Recruiting people for a college club is one of the most underrated jobs a person could be given. Their job is to try and convince students that their club is beneficial for them to join and will be a great way to stay involved on campus. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up over the semester as a recruiter.
Know Your Demographic
The most fundamental rule for recruiting is narrowing down your demographic for whom you want to join your club. For example, if you are trying to convince people to join a fraternity, it would be illogical to market towards women on campus since they are not allowed to join. Once you narrow down your demographic, it is easier to get a sense of how and where to advertise. Certain clubs already have their demographic narrowed since it is geared toward a certain race or ethnicity, such as the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA). Even if this is the case, most clubs tend to view freshman (or first-year students) as the best people for recruitment. The goal is to get them involved early so they can contribute and hold a leadership position once their four years are finished.
Advertisement Is Key
Advertising is key in catching the attention of possible recruits. Whether it's an eye-catching flyer or setting up a booth and speaking with students directly, any way to promote your organization will help. Putting up posters is a good way to get the name of your club floating around campus, but location can sometimes be the deciding factor in the recruitment process. One of the best places to put the flyers or posters would be near the cafe or other common areas that students tend to visit. This way many students will have the chance to see it, but a better way is to advertise in areas that you know will fit your demographic. For example, if you are a member of an organization that focuses on writing, such as Odyssey or the school newspaper, it would be best to put flyers near the school’s Writing Center. That way students who already have an interest in writing will see the flyer and be more inclined to join. Doing little things like that will help improve your club’s chance at recruiting new members and make the process more effective.
Learn To Accept Failure
Recruitment is a job where failure is all too common. The goal is to sell your extracurricular activity to students who may have no interest in joining an organization at all. As each person gets older, they start to understand their priorities and figure out if they have time to be a part of and what they can’t do. By junior year, most students are looking for internships or even a job to gain valuable work experience so they aren’t as focused on being a part of an extracurricular activity on campus. It's a job where your pitch can either get you many students to be interested in your organization or just tune you out because they do not care. Even if you are able to receive contact information from prospective students, that does not guarantee that person is going to join; emails and phone numbers don’t mean anything unless the person actually joins. You will probably have many great conversations with people wanting to join and at one point they may realize they don’t have enough time for it. When this happens, you shouldn’t be discouraged, just take everything in stride. You can't let your highs get too high and your lows get too low. At one point someone that you recruited is going to join and you’ll realize that all of the hard work will have paid off. You’re going to have added someone to your club who you see has promise and potential to have an impact on the group’s success.
