Recruitment:
A Chapter’s Life Blood
After more than a month of hardship and sacrifice, I was finally admitted to
Luckily, on June 2005, the university holds a recruitment drive. What better time to implement our plans and take advantage of our recognition as a student organization. A booth was provided for us to set up in. We included interesting features in our booth, among others was the "Wall of Fame", containing pictures of notable alumni members. Informative brochures at its cheapest photocopied form was distributed to passersby. Thinking that we will be able to get more recruits going classroom to classroom in promoting APO than just to wait for students to walk by. We took action, doing many kinds of promotional gimmicks, it was just hit or miss, but we were determined to reach our goal to increase membership, whatever it would take!
When the school year was over, we made a handful of members increase to 4 or 5 times our original number. Our initial accomplishments couldn't be possible without the support and help of the UST administration, the Pi Alumni and other chapters who were present. Since then, Recruitment 101* was a major annual activity and a regular source of new members for Pi Chapter.
5 Helpful Tips on Effective Recruitment
1. Quality and quantity.
The first batch of Recruitment 101 we had an astounding 24 new members! But there are over 300 students we persuade to sign up at the recruitment booth, 60+ were baptized as pledges before finally coming up with the 24 new members. Recruit as many as you can. Talk to as many students as possible and choose the best men and women.
2. If you want something done, do it yourself.
Don't be intimidated by your alumni and fellow residents. They are there to help you. Have the initiative to recruit. Involve brods or sis that are goal oriented and wants improvement. Be the hero and take action! And everything else will follow, the support and most importantly the results.
3. You can't recruit who you do not know.
During events and service projects we can invite non-APO students to join. Organize events that may entice students to take part of the activity. Mostly our activities are exclusive to members only. But there are chapter activities that may be avenues for recruitment. Feeling what its like to be an APO may create the need to join.
Sometimes, you don't even need to recruit them, they'll just knock on our doors. The important things are that we are able to get NAMES, and CONTACT DETAILS of potential applicants. After each event we can contact all students who attended the event and invite them for an orientation.
4. Be humble.
It has been APO's tradition that applicants must humble themselves. We should realize that the prospects don't know a thing about APO. Before demanding for them to bow down and call us Lords / Ladies it is our duty to inform them the principles, purpose and activities of APO, the rationale behind the pledgeship process and importance of humility and obedience. Proper orientation to prospects giving them the ideas of what to expect may reduce the chances of quitting.
5. 10th Jewel, be brave!
Inform your classmates, and friends in school about APO. You can also meet students outside your circle of friends, outside your college and tell them about APO. During the 2005 Recruitment 101 stint, we went from classroom to classroom just to check out pretty college girls and have recruitment as an excuse. Simplest spiels such as, "We are Alpha Phi Omega and we are accepting new applicants, so if you’re interested just contact us...". Then we leave them brochures. A couple of hours later, students are actually contacting us. We did not only have recruits, some brods got new girlfriends too.
Bonus # 6.
Invest in recruitment materials. We started out with cheap photocopied brochures that we distribute to students. It worked! Now we have all kinds of promotional items from bookmarks, paper fans, calendars, among others. Be creative and experiment on other promotional media. Also remember to put your contact numbers in your chosen media, so it would be easier for students to contact you.
But the best recruitment and promotional material is you. What you are and what you do is a mirror of what an APO is. So put yourself in your recruits’ shoes and ask, “Would you want yourself to be your brod / sis?” If yes, be a proud APO and share it to everyone!
Mahalin APOng Pinaghirapan!
Posted on 08/12/2008 by:
OJ Lopez
A
PO Pi Chapter,
2005-A