuff came from a successful chapter (who just wont most improved recruitment at convention) and it's working great for them, lets adapt it for us" they might be more willing to try it out.

[AOII Angel]

I think you should contact DPhiE headquarters or your chapter's HQ representative and ask these questions. Are you sure that you don't have national guidelines that deal specifically with these issues? Maybe you should make gradual changes....a lot of people become defensive when standards are raised so quickly that they would have been eliminated if held to those standards. Increase your GPA for sophomores first. Then increase for freshmen a tiny bit. Then raise it a tiny bit more. After about five years, your grade risks will be out of the chapter and you can put in whatever standard you want. This, of course, depends on having a dedicated alumnae adviser that can keep the issue at the forefront over this period of time.

[gphiangel624]

VioletPretty makes good points - academics is not the only thing you should be looking for. I'm a huge fan of the principles from I Heart Recruitment and PhiredUp Productions in general. The idea of Values-based selection criteria means looking at ALL chapter values; so a woman with average grades may be excellent in every other way. She needs to meet a certain number of those standards to be a member.

If I were in your shoes, my challenge to the current membership would be to ask why they aren't holding themselves to a higher standard now, because there is nothing wrong with holding potential members to a higher standard (one that is attainable, of course) when recruiting 24/7/365.

All else said, drastic change such as this will take time. If your formal recruitment is 3 weeks away, I don't think you're going to see much success implementing new criteria for this round. Maybe continue the conversation, ask your members to test it for a semester (or quarter) and maybe next year they'll be more interested in trying it out.

[ASTalumna06]

Another option... values-based new member programs. Teaching your members about values, education, service and tradition almost immediately after they accept a bid should be your priority.

Think about it. What did you learn in your new member program that actually helped you to become a better sister? Instead of simply teaching new members "the basics" of your organization, delve into what makes you a sorority.

Meet with the new members after their first meeting and have them analyze their current academic situation. Have them create goals for themselves (i.e. earning A's and B's for the semester), and check up with them weekly to see how they're progressing. Offer incentives for completing goals.

Have them organize a philanthropy event together that all of the sisters must attend.

Don't only teach them things like the names of your founders, but explain to them what the founders intended to create and the symbols that they used to relay their ideas.

Constantly remind the new members of your purpose. For AST, it is to promote the ethical, cultural and social development of it's members. Focus on aspects of the sorority that teach your values. For us, we could plan 3 different nights during their program that had to deal with each of these characteristics of the sorority.

Use what YOU know about the sorority (through knowledge and experience), and teach it to your new members first. If they're taught from the very beginning to embrace these ideals, they'll be more likely to then transfer these requirements and considerations over into recruitment.

It may be a longer process than you would have liked, but it will be worth it in the end.

[Zillini]

Originally Posted by keystone 209

As the Vice Pres of Recruitment for my chapter, I'm working really hard to lead my chapter from the static-twice-per-year recruitment to a year round values-based one. Problem is, they don't seem to be taking it very well. We had our sisterhood retreat this weekend, and I did a 3 hour workshop with them (attempting) to show my sisters why we need to change things now and leave a lasting system to best ensure quality sisters, even after we're gone.

They agreed with lots of things I said, but a key component- creating a set of values-based membership criteria- they all disagreed with. All I heard was stuff like "But I know personally my grades weren't the best before joining, being in D Phi E has made them so much better! How do we know that won't happen to another girl" (when talking about raising the academic criteria higher than the one set by Panhel) or "We can't just cut a girl based on some things we come up with today before we even meet her" or "We just have to take a risk, the older sisters took a risk on us and we turned out well." I tried my best to explain to them how leaving it to chance is one of the best ways to drive the chapter into the ground, but they wouldn't listen.

It was so frustrating! They would not see my point, the fact that we're taking that risk on our chapter's future could completely backfire, and that without a systematic way of reviewing PNMs, we're leaving it up to whatever people can come up with. We're full of very diverse, type-a personalities (myself included) so once a disagreement like that gets started, its hard to pull anything back. I was at really starting to get worked up about it so I dropped it for the time, but I know I need to bring it up again at our first meeting next week, recruitment is only 3 weeks away. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to approach this in a different manner? Or things I could bring up to show my sisters that "taking a risk" is one of the worst things we could do?

Maybe I'm reading more into your post than you intended or meant. It sounded like you were telling the members what standards they should look for in PNMs. Instead I would suggest going about it in a different way and put the ball in their court so to speak.

Ask your members what qualities they feel make a good member? A good sister? A good friend? What are your goals for the entire organization? To increase membership numbers? Scholarship? Strengthen sisterhood? Etc.

Get a big poster board or sheet of paper and make a list. Keep it posted in your chapter room (or equivalent) to look at, be reminded of and if necessary revise as needed. These will then become the standards that you all look and strive to achieve. If everyone realizes that the whole chapter is working towards certain goals they will hopefully support it.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by keystone 209

I wasn't telling them WHAT to used as benchmarks. That was the purpose of previous workshops in the day, finding out together as a chapter the type of values we're looking for in both ourselves, the chapter, and PNMs. They sounded supportive and liked the idea of it until we actually had to create criteria and tangible representations of those values.

Well, that's because rush is full of intangibles.

You can say that (example) you want to improve the overall GPA of the chapter and not take anyone who has under a 3.25 - but what if a woman comes in who is pretty, nice, well known on campus and everyone loves her - but she has a 2.7? Are you going to ax her because she doesn't fit the GPA part? That would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

And of course, there's the chance you will take the girl with the awesome GPA, she'll meet a guy at the first mixer she goes to, start spending all her time with him and flunk out.

I Heart Recruitment and things like that are great, but if you take them too literally, you're missing the point. It's to make you more aware that rush is not just twice a year but all year round.

I also caution you against getting out of formal rush totally (not sure if you are planning on this, I couldn't tell). You need both kinds of recruitment to succeed.

Oh, and for God's sake, teach them the names of the founders. The amount of people who don't know their GLO's history is appalling.

[Senusret I]

Jewel Big Brother Henry Arthur Callis
Jewel Big Brother Charles Henry Chapman
Jewel Big Brother Eugene Kinckle Jones
Jewel Big Brother George Biddle Kelley
Jewel Big Brother Nathaniel Allison Murray
Jewel Big Brother Robert Harold Ogle
Jewel Big Brother Vertner Woodson Tandy

I STILL GOT IT!

Anyway, I am intrigued by this idea of values based recruitment and (knowing membership selection is woo hoo big deal secret) I would have assumed that there was already some sort of objective/subjective score sheet one might use in voting.

Then again, I'm sure such a values-based scorecard wouldn't work in huge chapters.

Or would it? I don't know, these are questions.

[Kansas City]

Originally Posted by keystone 209

That's pretty much their argument, but at least personally, I don't see a big deal in creating a set of criteria and then taking the girls on a case by case basis...i mean for example, if she fits everything else but has a relatively low GPA, we can make it a point in the next round/next time we see her to find out her attitude towards academics and school. Or a girl who hasn't had the opportunity to involved yet on campus but we can gauge her potential by finding out what she would like to do, had the opportunity arose. Make sense? I know these sound like things my girls should do anyway, but we aren't the best at rushing...lots of my sisters freak out and just babble on about whatever, despite the hours we spent practicing and going over what we need to find out.

Excuse me for asking but, what is the point of establishing a set of criteria if you are going to take everyone on a case-by-case basis?

[ASTalumna06]

I think that the formal recruitment process works well, and from what I can tell, it is very effective at bringing in large numbers of diverse groups of new members. I can't delve into great details concerning the positives and negatives of this recruitment process because my chapter only does COB, but the only issue I can see with it is that it's such a short period of time to try and get to know, in some cases, literally thousands of girls.

Having values-based recruitment can be done in such a setting, but as I've said, it will be a slow process.

If you plan to actually put this in motion, a good strategy may be to gather research on your own. Create surveys for your members, other chapter members on campus, and non-Greek students, as well. Ask what kind of members they would look for to join their organization. Have them rank in order of importance the things they would require of someone wanting to join their organization, such as high GPA, good personality, community service work, leadership skills, organization skills, etc. Present this to your group in order for them to see the general concensus of students on your campus.

Have each of your members write down 3 goals for the chapter. Examples: attain the highest Greek GPA, become intramural volleyball champs, collect x amount of dollars for your national philanthropy, etc. Collect them, review them, and present them to the group at a later date. List them in order of importance, depending on how many girls mentioned each one. Let's say that the most frequently mentioned goal is that the chapter wants to have the highest Greek GPA on campus. Start here. Ask what you can do to ensure that the girls joining are meeting your academic expectations. Should you raise the GPA requirement? Should you more closely analyze what kinds of advanced classes or honor societies your potential new members were in. When deciding to vote on membership (however you choose to do it), have each sister analyze the potential that they see for prospective new members who may not be helping you to reach this goal, to raise their grades. This can slowly start to form your values-based recruitment process.

As for a values-based "scorecard"... I guess it depends on the chapter and what exactly was included on it. But if a chapter chose to analyze potential new members with such a system, I would probably suggest using it as a guide, rather than an aggressive method of cutting girls.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by keystone 209

because right now we have no criteria whatsover. its whatever- "oh i talked to her and she was really cool. i liked her." <--- is about all the benchmarks we're using at the moment, and its a pretty flawed system. actually a pretty flawed lack-of-system

umm, I'm guessing that you need to contact your national recruitment chair ASAP. I'm guessing that you have a system in place on a national basis that requires more specifics than this and would clear up a LOT of the problem.

[Kansas City]

Originally Posted by keystone 209

because right now we have no criteria whatsover. its whatever- "oh i talked to her and she was really cool. i liked her." <--- is about all the benchmarks we're using at the moment, and its a pretty flawed system. actually a pretty flawed lack-of-system

I guess my point is that if you create goals (ex: we want to win volleyball intramurals) and set criteria to meet these goals (ex: PNMs must have volleyball experience) but then ignore these criteria on a case-by-case basis during recruitment (ex: the PNM is 6'4" and likes to watch volleyball) are you really ever going to be able to obtain the goal you are setting for your chapter or are you just going to make excuses for each PNM that comes through the door?

[Kansas City]

I advise a chapter at a smaller state school where Greek recruitment is pretty non-competitive too. I understand and admire what you are trying to do for your chapter I just wonder (being so non-competitive) if it is a good idea to create strict criteria to which the chapter will later have to make excuses for. Alternatively, I would work with your HQ on getting your chapter to be better recruiters and ask deeper questions that can have a positive impact on the future of your chapter. Instead of your recruiters saying "I like her, we had a cool conversation", get them to say "I like her, we had a cool conversation about church fundraising. She could be a real asset to XYZs philanthropy." Maybe it is a change in the way you conduct your selection sessions. Perhaps you only allow specifics to be discussed instead of vague generalities or someone's "coolness". Either way, I commend you for speaking with HQ and anticipate that they will be able to give you more concrete answers to your question.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Kansas City

I advise a chapter at a smaller state school where Greek recruitment is pretty non-competitive too. I understand and admire what you are trying to do for your chapter I just wonder (being so non-competitive) if it is a good idea to create strict criteria to which the chapter will later have to make excuses for. Alternatively, I would work with your HQ on getting your chapter to be better recruiters and ask deeper questions that can have a positive impact on the future of your chapter. Instead of your recruiters saying "I like her, we had a cool conversation", get them to say "I like her, we had a cool conversation about church fundraising. She could be a real asset to XYZs philanthropy." Maybe it is a change in the way you conduct your selection sessions. Perhaps you only allow specifics to be discussed instead of vague generalities or someone's "coolness". Either way, I commend you for speaking with HQ and anticipate that they will be able to give you more concrete answers to your question.

This is what I was trying to say but better than I could say it.

The fact of the matter is, this isn't an SEC rush and you don't have tons upon tons - more than you could ever handle - of amazing rushees coming through the door. I'm not saying there are not great women there, but they aren't automatically drawn to rush the way they are in the South.

If you know someone who IS amazing but just hasn't rushed, that's when all the getting to know you outside of rush tactics come in.