"Recruitment" does sound pretty military... I still say "rush".
When I pledged my local, NPC was just starting to push the term "new member" - some sororities used "new member", others used "pledge". AEPhi was in the process of switching over to "new member" when I joined - so we were called "new members" but we had old "pledge" manuals. Whatever... I prefer "new member" to "pledge".
I also still say "rushee" in conversation. Here, I tend to use PNM because it's easier to type
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