Top Fraternity and Sorority Recruitment Ideas and Strategies

As a sorority or fraternity member, you likely remember the exciting moment when you received your bid and became part of your chapter. This is an important experience for every chapter member and helps cement your long-lasting bond. So, it’s now your job as a fraternity or sorority leader to successfully bring in new members every year.

However, a successful recruitment process takes more than just accepting everyone who signs up! To achieve your goals and further your chapter’s mission, it’s important to find and engage the new members who best fit your organization’s needs. These processes require iteration and specific strategies to succeed.

In this guide, we’ll cover the following topics to help you attract more members and make your recruitment season unforgettable:

1. Fraternity and Sorority Recruitment Best Practices
2. Fraternity and Sorority Recruitment Ideas

Ready to welcome the next generation of new members? Let's get started!

Fraternity and Sorority Recruitment Best Practices

1. Use the right technology.

Leveraging powerful digital tools is the only way to truly optimize your recruitment process in the modern age. Fortunately, there is specialized software available to address everything your sorority or fraternity needs to make recruitment a success. Consider our picks for the top tools for fraternity and sorority recruitment:

Best Fraternity and Sorority Management Software: OmegaFi

• Member matching software for recruitment
• Member information database with sophisticated reporting capabilities
• Secure billing and PCI-compliant payment processing
• Access to a personal accounting professional to manage your finances
• Communications automation 
• Mobile accessibility through the OmegaFi app
• Integrations with other popular management tools like Salesforce and Microsoft Suite

OmegaFi empowers you to master not only recruitment, but every part of sorority and fraternity management, at scale. Get started to bring your leadership skills to new heights and provide more value to your members than ever before.

Best Social Media Management Tool: Hootsuite

Using social media marketing tools allows you to reach potential new members (PNMs) who otherwise wouldn’t be able to learn about your chapter with ease. Give your recruitment efforts a boost by using Hootsuite, a user-friendly social media management tool that allows you to:

• Schedule posts across platforms
• Create eye-catching content with templates
• Generate captions and ideas using its built-in AI tool
• Analyze social media metrics and generate reports

With its affordable price point, Hootsuite is great for fraternity and sorority leaders that are new to social media marketing and don’t require enterprise-level tools. 

Best Virtual Meeting and Webinar Platform: Zoom

Chances are, you've already used this solution to attend virtual classes or webinars. Your chapter can also leverage Zoom to conduct engaging recruitment activities from afar. For instance, you might:

• Host informational webinars about recruitment with hundreds of attendees
• Have one-on-one conversations with PNMs via breakout rooms
• Involve alumni who don’t live near campus in the recruitment process
• Record important meetings so anyone can look back at the information

Holding meetings online is the new normal, and your chapter should embrace it by pivoting your recruitment strategy to include more virtual events via Zoom.

Best Collaboration Suite: Google Suite 

Managing your recruitment efforts should be a team effort. Using suites of tools like Google allows you to easily collaborate with your fellow members to make recruitment a success. Google’s numerous software tools can help you:

• Collect feedback from recruits via Forms
• Share important materials via Drive
• Create recruitment resources via Docs
• Keep track of large datasets via Sheets
• Make beautiful presentations for recruitment events via Slides

With its user-friendly interface and affordable price point, Google Suite empowers your entire team to engage in the recruitment process and makes it easy for PNMs to stay connected.

2.  Learn from past recruitment cycles.

1. How did your conversations with current members influence your experience?  
2. How did you feel about the atmosphere during the recruitment season events?  
3. What was your understanding of the bid process, and how could it be improved?  
4. What aspects of the recruitment process stood out to you, and how could they be improved?

Separating your survey responses by pledge class allows you to track how your recruitment approach has changed over time and what your opportunities for improvement are. Using your fraternity and sorority management software, you can send out your survey and collect segmented results based on how long your members have been with the chapter.

Also, remember to review your financial information to help you budget effectively for this year’s recruitment. Compare how much you spent on last year's recruitment activities with how much revenue you brought in from dues, fundraising, and other sources. 

3. Leverage your chapter's network.

• Contact information: This allows you to get in touch with your members and their families easily.
• Employment history: By tracking your members' employment, you can introduce younger members to successful older members working in the industries they want to enter.
• Interests: Similarly, you can connect new members to older members with the same interests, who will provide your newer recruits with recommendations and connections they wouldn't have otherwise.

You can also show PNMs your commitment to long-term support by involving alumni in the recruitment process. For example, you might have alumni attend recruitment events (either in-person or virtually) and give their perspectives on how participating in the chapter impacted their college experience and beyond.

Whatever approach you choose, maintaining regular contact with your network and tailoring experiences to their interests is key to demonstrating your chapter’s commitment to long-term support. Ask them for feedback about how the organization supports them and suggestions for improvement. 

Also, alumni volunteering during recruitment should be as enjoyable and convenient as possible. Offer virtual options for alumni who live far from campus and incentivize participation with small gifts like gift certificates or branded merchandise. 

4. Stay organized throughout the recruitment process.

Recruitment can only be as successful as it is organized. For instance, if your PNMs don't know when or where to show up or what they're supposed to bring, they can't successfully navigate the recruitment process. 

The key to staying organized is using recruitment management software that PNMs and current members can access. Fraternity and sorority communication software improves:

• Logistics. The sheer volume of PNMs and their accompanying data can get overwhelming. When you use intelligent software instead of relying on spreadsheets and emails, you mitigate human error and facilitate a streamlined process. 
• Automation. Communication software makes it easy to schedule messages and set reminders in advance so no one forgets to attend an important event.
• Delegation. Keeping track of roles and responsibilities can get messy, but some software solutions allow you to designate specific roles for different users.
• Documentation. You never know when you might need to go back to what exactly was said. Communication software keeps time-stamped logs of all your messages, incoming and outgoing.
• Mobile communication. The top solutions offer a mobile app so members can stay connected on the go.

In the chaos before and during recruitment, you don't want to be worried about important information slipping through the cracks. Allow comprehensive management software to take the lead while you focus on making recruitment an enjoyable experience for everyone.

5. Market your sorority or fraternity's philanthropy.

Recruitment provides a great opportunity to share your charitable accomplishments and find recruits who want to continue the chapter’s good work. Ensure you're attracting like-minded new members to your organization by sharing your philanthropic efforts:

• At your recruitment events.
• On your chapter’s website.
• On your philanthropic partners’ marketing channels.
• On your university's website.
• On marketing materials like T-shirts and flyers.

Think about the message your philanthropy sends to PNMs: they have the chance to enact real change by joining your chapter. Drive the message home by including success stories from philanthropic beneficiaries and current members (with their permission) speaking to the program’s impact. 

6. Stay in touch with recruits.

Ensuring effective communication between your leadership team and your PNMs is essential for providing important information and creating a welcoming atmosphere. That being said, the best way to keep PNMs in the loop and feeling included is to proactively initiate the conversation.

Start by sending automatic reminders via your communication software for recruitment events or paperwork deadlines to keep your organization in recruits’ inboxes. You can also send messages reiterating your university's policies on sororities and fraternities and your upcoming philanthropic events.

No matter what you're sending, always include something at the bottom of your messages to let recruits know they can reach out if they need something. Try something like:

• "Don't hesitate to email us at [email address] if you have a question about this event."
• "You can always get in touch with the leadership team at [email address]."
• "Fill out this easy online form to submit a question to us before the deadline."

Remember that communication with recruits must follow rules set by the universities and national headquarters. If current members aren't allowed to contact PNMs outside recruitment events, then make sure all communication goes through your official channels and comes from your leadership team. 

Also, ensure your communication is persistent but not overwhelming, as too many messages can drive PNMs away from your chapter. Try sending a few messages a week, plus event reminders the day of. 

7. Brand your chapter.

The more recognizable your fraternity or sorority is, the more PNMs are likely to know about you before recruitment and be interested in joining. Prioritizing brand awareness can lead to more interest in your organization.

But you want recruits to recognize more than just your letters—they also need to remember your members, alumni, and accomplishments as a group.

Anything you can do to reinforce your chapter’s brand identity is an effort well spent. Some effective ways to spread awareness include:

• Recruitment t-shirts: With special T-shirts, recruits will associate your fraternity with conversations about mutual interests and passions they had with people wearing their letters. 
• Business cards: Nothing says successful and professional quite like a custom business card. Branded business cards are easy for members to tuck into their pockets and give out when they meet recruits at recruitment events.
• Digital marketing efforts: College students spend a lot of their time on social media. Encourage your members to post their letters or include your organization’s social media handle in their profiles for recruits to see. You can also create branded cover photos, photo frames, filters, or videos for all of your members to use. Make sure your website is also branded with your chapter’s letters and images of your members and alumni.

By reinforcing your chapter’s brand on multiple channels, you can create a lasting impression on your campus community and impart the value of your sorority or fraternity.

Fraternity and Sorority Recruitment Ideas

Hosting fun chapter recruitment events and activities can give your recruits a taste of the kind of organization you are, and in turn, you can get a sense of whether PNMs are the right fit for you.

Your choices for fraternity and sorority recruitment ideas are practically unlimited, but here are some top options:

• Scavenger hunt. Your members and PNMs are never too old for a scavenger hunt! This event allows you to provide information about your chapter in an engaging way while allowing PNMs to interact with members. Hide clues all over your chapter house to give PNMs a full tour to remember, and offer prizes for the fastest team.
• Campfire cookout. Organizing catered dinners can be a logistical headache—so why not let your PNMs and members make their own food while giving them a chance to mingle? Get your campfire pit ready and prepare delicious roastable snacks, like smores and hot dogs for a fun—and low-cost—recruitment event.
• Ice cream social. Another easy and affordable food-based event is an ice cream social. Make a sundae bar so PNMs and members can create their own delicious desserts while getting to know the organization. 
• Game night. Whether it’s video games or board games, there is something for everyone to enjoy at a game night. Rent or borrow popular video games and consoles from your current members and take requests for which board games to offer for a night of friendly competition.
• Watch party. Gather with your PNMs to watch interesting events or media, such as sports games, movies, or award shows. Provide popcorn and, if the weather permits, a fun outdoor viewing space so PNMs can mingle while watching. 
• “Speed Recruiting” event. Many recruitment events are loosely structured, which means some members might not even get to meet PNMs. A Speed Recruiting event (like speed dating) allows all of your members and PNMs to briefly meet each other and get an impression of the organization. 
• Study hours. Not all recruitment events have to be high-energy! Help PNMs maintain a great academic track record with organized group study sessions. Designate some sections of your house for quiet study and some for collaborative study.

When sharing an event, give your PNMs plenty of guidance, like times to show up and what to bring or wear. Set these reminders in your management software to ensure your current members and recruits know the most important information.

Wrapping Up

A successful sorority or fraternity recruitment process requires thoughtful planning and communication from your leadership team. By embracing teamwork and using the right digital tools (like OmegaFi), your chapter can strengthen the familial bond your brothers or sisters feel with each other and strengthen your recruitment practices for years to come.