Recommendation Caution to PNM's

[foreverinpink]

Thanks for clearing that up for me ladies! I know it's a bit early, but I want to start securing my recs for this fall!

[Meow190]

Hi there ladies (and gents perhaps). I have a bit of an oddball question. You may have heard it before, but I couldnt seem to find it listed in the search feature. I have established a meeting with a few of the lovely ladies from my local alumnae organization in the hopes of getting to know a bit more about their GLO and perhaps securing a rec. Is this the kind of meeting where it would be appropriate for me to treat them, or should we each expect to pay for our own coffee? If they offer to treat me, what should my response be? I'm not all that concerned about the cost, I just dont want to make things awkward for anyone.

Thanks so much for all of your lovely advice (both what I have already read, and in anticipation of what y'all will tell me about this one). It is truly inspiring to see how being in a sisterhood (again, or brotherhood) has continued to be a part of your lives in such a delightful way.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Meow190

Hi there ladies (and gents perhaps). I have a bit of an oddball question. You may have heard it before, but I couldnt seem to find it listed in the search feature. I have established a meeting with a few of the lovely ladies from my local alumnae organization in the hopes of getting to know a bit more about their GLO and perhaps securing a rec. Is this the kind of meeting where it would be appropriate for me to treat them, or should we each expect to pay for our own coffee? If they offer to treat me, what should my response be? I'm not all that concerned about the cost, I just dont want to make things awkward for anyone.

I would think that you should expect to each pay for your own.

However, if you really want to treat them, I suppose you could. I doubt they'd expect you to, because you're a student.

If they offer to treat, then I would accept (just being polite).

[Meow190]

Great. Thank so mych KSUViolet06. You seem to have all kinds of great info on all manner of topics. I hope that if I wind up in a GLO I can someday be as helpful to the PNMs as you have been.

Have a glorius day!

[33girl]

Definitely all pay for your own. You never know who's lurking or working there and who might try reporting it as dirty rushing. I think anyone who would do that is a jackass, but better safe than sorry. Some recruitments get crazy vicious with groups calling rush infractions on each other.

[Meow190]

Wow. That really is nuts. I cant imagine anyone doing that at my school. My school is pretty small, and our greek scene is even smaller. I'm not actually sure if I want the rec, at my campus it might be weird, but I happen to have good leads on about 2 thirds of the sororities, so I guess I might as well.

Anyone have any thoughts?

P.S. I searched for my school, and nothing on this came up

Thanks!

[KD4Me]

Originally Posted by Meow190

Wow. That really is nuts. I cant imagine anyone doing that at my school. My school is pretty small, and our greek scene is even smaller. I'm not actually sure if I want the rec, at my campus it might be weird, but I happen to have good leads on about 2 thirds of the sororities, so I guess I might as well.

Anyone have any thoughts?

P.S. I searched for my school, and nothing on this came up

Thanks!

DEFINITELY get the rec. It won't be weird, and better safe than sorry. As for the previous question, I concur that you should assume that you would pay for your own coffee, and not offer to pay for the alumna's. I wouldn't expect a younger, college woman to pay for mine, even if I were doing a favor for her by writing her a letter. I doubt most alumnae would offer to pay.

[lilms_edelweiss]

Do Alumni associations think it is "tacky" or "awkward" to contact them and ask to meet them? For example, I am considering emailing or calling alumni associations so that I could meet with them and hopefully obtain a rec, since I 'm having difficulty finding women I know that are in NPC sororities.

[lilms_edelweiss]

Sorry for not clarifying, I meant to ask if it was ok to contact a local alumnae chapter.

[Zillini]

I am not the one who normally picks up mail from the Post Office, but due to circumstances I did. Wanting to help our Rec Committee I sat and opened all the envelopes and sorted through them. Literally 4+ hours just opening envelopes for less then a week's worth of mail. That's Bama Recruitment for you.

Anyways, my personal tips for PNM resumes based off this:

- DO NOT PUT GLITTER ON YOUR RESUME OR IN THE ENVELOPE! (Did I emphasize that enough?) Yes this will "set you a part" from the crowd, but not in a good way. You have no idea how annoying it was to have to vacuum my couch and carpet because of these creative PNMs.

- Don't bother with putting ribbons or gluing jewels on your resume. For a Chapter that receives massive quantities of Recs, they usually get sorted, placed into things like page protectors and then into 3 ring binders. Those baubles take up a lot of space and make it difficult to flip the pages of your Rec and resume.

- Don't print your resume on vellum paper. It may look very pretty to start with, but it is not durable. Remember you want a lot of people looking at your resume and it needs to hold up. Even newly received resumes didn't look that great with creases when an alumna folded it to fit into a standard mailing envelope.

- If you are going to print your own photos that's fine, but please invest in some photo weight paper. It is not that expensive. Alumnae may fold their Recs, the Post Office may bend your envelope, etc. Photo weight paper holds up far better than regular printer paper. Again remember these need to withstand a lot of manipulation and viewing.

- Make sure your resume is easy to read. Don't print with barely visible light colored ink (light lavender, pink, and yellow are the worst). Don't use super dark paper (crimson red for Alabama seems to be somewhat popular). Don't choose a super swirly script font. Wow, I practically went blind trying to read some of these and finally gave up. It's not good if someone stops reading your resume because it hurts their eyes.

It boils down to this, it is far better to impress the Chapter with the content of your resume than funky creativity.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by Zillini

I am not the one who normally picks up mail from the Post Office, but due to circumstances I did. Wanting to help our Rec Committee I sat and opened all the envelopes and sorted through them. Literally 4+ hours just opening envelopes for less then a week's worth of mail. That's Bama Recruitment for you.

Anyways, my personal tips for PNM resumes based off this:

- DO NOT PUT GLITTER ON YOUR RESUME OR IN THE ENVELOPE! (Did I emphasize that enough?) Yes this will "set you a part" from the crowd, but not in a good way. You have no idea how annoying it was to have to vacuum my couch and carpet because of these creative PNMs.

- Don't bother with putting ribbons or gluing jewels on your resume. For a Chapter that receives massive quantities of Recs, they usually get sorted, placed into things like page protectors and then into 3 ring binders. Those baubles take up a lot of space and make it difficult to flip the pages of your Rec and resume.

- Don't print your resume on vellum paper. It may look very pretty to start with, but it is not durable. Remember you want a lot of people looking at your resume and it needs to hold up. Even newly received resumes didn't look that great with creases when an alumna folded it to fit into a standard mailing envelope.

- If you are going to print your own photos that's fine, but please invest in some photo weight paper. It is not that expensive. Alumnae may fold their Recs, the Post Office may bend your envelope, etc. Photo weight paper holds up far better than regular printer paper. Again remember these need to withstand a lot of manipulation and viewing.

- Make sure your resume is easy to read. Don't print with barely visible light colored ink (light lavender, pink, and yellow are the worst). Don't use super dark paper (crimson red for Alabama seems to be somewhat popular). Don't choose a super swirly script font. Wow, I practically went blind trying to read some of these and finally gave up. It's not good someone stops reading your resume because it hurts their eyes.

It boils down to this, it is far better to impress the Chapter with the content of your resume than funky creativity.

I would say avoid all of this for any correspondence that isn't for a teenage birthday party. Glitter is the herpes of the craft world, and I am that people are doing this for Bama, I assume they'd know better.

[KD4Me]

Originally Posted by lilms_edelweiss

Sorry for not clarifying, I meant to ask if it was ok to contact a local alumnae chapter.

Yes, it is ok to contact a local alumnae chapter for assistance in securing a recommendation. They should be more than willing to help out.

[lilms_edelweiss]

Thanks for your help!

[TexasDarling]

Originally Posted by Zillini

I am not the one who normally picks up mail from the Post Office, but due to circumstances I did. Wanting to help our Rec Committee I sat and opened all the envelopes and sorted through them. Literally 4+ hours just opening envelopes for less then a week's worth of mail. That's Bama Recruitment for you.

Anyways, my personal tips for PNM resumes based off this:

- DO NOT PUT GLITTER ON YOUR RESUME OR IN THE ENVELOPE! (Did I emphasize that enough?) Yes this will "set you a part" from the crowd, but not in a good way. You have no idea how annoying it was to have to vacuum my couch and carpet because of these creative PNMs.

- Don't bother with putting ribbons or gluing jewels on your resume. For a Chapter that receives massive quantities of Recs, they usually get sorted, placed into things like page protectors and then into 3 ring binders. Those baubles take up a lot of space and make it difficult to flip the pages of your Rec and resume.

- Don't print your resume on vellum paper. It may look very pretty to start with, but it is not durable. Remember you want a lot of people looking at your resume and it needs to hold up. Even newly received resumes didn't look that great with creases when an alumna folded it to fit into a standard mailing envelope.

- If you are going to print your own photos that's fine, but please invest in some photo weight paper. It is not that expensive. Alumnae may fold their Recs, the Post Office may bend your envelope, etc. Photo weight paper holds up far better than regular printer paper. Again remember these need to withstand a lot of manipulation and viewing.

- Make sure your resume is easy to read. Don't print with barely visible light colored ink (light lavender, pink, and yellow are the worst). Don't use super dark paper (crimson red for Alabama seems to be somewhat popular). Don't choose a super swirly script font. Wow, I practically went blind trying to read some of these and finally gave up. It's not good if someone stops reading your resume because it hurts their eyes.

It boils down to this, it is far better to impress the Chapter with the content of your resume than funky creativity.

I corresponded with my area panhellenic all by email. So the whole glitter thing was out of the question anyway...but I can't understand why anyone would do that?

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by TexasDarling

I corresponded with my area panhellenic all by email. So the whole glitter thing was out of the question anyway...but I can't understand why anyone would do that?

PNMs think it will get them noticed by the chapters. But it ends up looking silly and dumb (as Zillini noted).