Recruitment Applications and Screening

[Esis]

I've run enough guilds and I think I spend more time interviewing people than I do playing the game. I'd have amazing results with my recruitments--but I spend a sick amount of time on each person.

I'd say if you can, keep the online profile requirements to a minimum and keep it only to pertinent information. Forums however are a must. Like everyone else, I've noticed a huge reluctance to do anything forum related. I think when someone resists forum participation it may be because the person is just not INTO the game that much, or willing to make a commitment (just want to log in, play an hour and leave etc.) or they're ADD kiddies who are rebelling against nothing and don't want you telling them what to do.

Recruitment is a fickle thing--even an amazing guild has to recruit when a game starts. Once it is decent though, passive recruitment should kick in, and active recruitment should lessen.

I think though, most importantly for a guild it needs to maintain integrity--and integrity is the meta principle that steers the guild towards its identity. If you cannot define your guild, or your guild does not have clear principles that people respect or relate with, you're not going to have consistent member type applications.

I digress! I could go on forever about this.

Alrighty---I've descended to the lowest levels of my coffee cup, once again, Esis has conquered it's murky depths.

[Meynolt]

Originally Posted by Tarinth

I've also noticed that most people prefer to taste-test lots of guilds/clans before committing to one. It's my observation that this has become more the norm over the last 1-2 years. For people joining and leaving multiple guilds per day, filling out applications is probably perceived as a big hurdle.

In a sense you can't blame people for trying different guilds. After all they are subscribing to a game for thier personal enjoyment. I agree it is annoying, but just like we (as guild leaders) reserve the right to decline applicants, the perspective member reserves the right to decline the guild. Anyhow, just my two cents and my way of keeping things in perspective.

When I ran a guild in SWG we had a very short application to cut down the "out of game" work load. Myself and the guild officer's decided to implement a one month probationary period where the applicant had to prove to the guild as a whole that they deserved to be there. This included posting in our forums, attending scheduled events, and of course getting to know the Guild on the chat channels. At the end of about three weeks I would place a guild Member's only poll up on the website. it would ask if "john Doe" is of Guild Material? Then three simple options. Yes...No...Abstain. To this day I have guild members that still say that one week long poll was thier longest week ever in SWG. It worked well. We weeded out those we didn't want, it empowered our veteran members, and it gave the applicant a sense of accomplishment.