Allow me to add my thoughts as a player who has had over 200 hours experience playing a smiter in PvE
Getting into a PuG as a smiter is not necessarily that dilficult. What you must do is be clear with them about the role you will be performing. Now, Smiters are an interesting class to play. Damage done from smiting is not all that great, but at higher levels of PvE it is often stronger than elemental due to it's armour bypassing characteristics.
Next is the skills you have on hand: Smiting skills generally have slow recharges and this is especially true of the signets, but on the other hand, the signets can be buffed using inspiration magic's Mantra of Signets and Mantra of Inscriptions to:
a: Cause the signet used to recharge instantly
b: lower recharge on all signets significantly
with a build that uses all 3 smiting signets + the two mantras, you can pump out damage extremely rapidly. Also, running this build doesnt require a huge ammount of energy, so you can reserve your remaining 3 slots for defence.
In my case, that means Smite Hex, Purge Conditions and Rebirth
Anyway, i use those 8 skills whenever I go down to the good ol fissure of woe and it's a right laugh

(not least because the undead axe thingies take over 300 damage per hit from signet of judgement if they use frenzy

)