The past week and a half of my life has been completely dedicated to sorority recruitment through preparation for each night of recruitment, cleaning the house, running through the skit, and the actual recruitment process. It’s been pretty hectic, but it’s also been really enjoyable. It’s given me an opportunity to bond with my sisters and experience the entire formal recruitment process from the other side.

Each night of recruitment, there’s always the concern that things will go wrong. One of the biggest worries is conversation—if you’ve never met the person who you’re paired with for that round, what will you talk about? What if you don’t hit it off? What if there’s an awkward silence? Forced conversation is the worst and I’ve been pretty lucky that I haven’t had to worry about things going poorly in that department so far.

The best way to avoid an awkward conversation during one of the rounds is to come up with some interesting questions to ask the Potential New Member. Here’s a list of questions that I've found help start really great conversations while also helping both of the people involved feel more comfortable and relaxed.

"If you could travel to any one country in the world, where would it be?"

At Centre, studying abroad is a really big deal. It’s common for students to want to travel and to have an enriching abroad experience. However, sometimes people aren’t completely sure of where they want to go. While it’s still great to discuss all of the opportunities that Centre provides (and maybe bond over the desire to study abroad in the same place), simply asking about travel opens up the conversation to many more possibilities. You can find out interesting facts about where the person has been, as well as find out what different cultures and countries they’re interested in. Sometimes people have really interesting reasons as to why they want to visit a certain place (a love for art, family connections, etc.), so it can be a really interesting conversation starter."

What Hogwarts house would you be in?"

So maybe some people wouldn’t have very strong opinions on this, but, for the most part, we live in a society inundated with "Harry Potter." Whether they’ve only seen a few of the movies or they’re a die-hard Potter-head, it’s a great question because it’s not something that's typically brought up in conversation and you can discover a lot about people through their choice (and their rationalization of that choice).

"What was the last show that you binge-watched on Netflix?"

These days, everyone loves Netflix and everyone spends much more time than they will admit laying in bed while binge-watching shows on the streaming site. We all know that there’s been at least one instance when we should have started on our homework, but, instead, we chose to watch one more episode of a show. Asking this question is a funny way to find out what kind of shows they’re interested in and it's something that everyone can relate to. You might discover that you have a lot of the same favorite shows, so you can bond over that and conversation will flow easily.

"Have you ever had a celebrity encounter?"

Not everyone has had a cool run in with someone famous, but some people have really awesome and/or funny stories of times when they saw or met a celebrity. This question could lead to a really unusual and cool story and it's a great way to think of something fun and unusual to talk about. If the person says that they’ve never had an experience of this sort, though, a follow-up question could be asking about the first concert that they ever went to or about the best concert that they’ve ever attended. This question still relates to the theme of celebrities and you might find out that this person has the same taste in music as you, which is always super cool.

"What’s the most adventurous thing that you’ve ever done?"

I recently went skydiving while I was studying abroad in Hawaii, which was hands-down the most exhilarating thing that I’ve ever done. I want to tell everyone about it and it’s been a topic that has come up a lot while talking to PNMs during recruitment. When I’ve asked people if they’d ever do it, the responses have ranged from a very definite “no” to a super enthusiastic “yes.” It’s interesting to see what people would be interested in trying and there are a lot of cool things, other than skydiving, that people have done. If the person is a thrill seeker, this would be a cool way to find out about an adventure that they’ve been part of. If big thrills aren’t their thing, this could lead to a really cool conversation about stepping out of one’s comfort zone!

There are so many things that you can talk about with PNMs during recruitment to avoid boring or awkward conversations. While this is only a short list, there are so many others that could be added. Trying to think of what to talk to someone about and drawing a blank is the worst, so having some interesting topics prepared is guaranteed to help things run as smoothly as possible.