Introduction
More times than not the Recruitment Chairman and the MOO do not work together. This is a problem. It is necessary that the two of you have a strong working relationship and share the same vision. See if this scenario sounds familiar: It’s bid day and we are extremely happy with the results of our latest recruitment effort. We have the largest pledge class on campus of 45 guys. Eight weeks later when it is time to initiate these 45 men result in only 15 men initiating.
Retention
Retention rates are important and they say a lot about your chapter. If you don’t have an average retention rate of at least 80% you are doing something wrong (i.e., not bidding the right men, hazing, not getting them involved, not following through with benefits that were described). These are problems because you didn’t work closely enough with the MOO and the men joined only to find out that they didn’t receive a consistent message or they were recruited based on certain things to only go through and experience a pledge program totally different. As the Recruitment Chairman this should not be acceptable. You negotiated a budget of X number of dollars to spend on recruitment, only to have men join and drop out of the program before it was time to initiate. By not working with the MOO you did not get as much “bang for your buck”. For the situation described above the cost to recruit each man just doubled. Is this a problem? Yes if as the Recruitment Chairman you knew that those men that were offered bids and accepted were quality men. However, if this isn’t the case then you need to do a better job getting to know the men before you bid them or you need to be more selective in the bid process.
Expectations of the Relationship with the MOO
- The two of you need to discuss with the chapter the type of man that the chapter is going to recruit and then discuss the purpose of the pledge program. At this point you need to work with the MOO to decide if the current program is going to support the type of man the chapter is going to recruit and figure out if it is consistent with the message you are recruiting based upon.
- Meet several times prior to the Association Ceremony. Meet a minimum of once per week to discuss both programs and develop a shared vision.
- Work with the BOG Recruitment and Retention Advisors prior to the Association Ceremony.
- Work through the chapter recruitment plan and membership orientation program to assure consistency
- Attend the first three AM meetings. Your agenda should be as follows:
- Meeting 1: Have the new pledge class fill out a recruitment evaluation.
- Meeting 2: The two objectives will be to have them begin to recruit unaffiliated men from there classes and to create a list of men they know from their high schools that may be attending your university the following year and men in there classes or men they live with in the dorms.
- Meeting 3: Collect evaluations/list of potential members and stress the importance of Recruitment.
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