How do you keep track of recruits during rush? Feedback needed for rush mgmt software

[daaaveg]

Hey guys,

I recently graduated from the University of Arizona and was involved in the greek system all 4 years. After participating in our chapter's rush every spring and fall my roommate and I realized how hard it was to keep track of the 1,000 or so kids that came through the house every rush season. Our sign in system was outdated (paper and pen) and our rush chairs were using excel to manually enter the kid's information into a computer. We realized how time consuming and inefficient the entire rush process was, so we are trying to fix it.

A few weeks ago my roommate and I began building a web based rush management application. It will allow chapters to track and manage recruits throughout the entire rush process through our website. Our goal is to make the application as simple and easy to use so that chapters can streamline their rush operations. This is where you guys come in. We have the bare bones of the website built so far (create events, sign in sheets, upload pictures of recruits, a few other things). We would like you guys to help us by letting us know what other features you would like to see built that you think would be helpful to you. Any feedback would be awesome!

A few questions we have:

-What information do you require from the potential recruits when they arrive? (for example, my chapter required their name, hometown, state, GPA, phone number, email, whether or not they are a legacy, hobbies, and a favorite quote)

-what bid statuses does your chapter have? (for example, throughout rush my chapter gave recruits a status of none, callback, invite night, pref dinner, and bid)

-what is your primary way of contacting the recruits? (email, calling them, or something else)

-please provide any other features you think would be helpful for you to manage your chapter's rush process

We hope to have a first version up and running in the next couple weeks so that we can do some testing during this upcoming rush season. If any of you guys are interested in becoming private beta testers to help us with the design and flow of the site before we launch it publicly, please let me know by PM'ing me.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Dave

[Psi U MC Vito]

Originally Posted by daaaveg

Hey guys,

I recently graduated from the University of Arizona and was involved in the greek system all 4 years. After participating in our chapter's rush every spring and fall my roommate and I realized how hard it was to keep track of the 1,000 or so kids that came through the house every rush season. Our sign in system was outdated (paper and pen) and our rush chairs were using excel to manually enter the kid's information into a computer. We realized how time consuming and inefficient the entire rush process was, so we are trying to fix it.

A few weeks ago my roommate and I began building a web based rush management application. It will allow chapters to track and manage recruits throughout the entire rush process through our website. Our goal is to make the application as simple and easy to use so that chapters can streamline their rush operations. This is where you guys come in. We have the bare bones of the website built so far (create events, sign in sheets, upload pictures of recruits, a few other things). We would like you guys to help us by letting us know what other features you would like to see built that you think would be helpful to you. Any feedback would be awesome!

A few questions we have:

-What information do you require from the potential recruits when they arrive? (for example, my chapter required their name, hometown, state, GPA, phone number, email, whether or not they are a legacy, hobbies, and a favorite quote)

-what bid statuses does your chapter have? (for example, throughout rush my chapter gave recruits a status of none, callback, invite night, pref dinner, and bid)

-what is your primary way of contacting the recruits? (email, calling them, or something else)

-please provide any other features you think would be helpful for you to manage your chapter's rush process

We hope to have a first version up and running in the next couple weeks so that we can do some testing during this upcoming rush season. If any of you guys are interested in becoming private beta testers to help us with the design and flow of the site before we launch it publicly, please let me know by PM'ing me.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Dave

Um how exactly would this make things more efficient?

[Kansas City]

Um ... several organizations already provide specific software for their chapters to use. What you intend to create doesn't sound like anything new. I also question how you can streamline a process that will vary from organization to organization and sometimes from chapter to chapter. Good luck with that.

[excelblue]

I'm actually also developing a similar webapp for the same purpose!

Thing is, purpose-built tools are always more efficient than general tools, given that they're done right. For example, I'm pretty sure several orgs have spreadsheets keeping track of this info, but it's somewhat inefficient.

What's most important is not what the app does but how it does it. For example, one of the main issues my chapter identified was proper followup. Some mediocre PNM might be called by two different brothers at the same time, while a great PNM we all want might fall thru the cracks and get no contact for more than a week.

To address that, the most important feature in my app is making it easy to figure out exactly who did what and is going to do what with each PNM. There is info about each event they attended, how they acted at that event, as well as any scheduled events. By the end of recruitment, they will probably have a two-page long profile.

In a spreadsheet, it's very awkward to store this info and then to sort it based on importance. Same applies to good ol' paper/pencil methods. Hence, the custom app.

[daaaveg]

Originally Posted by Kansas City

I also question how you can streamline a process that will vary from organization to organization and sometimes from chapter to chapter.

This is why i'm asking you guys for some feedback. we're making the app general enough so that the common stuff will apply to a large number of chapters, but we're going to offer a way for each chapter to customize it enough to fit their rush process. This is why I was asking what information you require from your potential new guys so that we can figure out what to include in the common features.

[EE-BO]

I would suggest keeping the information collected very simple- name and contact information, plus any purely objective information that is important for your chapter when recruiting.

One example of purely objective information would be, perhaps, the high school GPA. Or maybe involvement in sports.

As you surely know being freshly graduated, rush is a highly subjective process. I can see where it would be helpful to have some kind of electronic gathering of information to keep track of all rushees, but the more info you load into the system- the more work you create and the more you risk making rush decisions based on a few fields in an Excel file when the real art of rush rests in human contact.

This last point is very important I think. Both in my undergraduate days and as an advisor, I found that one of the worst things that can happen to a chapter is when the actives don't bother with rush and leave it to the rush captains to make all the decisions and do all the leg work.

Software programs can be very useful to a point, but they could also push a chapter further down the road toward lazy recruiting.

In my professional life I have encountered many people who looked great on paper- solid degree, all the right credentials- but turned out to be totally useless.

The opposite holds true as well. Some of the best guys in my fraternity were marginal on grades- and many of them have successful careers now.

Anyhow- hope this helps. I think you have a good idea if you restrict the use of it to a tracking tool only in the early stages of rush, but just be careful how much it is relied upon when decisions are made.

PS- a practical manual alternative might be to have the rushees fill out basic cards with name and contact info, and then at the end of the first night after the actives get together to talk- toss out the cards of those who do not make the first cut. I do not know how it works at Arizona, but at Georgia and Texas (where I spent undergrad time)- the first cut eliminates a LOT of people. The former in formal rush, and the latter in a more informal sense. Off the top of my head, I would speculate that after a first meeting we did not want to pursue things further with about 80-85% of the guys we met.

[33girl]

[QUOTE=EE-BO;1971387]

Dude, where the heck have you been?

[EE-BO]

Heya- all over the place. Actually taking the night off before hitting the road tomorrow. Thought I would check in here since it is recruitment season. How you been? Hope all is well.

[Elephant Walk]

We use an excel file, but that's only for rushing people, not for rush.

Once rush comes along it's 90% human element.

[lucgreek]

If fraternity rush was universally-structured like sorority recruitment is, then this would be a great tool. Going to my national convention, schools have so many different rush structures for fraternities, there is no way you could come up with a universally used tool.

[daaaveg]

I'm not trying to create a tool that will structure the rush. one thing common to every school's rush is that they need to track recruit's information, and they need to track the attendance of each event. The chapter will essentially be able to use the website to create rush events. Through the rush event's attendance sheet the recruits can either sign up if it's their first time attending or they can check in if they're returning.

[thetalady]

Originally Posted by superfan99

Use RushTap. It really helped out my frat.

Superfan99... we suggest checking the DATES on the threads that you are resurrecting. Both of the threads you have commented on are almost 2 years old. Trust me, they have moved on.

[superfan99]

Originally Posted by thetalady

Superfan99... we suggest checking the DATES on the threads that you are resurrecting. Both of the threads you have commented on are almost 2 years old. Trust me, they have moved on.

Just seeing what people use, good to know as Summer and Rush get going...

[jazing]

If you have to ask on GC for rush help you aren't doing it right. By this point in the Summer you should have a solid list if 50+ guys you want to rush.

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by superfan99

Just seeing what people use, good to know as Summer and Rush get going...

Perhaps start your own thread? As to your question, at this point, why not just use Excel?