As a passionate fraternity or sorority member or officer, you likely remember your own recruitment well, and understand how important that time can be in setting the tone for the rest of your membership experience.
Fraternity and sorority recruitment is the process of current chapter members attracting new members to their organizations. It's an important part of managing a sorority or fraternity and usually happens at the beginning of a semester.
While recruitment is vital to growing your organization, it comes with unique challenges, making it challenging to find the best potential new members (PNMs). But there’s no need to worry. In this guide, we’ll walk through five steps to recruitment success. Specifically, we’ll cover:
- Fraternity & Sorority Recruitment: Starting With the Basics
- Step 1: Electing a Recruitment Chair
- Step 2: Planning Your Recruitment Process Early
- Step 3: Hosting A Values-Based Recruitment Cycle
- Step 4: Making Voting and Bidding Easy with Recruitment Software
- Step 5: Going Beyond Recruitment
If you’re ready to say goodbye to recruitment stress and streamline your sorority or fraternity's recruitment process, let's get started!
Fraternity & Sorority Recruitment: Starting With the Basics
Fraternity and sorority recruitment looks different for every school and every chapter, but there are some basic concepts to familiarize yourself with before you can plan a successful recruitment cycle.
Recruitment Terms to Know
Members can get lost during the recruitment process when they try to keep up with all of the recruitment terms more experienced members or officers might use.
Here’s a list of some common fraternity and sorority recruitment terms to know:
- Potential New Member (PNM): Also referred to as a pledge, a PNM is a person attempting to join a fraternity or sorority.
- Legacy: A PNM or current member whose family member belonged to the same fraternity or sorority is known as a legacy.
- Bid: This is an official invitation to join a specific fraternity or sorority chapter after the individual has been voted on by current members. The last day of recruitment activities (Bid Day) is when new members receive their bid to join a fraternity or sorority chapter.
- Formal Recruitment: Formal recruitment often involves organized events and rounds to recruit new members. Prospective members typically attend events for multiple fraternities or sororities and narrow down their top choices.
- Informal Recruitment / Continuous Open Bidding (COB): Some chapters host informal recruitment or COB throughout the school year, a more relaxed recruitment method involving casual meet-and-greets and bidding.
- Initiation: Initiation marks the transition from a PNM to an active member of the fraternity or sorority. It involves a formal ceremony in which new members are officially inducted into the chapter. This ritual often includes secret oaths, traditions, and symbols that are specific to the organization.
- Preference Night: The final round of sorority recruitment is when PNMs visit the chapters they are most interested in and participate in a more personal, in-depth conversation. This is a critical round where both the chapter and the PNM make decisions about membership.
- Quota: Each sorority or fraternity may only be allowed to recruit a certain number of members in a recruitment cycle. The quota is often determined by the chapter size and the overall number of PNMs participating.
Once you and your PNMs have a firm grasp of these common phrases, it will be much easier to communicate next steps and help PNMs navigate the upcoming recruitment process.
Why Effective Recruitment Matters
An effective recruitment approach ensures your organization is filled with quality members who represent your group well. It's how you grow your organization's presence on campus.
Beyond attracting quality members, effective recruitment helps shape the future of your organization. By carefully selecting PNMs who align with your chapter’s values and goals, you ensure that your group thrives with engaged, dedicated, and impactful individuals.
A strong recruitment process creates a positive cycle where new members contribute to the organization’s culture, grow its reputation, and help build a stronger, more connected community. In turn, this foundation of capable, motivated individuals enables your chapter to have a lasting influence on campus and beyond.
Your PNMs can actually experience a variety of benefits too, such as improvements in the following areas:
- Overall Well-Being: Compared to non-members, fraternity and sorority members are more likely to thrive in all five elements of well-being: purpose, social, financial, community, and physical.
- Mental Health: Fraternity and sorority members report higher levels of positive mental health and lower levels of depression and anxiety.
- Employment Post-Graduation: Over half of fraternity and sorority alumni secured employment within two months of graduating, compared to 36% of their nonaffiliated peers.
Effective recruitment benefits both individuals and your entire organization. By attracting the right members, your chapter fosters a community that thrives on well-being, mental health, and success beyond graduation. In turn, this contributes to your organization's lasting legacy and positive impact on campus.
In short, attracting great PNMs is the first step in building a stronger, more influential chapter that continues to grow, inspire, and lead in the years to come.
Common Challenges with Sorority and Fraternity Recruitment
Recruiting new members for a fraternity or sorority is rewarding but often challenging. Chapters must address several barriers that can affect their recruitment process and potential for attracting the right members. Here are some common challenges that fraternities and sororities face:
- Financial Concerns from PNMs: Approximately one in five students who consider joining a fraternity or sorority ultimately decide against it due to concerns about academics or finances. To address these concerns, chapters should be transparent about the costs associated with membership and offer solutions such as payment plans or financial aid.
- Negative Perceptions or Stereotypes: Sororities and fraternities often face negative stereotypes, such as being exclusive or disconnected from academic pursuits. This can discourage PNMs from joining. To combat these perceptions, chapters should emphasize their commitment to academic excellence, community service, and personal development. Testimonials from current members can also help demonstrate the value of joining.
- Limited Chapter Budgets: Recruitment can be expensive due to event costs and marketing materials. To overcome this, chapters can explore low-cost or no-cost recruitment strategies, such as forming partnerships with local businesses, using social media for outreach, or hosting informal “meet-and-greet” style events. Collaboration with alumni and other chapters can also reduce costs.
- Unclear Chapter Identity: When a chapter’s identity, values, and goals are not clearly communicated, PNMs may struggle to connect with the chapter. To address this, chapters should clearly define their values, mission, and unique qualities during recruitment. Ensuring that all members embody and communicate these values will help create a consistent and compelling message.
Overcoming these challenges requires a strategic, thoughtful approach from all members involved in your chapter's management. While these barriers can feel overwhelming, addressing them head-on with creativity and openness can lead to a stronger, more cohesive chapter.
Now that you know the basics of fraternity and sorority recruitment, you can use our five-step plan to get ready for a successful recruitment cycle of your own!
Sorority & Fraternity Recruitment Step 1: Electing a Recruitment Chair
You take your first important step toward a successful recruitment cycle when you elect your next recruitment chair. It’s important to elect someone who is:
- Outgoing and easy to talk to.
- Organized and detail-oriented.
- A model student.
- An experienced member who embodies your chapter’s values.
- Well-versed in campus and fraternity or sorority culture.
A recruitment chair must also have time to dedicate to spearheading recruitment activities. This might include planning and strategizing, meeting with recruitment advisors, maintaining a contact list with PNMs, and acting as the main point of recruitment communications.
However, they can’t do it alone! To help with the many tasks on their plate, the recruitment chair might also delegate responsibilities to a recruitment committee made up of current members. From that committee, the outgoing recruitment officer can choose and train a passionate member to step up, both on the technical parts of the job and how to interact with PNMs.
In addition, executive officers will work with the recruitment committee to plan recruitment activities and set a budget. Together, executive officers and the recruitment committee will ensure sisters or brothers know their roles, responsibilities, and expectations for recruitment.
Sorority & Fraternity Recruitment Step 2: Planning Your Recruitment Process
Planning for your next fraternity or sorority recruitment push takes months. Often, it seems that just as formal recruitment ends, you’re already planning for the next cycle.
One of the biggest components of recruitment planning is settling on a budget. A recruitment budget takes a lot of planning and input from both your treasurer and executive board. Budgets can vary quite a lot from one chapter to the next, including food, flyers, posters, t-shirts, costumes, decorations, and other recruitment-related costs.
Sometimes your budget will be limited by your governing council or umbrella organization on campus. Chapter budgeting software like OmegaFi’s Finances solution can help you stay within your recruitment budget, ensure you account for everything, and keep your chapter out of the red.
You want to stand out from other chapters to attract the best PNMs possible, but that doesn’t necessarily mean spending more. At the end of the day, recruitment is about finding genuine ways to reach out to prospects within the rules of recruitment.
Fraternity & Sorority Recruitment Ideas
With your budget top-of-mind, plan activities so brothers or sisters can connect with PNMs in ways that are conversation-based and explore if your values are a match. This way, you’ll bring in the right brothers or sisters every time. Consider these engaging fraternity and sorority recruitment ideas:
- Scavenger Hunt: Hide clues all over your chapter house or around campus to teach PNMs about your chapter and school's history, values, and traditions in a playful setting.
- Campfire Cookout: Have a relaxed outdoor event with a campfire, food, and games that help PNMs connect with current members in a casual atmosphere.
- Ice Cream Social: Create a sundae bar and invite PNMs and chapter members to attend. Then, they can mingle and create connections in a low-pressure environment.
- Game Night: Invite everyone to a fun-filled evening with board games, card games, or video games where PNMs and chapter members can engage in some friendly competition and practice their teamwork.
- Watch Party: Host a viewing of a sports game, movie, TV show, or award show where everyone can socialize and bond over a shared interest.
- Speed Recruiting Event: Like speed dating, a speed recruiting event is a fast-paced event where PNMs rotate through short conversations with different fraternity or sorority members. The goal is to make initial connections and quickly learn about the chapter.
- Study Hours: Show your chapter's commitment to academics by organizing group study sessions where members and PNMs can collaborate on schoolwork.
These recruitment events provide a fun way to showcase your chapter’s personality, values, and commitment to both social and academic aspects of student life. By offering a range of activities, you can create opportunities for meaningful interactions and leave a lasting impression on PNMs. Remember, the goal is to create an inviting and inclusive environment where PNMs can envision themselves thriving as part of your chapter.
Sorority & Fraternity Recruitment Step 3: Hosting a Values-Based Recruitment Cycle
A chapter’s letters represent certain values. Some universal fraternity and sorority values include integrity, equality, fairness, philanthropy, hard work, friendship, and leadership. To attract and bid the right PNMs during recruitment, brothers and sisters must uphold the values represented by their letters and their university. Your recruitment process should reflect these values and present them consistently to PNMs.
That also means demonstrating that recruitment is open and welcoming to people from different backgrounds, including race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender identity. PNMs are most drawn to chapters that align with their values.
To host a values-based recruitment cycle, your chapter should do the following:
- Focus on informative and friendly PNM conversations.
- Minimize distractions like loud music, costumes, and too many decorations.
- Avoid risky behavior, especially hazing.
- Adhere to chapter conduct expectations.
- Promote a supportive, low-stress environment by prioritizing relaxed interactions and avoiding overly competitive or intense pressure.
- Encourage mental well-being by providing spaces for PNMs and members to take breaks, relax, and decompress during busy events.
Administrators, advisors, and governing councils set recruitment regulations that fraternity and sorority chapters must understand and follow. Breaking these regulations results in consequences. This means you should consult with your recruitment and chapter advisors if you have any questions about planning a safe, efficient, fair, values-based recruitment week.
Sorority & Fraternity Recruitment Step 4: Making Voting and Bidding Easy with Recruitment Software
A more informed brother or sister makes a more educated vote when it comes time to bid PNMs. Consider using recruitment and management software to inform all members about your PNMs and your bid process.
A tool like Omegafi’s Recruitment Solution can help you:
- Track PNM information in a central database.
- Set GPA, philanthropy, and leadership experience preferences.
- Vote electronically, eliminating the need for paper votes.
- Automate your bid list if your university uses Interactive Collegiate Solutions (ICS) recruitment software.
With our software, member data will always be protected. You can even leverage unique features, such as matching active members and PNMs with common interests or hometowns.
As you vote, consider what you know about each PNM, including their bio, contact information, GPA, major, whether or not they’re a legacy, and any red flags.
It’s also a good idea to invite alumni advisors to participate in the decision-making process. They often have valuable insights and experience to bring to the table that can help you choose the best PNMs who will represent your letters well.
Sorority & Fraternity Recruitment Step 5: Going Beyond Recruitment
Many fraternities and sororities make the mistake of saying, “We’re done!” as soon as they turn in their bid list. But really, officially welcoming your new members into your chapter is just the beginning.
Growing your fraternity brotherhood or sorority sisterhood requires special care and attention. To make sure your new members get started off on the right foot, follow up your recruitment process with leadership training, continuing education, fostering good habits, team-building events, and more.
You might even implement software that streamlines ongoing management processes and improves the day-to-day member experience, like billing, budgeting, communication, and participation tracking.
Have a solid plan for integrating and educating members — not just when they’re first going through the initiation process, but the whole time they’re with your chapter. Chapters that prioritize this post-recruitment step proactively begin building a better tomorrow for everyone, from future PNMs to alumni.
Wrapping Up
Formal recruitment doesn’t have to be exhausting and stressful. With thorough planning and determination to work together as a chapter to find the best new members, you can easily take on recruitment activities in a way that focuses on your values and builds a bright future for your organization.
To learn more about managing your chapter’s operations, take a look at these additional resources:
- Creative Fraternity and Sorority Fundraising Ideas + FAQs. Explore innovative fundraising ideas and answers to common questions, so your chapter can raise funds while supporting its recruitment and chapter activities.
- Key Sorority & Fraternity Apps for Effective Management. Discover a collection of apps designed to streamline fraternity and sorority management, from recruitment tracking to event planning and member communication.
- Fraternity Management Software: Top Providers. Explore a list of the best fraternity management software providers that can help streamline recruitment, member management, and chapter operations.
