August and September have brought lots of conversations to the forefront on recruitment overall. Lots of decisions needed to be made, specifically by College Panhellenics, on how they wanted to originally manage their recruitment processes - whether it was formal or informal. Most made the decision to go virtual with their recruitment method, if not a hybrid method. As an advisor for a chapter who had a fully virtual recruitment experience, including Bid Day, let me share some of my thoughts/experiences with you…
First, going virtual is HARD!!! Preparing women for this type of experience is a totally new ballgame, but not necessarily in a bad way. There’s lots of information out there now about how to manage a virtual recruitment, but we were essentially on our own as one of the first campuses to host a fully virtual recruitment experience. I do have to say it was very interesting to be behind the scenes of everything going on in our Zoom room - from screen sharing, to videos, to breakout rooms, etc. There’s a lot to learn and it didn’t happen overnight! Honestly studying the Zoom settings to figure things out in advance of recruitment was probably the best method of learning how everything worked. That also took a lot of time, so be prepared to spend a few hours learning and managing all the setting available to you.
You and your membership pretty much need to be prepared to handle anything and everything that could go wrong (or right!). Technology issues come and go fast, so you need to be able to manage several things at once, or have extra hands on deck as co-hosts to assist throughout the process. Your membership also needs to know not to reflect any issues they may be having on screen with a potential new member. Be prepared to walk them through any type of situation that you can think of that may come up during your process - do your best! You aren’t going to know everything!
Being in a virtual setting is very different than being live and in person! Your membership needs to know and understand this be ok with some of the awkwardness that could come up. I say let them address with PNMs and explain that it is normal for everyone to feel a little awkward given these “new normal” circumstances we are finding ourselves in these days. The virtual setting is much less “showy” than what expectations of sorority recruitment probably are - and that’s perfect for a no-frills system that is supposed to be in place as per NPC anyway!
Good conversation skills are a must! Practice, practice, practice! Women may think this is odd or awkward, but it does make a difference when actually talking with PNMs. I found that our women were more comfortable without the showiness of an in person recruitment and our numbers reflected that, which was a great result for us! I will also say that I’m not a believer in a quantity over quality system, nor do I believe that sorority life is for everyone. In fact, we lost upwards of 60 women to withdrawals throughout the process. I do believe being virtual was a big part of that because overall expectations weren't met, but that’s a blog for another day!
Overall, I won’t say whether I believe this virtual system is a good or bad way to recruit new members to our organizations, but it most definitely allows for some new creativity that I never would have considered in the first place. I do believe it gave our members and potential new members some mew skills that they would not have gained if going through an in-person process, but I also think the PNMs may have missed out on some personal interaction that normally takes place. Either way, preparation is crucial to the success of our new virtual world regardless of the way you spin it!