1. Put your Recruitment registration link and deadline EVERYWHERE.
If potential members wanted to join a Panhellenic sorority on your campus, could they find information on how to do that? If you google “sorority recruitment at [name of your campus]?” what comes up? Your recruitment registration link and the deadline to register should be everywhere online and on campus (where permissible).
Check and update:
- Your college/university’s Fraternity & Sorority Life (FSL) website. Coordinate with your fraternity/sorority advisor if your Panhellenic officers do not have access.
- Your Panhellenic’s social media accounts. If you’ve already posted once about the links and deadlines, keep posting. You need to share this information repeatedly to ensure it stays at the top of your feed.
- Your Panhellenic webpage. If your Panhellenic maintains a separate website from the FSL site, make sure your recruitment registration link and deadline are listed here, too.
- Chapter websites and social media. The sorority chapters on your campus also play a role in promoting the sorority experience. They should be able to post about when Panhellenic recruitment will be held, what the registration deadline is, and how to register. Encourage chapter members to share individually, too!
2. Share recruitment event dates.
If potential members can find your recruitment registration link, can they identify when recruitment registration ends? When recruitment orientation is? When each round, preference and Bid Day will be held? Provide as much information as possible so potential members can plan ahead and mark their calendars so they don’t miss out on any part of the recruitment process!
3. Be clear about PNM expectations.
Do you offer multiple orientation sessions and do potential new members (PNMs) need only attend one? Do they need to register for recruitment before they attend orientation or after? Is orientation required? If you host a partially structured recruitment, have you explained to PNMs what events they are expected to attend prior to when invitational rounds begin? Be sure to spell out PNM expectations on your website and social media so they don’t miss a critical part of the process and, therefore, miss out on joining a sorority.
4. Explain how to meet sororities/members prior to recruitment.
How are you providing ways for potential members to meet the sororities or sorority members prior to recruitment? It might be that some members participate in summer programs with new students, that Fraternity & Sorority Life members are allowed to present during orientation or that sororities/sorority members play an important role in new student move-in. Your campus might also have an all-student organization fair once classes start or there might be special events to meet all fraternities & sororities on your campus. Whatever opportunities your campus or Panhellenic offers, promoting those opportunities can go a long way to making connections with new and transfer students and helping them become interested in sorority recruitment and membership.
5. Be open to questions.
Even if you’ve fixed items 1-4 above and you’ve provided a ton of other information about the benefits of joining a sorority, potential members may still have questions about recruitment or joining a sorority. Be sure to share how PNMs can contact your Panhellenic to ask questions. And, be sure someone is monitoring those accounts so questions can be answered quickly.
If you’ve gotten through this list and you know your Panhellenic is doing all of these things, give yourself a huge pat on the back! If not, there’s no time like the present to get started making these changes, whether your recruitment is this month or not for several months.
We’ll be sharing more of what we’ve learned during this project in the coming months. In the meantime, if you have a question for how to improve your recruitment marketing or you want to share an idea that works great for your campus that you think others can benefit from, please feel free to reach out to me by email.
Panhellenically,
Loretta Good
Chief Marketing Officer
National Panhellenic Conference