Why is Recruiting a Pain?

Is there something I am missing about recruiting people into a guild? I've done the message spamming thing endlessly. I've found that recruiting people in-game has been almost worthless since they end up not ever showing up or quitting shortly afterwards.

We have a great web-site, team speak and about 20 members right now. The guild is part of a stable, multi-game clan that has been around for over 2 years and has been playing Guild Wars for 14 months.

Any guidance, suggestions would be most appreciated. There are 2 million people playing this game and I'd hope to do better than this.

Please post a pointer if this has been addressed.


Thanks


Mike.

In game spamming is by far the worst thing you can do. Even if you get people to sign up that way they will most likely be the last people you would really want.

The best thing you can do is write an advertisment in the guild section on a bunch of forums. Tell a little bit about the guild. Make anyone trying to sign up write up an application on your forums. Then make them go through a trial period before inviting them to the guild. If a person is not willing to put a little effort into joining then they are likely the kind of person who will leave your guild at the drop of a hat.

A trial period is not that good of an idea mainly because its a waste of gold. i do suggest that you have an application section in your forums where people will give you information about themselves like the kind of toon they play and what they are looking for in a guild(if its for PvP then you also want them to tell you how much pvp xp they have).If your doing PvE stuff, then if you do random pugs you might find people in your group who are guildless, after you do a mission or two with them(and of course talk to them in team chat)you can kinda figure out what kinda player they are. if they impress you during the mission, then offer them an invite. now not everyone will accept an invite this way, but i've gotton a few good players(from top 100 guilds)into my guild by doing this. sometimes spamming works, but depending on where you spam and what you say in your message you run the risk of getting 12 year olds who just want money and stuff from you. if you are going to spam, you wanna do it in major districts like LA dis 1 or HA dis 1, your message should read something along the lines of " so and so guild is recruting active mature members with vent/ts(whichever you have) pm me for more info" this is an easy way to weed out some of the young ones, cause you can sorta tell how they are going to be with the questions they present to you about your guild, and the way they answer the questions you give them. Now all of this is just stuff that has worked for me and my guilds(i've ran 3 different guilds and been in 2 other top 100 guilds). so good luck and i hope it all works for you.

Just a thought, opening up a bit more forum access for the unregistered to get a feel of the guild (even if it is just the application section) will certainly help I think. Some people will not bother with registering, unless you got them already interested in the guild.

my experience of recruiting was a pain as well........but in a different way......

having shortly just joined a guild i got promoted to being an officer ( which i did not request to be ) only for the purpose so that i have to help them recruit, so i did that, but everytime i log onto GW the first thing the other officers and leader say to me is this : "could you do some recruiting for the guild please?" every god damn second i log on!

so thats why i just quit the guild

Yeah I have been having trouble too. I have been using this website to try and recruit, getting IGN's, reading what they are looking for etc. It's hard to recruit in game, and I have stopped doing it, since I want to play and not waste time finding people.

Look through the forum here, and find people who you think would be good for your guild, put them on your friends list and check it once in a while during your playing. If they pop on.. I ask "Are you still looking for a guild?" if they say no.. or they are not interested take them off your list so you know you talked to them already.. lol

I have been recruiting for weeks, and tried here, but they deleted my post since they dont want guilds recruiting, which is understandable. We have about 20 members, plus an age requirement, we dont want kids who are disrespectful, and dont want in active players. Its hard.. hang in there give that a try.. dont waste your time in game...

good luck

Hey Sky I need you to do some recruiting for my guild. Could you do this please? j/k

In my eyes, I think 100g is a small price to pay to test out a guildmate before you accept them fully into the guild. My guild has an application, interview, and 2-week provisional period system. If the person really doesn't jive with the guild, I don't mind the 100g I'm losing. However, I suppose on a large scale recruiting spree maybe this would be not as rational, but looks like both Mike and I are trying to recruit quality members slowly.

Take Wookie's advice, this is my guild's policy and will net you the best members. Watch the forums, talk with people in game, chat up those people you find interesting and perserverence will win out. Good luck on the recruiting, Mike!

Lyanna

Well GW has already been around for over a year. Because of that the majority of the experienced players are already in a guild or just tired of in-game random invites. I too would recommend using fansite forums. And have everyone apply, don't accept everyone automatically. If the person is willing to take the time to write a few lines about him/herself, it's more likely that he/she will be a contributing member.

Just my €0.0155161

argh ! noooooooooo ! im gonna die ! no ! arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh !

The LFG thread here is really good - I have probably brought in nearly 100 folks using that since last year. TGH has one as well, and if you are PvP oriented you can post an ad at team-iq.net.

What really helps though is getting some good publicity for your guild. XoO was just your typical single guild and then our guild leader (Moskel) was interviewed on Weapon of Choice. Following that we were Guild of the Week (#22), and have since been featured by a couple other fansites in interviews (TenTonHammer was the latest). In addition, when Factions first hit we held House zu Heltzer for a while, and we always have a couple teams (currently 7 now) on the GvG ladder.

All of these things drives applicants to our website, where in turn we have a fairly detailed application process to complete. We get 2-3 new applicants a day now without having to do any external recruiting, and even though we have some requirements (minimum age, mic required, Factions required, advanced characters required).

But what started all that was getting on WoC and gaining GoTW - and these are things that any guild can do if it wants to.

In answer to the question "why is recruiting a pain?" it's because people think they can buy Guild Wars, make a guild and it'll rule the roost without them ahving to do anything. Therefor you get a load of leaders of 1 man guilds jumping around saying "guild recruitin...AWESOME CAPE & BEST HALL EVER!"
Kinda annoys me but :P


As for guideance and suggesstions, 20 members is a good sized guild nowadays, so i'd stick with it and just try to make it a high quality 20 member guild

Yer, and as previously mentioned spam recruiting is a bad idea. If i have trouble recruiting, i go all over the worl just posting my ad say once in each district. No luck? start over, you're not spamming anyone in that way

Fact is for that 2 million, about 1.9 million are all leaders of 1-man guilds, and the rest are in guilds already, inactive or just don't want to join a guild

Hope this helps Good luck !



EDIT:

Form the last post guy, billiard

XoO is a load of small guilds under one nametag aint it and no certain leadership from what i've heard anyway Nm, u guys done well for urselfs

XoO is made up of 10 different guilds that we each grew - expanding from the first one onward. We have an overall leader (me), 2 executive officers, and a dozen or so division officers. We have a very organized structure and leadership team.

It is required that your Guild have a good organization. If you should only wish to find others to game with, use the forums here where you can partially screen potential Guild Members.

Our Guild has a waiting list. Of the 140+ invites that have been extended and received by our Members we only have about 1 or so that have left and not returned.

We stopped trying to recruit people about 8 or 9 months ago and most of our Guild Leadership hasn't bothered to try recruiting in game for at least 6 months now.

It's important that you find people who want the same gaming experience as you do and if it's possible... to find people who share the same values or interests as you outside of the game.

Good luck.

what guild are you in Crom?

I do have lots of trouble recruiting but the best way I've got people is by joining a mission preferably with a group that has a person without a guild (which I rarely find) but yeah then help them.... Then you can just pray that they'll be interested =(

Publicity is good... get on observer mode in GvG*, take a town in PvE, etc.

*Even if it's simply because you're fighting a high-ranked guild. An old guild of mine once put on a decent show against iQ, considering our 800-ish rank at the time. Immediately after that I got several PMs asking if I was recruiting. Unfortunately none of those people stuck around, if memory serves me, but the point is: publicity gets you people, you don't need to look for them.

Oh, and every time you win HoH, you'll get at least 2 PMs asking if you're recruiting. :P

It can be even simplier than that. You can get good publicity from doing nothing more than posting on these and other forums. As long as you are not ranting and come of as a friendly person with decent ideas, people might begin to wonder what guild you are in and what it is like. It helps if you have a website and/or forums for people to check out as well (it makes a great impression). A guild with a good reputation goes along way in trying to recruit more members.

I agree recruiting isn't as easy as it was. I personally have had some really bad luck with trying to recruite. Since school is starting alot of ppl have started to go inactive, I have a small guild with ppl i know since release and are capable of a good rank but with school its hard to get 8 ppl online at the same time to gvg and getting more ppl to join your guild so you can have a constant gvg game is even harder.

Also the problem is alot of gamers expect the perefect guild, they want it all handed to them for example- Acitve players of altealst 20, gvg everyday, gets pve help from members blah blah blah.

I mean 80% of the guild in GW (rough guess) is probably having problems keeping thier members since thier "So called" expectations isn't met, so what we have is alot of what i call "Floaters" who expect to be in a nice 100+ rank guild that gvg and pve and do elite missions and such, well good luck with that. I've yet to find a solution, I mean my guild isn't bad and my members are experienced but due to the "Floaters" its hard to keep a active roster to gvg with.

When the game started it was all, random invites or guilds that existed in other games.

Now recruiting is a bit different. All i can recomend is a very basic concept. Play with them, and if you like them ask them to join. This means alot of Pubing but it's the best way to find people. Slow but it can weed alot of none wanted people being recruited.

Also. Ask your self if you even want to recruit people. If 10 people is enough for you to make a good ranking or win in HA, why recruit more people? If u are PvE and everyone farms for what they want, why recruit more people? I like small guilds, others need alot of people on. Decide whats best for you.