Officers' Quarters: 5 tips for guild recruiting in a post-Cataclysm world
by Scott Andrews 
Mar 28th 2011 at 2:00PM
Last week, we talked about why officers are burning out so early in the expansion. Many of the same factors have burned out average raiders and PvPers, also, leaving gaping holes in our rosters. In the current environment, recruiting can be extremely difficult. I've received quite a few emails lately asking for tips. Here's my best advice.
1. Don't be intimidated by guild level and achievements.
So you just started a guild, or your guild hasn't kept pace with leveling since the expansion went live. Those perks are awesome, and no one will join unless you have them, right? Wrong -- players care a lot more about the type of community they're joining and the sorts of members that inhabit your roster. They care more about whether or not your schedule meshes with theirs. And they care more about having fun than 10% more justice points or faster mount speed.
Well, maybe I'm generalizing a bit and not everyone feels that way, but honestly, do you even want a player on your roster who cares more about those things than the quality of the guild? Don't fill your roster with random players just to level faster. You'll only hurt the community in the long run.
When you tell players about your guild, instead of listing the perks that you've unlocked, talk about what makes your guild special. Give them reasons to join that go beyond perks, such as special events that you run, the unique policies that guide decision-making, even the time zone that most of your players live in, if it's different than your server's. Anything that sets your guild apart from others is an advantage.
Certainly you should mention access to cauldrons and feasts and any other important quality-of-life bonuses that you have, but don't let the lack of such things discourage you. Rather, tell people the steps that you're taking to earn these achievements faster so they can see you're proactive about improving the guild.
2. Your best resource is your current membership.
A statistic I've heard often is that 60-70% of jobs in the United States are filled through networking and informal contacts rather than traditional job advertising. I don't think anyone has the true numbers for WoW guilds, but I'd bet that the number isn't very far off from 60-70%, perhaps more. Think about the current members of your own guild. How many of them were random applicants? I'd bet for many guilds who are careful about the players they invite, less than half joined this way. Most players join a guild because they already know players in that guild.
Thus, we should never underestimate the power of our existing membership to aid our recruiting efforts. Recruiting is a job for officers, and ultimately it is officers who make the decision about whether to invite someone. However, in these lean times, officers should reach out to their members for help, and all members should actively seek to interest friends in joining their guild.
As always, I condemn poaching, but there are plenty of people whose guilds have recently collapsed or who have just started playing WoW again. Tell your members to keep an eye out for players they know who might be looking for a new community. Better yet, tell them to ask around if anyone is.
3. Stop focusing on class.
Today, many guilds continue to identify the classes that they "need." Let's be clear: I put need in quotes because, in today's WoW, no class is mandatory. Even the king of all class-specific cooldowns, Bloodlust, has been given to two other classes. (I refuse to call it Heroism.)
It's okay to identify the classes that you would like to recruit. However, limiting your search to only those classes is only going to hinder your efforts and may turn away other excellent candidates. Instead, focus your search on players in the roles that you need, whether that's ranged DPS, healing, or what have you.
Consider taking desirable players who apply even if you don't need more bodies in those roles. Check with the applicant and with your members in those roles to see if anyone would like to switch to a different spec and change roles. Sometimes you'll find that a player has been itching to switch specs and is more than happy to do so. You'll never know unless you ask!
4. Don't obsess about gear.
Gear is pretty hard to come by right now compared to Wrath's first tier. Tier 11 is not particularly PuG-friendly yet, so players who haven't been in successful raiding guilds are most likely going to be undergeared compared to those on your roster.
Gearing up will get significantly easier with the addition of the two troll instances in 4.1, and it will become even easier with 4.2, when all of the current valor point gear will become available for justice points, not to mention any Tier 12 BoE recipes that the patch may add. It's more important at this point to find quality players, regardless of their item level.
5. Be aggressive.
Gone are the times where progressed guilds could sit back and let the applicants roll in. The merging of 10- and 25-player content has continued in Cataclysm. Large raiding guilds are no longer the gatekeepers for the game's best items and most epic content. Whether you think of this as a curse or a godsend, it's the new reality.
Guilds of all sizes and preferences are now, in most cases, competing for the same pool of players. You can't post an ad on your server's forum and expect immediate results. You need to "pound the pavement" -- get out there and talk to people. Form Baradin Hold PuGs and chat up any solid players who are guildless. Do the same for achievement runs in older raids or attacks on enemy cities. Skip the dungeon finder and put together some heroic runs the old-fashioned way. You don't have to be an officer to do any of these things, so encourage your regular members to help out, too.
If you're looking for more advice on recruiting, I encourage you to download Chapter 3 of The Guild Leader's Handbook for free. It's the chapter about recruiting, and it contains many more general tips on acquiring players for your community.
My last bit of advice is this: Don't get discouraged if it takes you longer than you expected to find new players. All but the best guilds in the world are in the same boat right now.
/salute
Recently, Officers' Quarters has examined how strong new leadership can create a guild turnaround, the pitfalls of promising more than you can deliver, and lessons learned from Scott's own guild demise. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ji Mar 28th 2011 2:06PM
Sorry Scott, but you just posted this and your chapter 3 download is already down due to too many connections.
rhorle Mar 28th 2011 2:08PM
I disagree that class is irrelevant. For example a raid with out warlocks that has a lot of dot classes could see a significant improvement due to dark intent. While yes many of the must have buffs are available in other forms that still doesn't mean there isn't an optimal class to provide that buff. One that provides everything with little sacrifice. For example hunters can bring heroism, but at what cost?
Finnicks Mar 28th 2011 2:20PM
He's saying that if you post "LF warlocks for our guild", and get no responses, you are up the creek without a paddle.
Post "LF DPS for our guild" and 2 mages and a hunter respond... at least you found someone to fill the spots. 10 raiders including a mage or hunter will get a lot farther than 9 raiders who are holding out for a warlock.
I can tell you unequivocably that raid composition is much less of a problem than it used to be. My raid's healer composition is hardly ideal: 2 druids and a shaman. And yet after just 5 weeks of raiding we are 7/12, downing 1-2 new bosses per week (only Ascendant Council, Atramedes, and the final bosses to go). Cataclysm was designed so that player skill is a -much- bigger deal that class selection.
wutsconflag Mar 28th 2011 2:22PM
Actually, a BM Hunter is useful for two things:
Ancient Heroism (provided by all shamans and mages)
Ferocious Inspiration (provided by arcane mages and ret paladins)
In a 25-man environment, you might not have to worry too much about buffs because you have a lot of players to pick and choose from, but in a 10-man, it's sometimes hard to cover them all. My raid group will often need either Ancient Hysteria because our shaman is out for the night (and we don't have a mage) or may ask for the 3% damage buff on pet-friendly fights.
In fact, assuming that the fight is not pet-unfriendly (Atramedes SUCKS for BM), the addition of Ancient Hysteria and the 3% damage buff from Ferocious Inspiration can more than make up for the personal DPS loss of a Hunter switching to BM (assuming now ret paladins or arcane mages - and I don't think I've seen either in a raid recently).
Trisnics Mar 28th 2011 2:43PM
While raid composition is certainly important I would say that a struggling raid should have a mindset of "bring the player not the class". Getting a really good person into your raid group can help tremendously even if they play a mage and not a hunter.
With my guild we certainly do recruit for classes when we have a lot of pickings but when we need people we focus more on who they are and partially on their utility (tank, healer, ranged dps, melee dps). We have also brought in exceptional and reliable people even when we haven't really had room for their class, and this generally works out well for us.
Since this topic is about recruiting during tough times I think the point is to not be so picky.
Celeane Mar 28th 2011 2:57PM
I agree. Interrupts say hello.
dengarsw Mar 29th 2011 12:21PM
Here's the big thing about recruiting for classes: you're specifically recruiting for a raid/RBG, not the guild. Unless the people in the guild have all agreed to play together or not at all, you're going to face membership attrition. People are going to come and go, and one month you'll be low on hunters, and the next, you'll have far too many. Your priests are going to reroll to the FoTM and your tanks are going to go DPS. If you recruit the player and not the class, and the player is willing to play backup, you've recruited for your guild and invested in its future.
wutsconflag Mar 28th 2011 2:14PM
One thing I'd like to mention is that, while the guild perks are nice, don't let them imprison you in a guild you hate. Don't let a power hungry guild leader use them against you. If you truly are unhappy in a guild, you can always find another one to join. Sure, it sucks to have to grind guild rep (though it's easier now than it was just a month ago), but you'll be better served playing with people you like than those you don't for the sake of a few perks.
Neirin Mar 28th 2011 3:06PM
100% agree. Even if it takes longer to hit lvl 25, if you have more fun on the way you made the right decision. The perks are nice and the rewards are shiny, but none of them make you more likely to down a raid boss.
N-train Mar 28th 2011 3:10PM
Don't forget that with 4.1 comes the guild tabards, that can increase guild rep gains by 50% and 100%.
Groth Mar 28th 2011 5:33PM
True N-train, but as they require honored/exalted (i think) with the guild, they're more aimed at alts.
Trisnics Mar 28th 2011 2:35PM
My guild recently lost several core raiders due to various reasons (raid time issues related to work, serious real life issues/obligations, not being interested in playing after downing normal modes, switching games/boredom). I counted it up and we lost 10 core raiders in a few weeks due to this stuff, all of whom are still in the guild roster but don't play or can't raid.
I've found that #2 on this list is very true. I talked to my guild members last week and I said to them that we need help. The 10 man group in my guild brought 3 of their members into our 25 man raid and people talked to their friends about the friends raiding with us. Basically we had a ton of interest and 5 people who we couldn't even bring, after being almost unable to raid the week before. After the week before going very badly I was surprised at how well we came together and I was really proud of the guild since I had a sleepless week over this. We have had a few brand new actual applicants but usually the ones who really work out long term are real life friends.
I even talked to the raiders about switching down to 10 mans from 25. They do not want to do this and were pretty adamant with the reasons, so 25 man we stay and with core people who are left they understand that our progression will be slower as they need to be patient with newer people.
I'll also agree with a lot of the other points. At the end of Wrath we were getting 15 applications a week but we are down to 1 or 2 a week now, and those usually don't pan out unfortunately. Thinking about it our best applications came in when we were doing fun stuff for the entire realm and we will probably get back into this for recruitment reasons. A few really good members of ours actually transferred servers to join us after being a part of our 5 man dungeon PuGs which is pretty amazing.
shawn Mar 28th 2011 2:37PM
as a GM who is taking over from another GM, this is all good advice, very well written, thanks!
alieria Mar 28th 2011 2:48PM
You may not "need" a specific class/role for *your* guild, but I can tell you that in 25H modes, you do need specific classes. Working on H-Twins (as recently as a few weeks ago) and don't have 2+ sub rogues? Try again next week. H-Magmaw or H-Conclave with no frost DK? Have fun. DPS makeup, at least, is somewhat homogenized (you need a balance of ranged and melee and you need a half dozen capable AOE classes), but healing makeup is far from it.
Sunaseni Mar 28th 2011 3:56PM
If you're doing hard modes, you are in a strong enough position where you CAN be picky.
If you can't be picky... Let's just say hard modes are a lesser priority than getting into the raids at all.
Neirin Mar 28th 2011 2:58PM
More useful that classes you need might be classes you don't need. My 10 man group used to run with 4 priests. We got stuff done, but it was hard to get all of them gear and we certainly missed out on some buffs. Now we're a 25 man group that sometimes runs with 7 priests. Still not exactly ideal because of loot distribution, but we manage to cover all buffs except for the 3% dmg increase because we have 0 arc mages, ret paladins, or BM hunters for some bizarre reason (I think that's all the specs that can provide it).
Obviously, my guild is recruiting people that can provide that buff. Rather than recruiting a class it's recruiting a buff.
Ani Mar 28th 2011 3:33PM
As a person looking for a guild, it would be helpful if there was a place with a sortable list of key items like raid times, classes needed, style of guild, etc. across all the servers.
I dream of a guild who raids on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a 7pm start time (6:30 prep), that would be willing to take in a mage (Horde preferred to reduce switching costs). This magical guild would be mature and easy going, but not flakey. They would like to get together on non-raid days to explore old content, do guild achievements and help other guildies. Perhaps it is a pipe dream...
sarah Mar 28th 2011 7:20PM
Ani - our guild almost perfectly matches your dreams. It's Oceanic though, though I suspect the time zone is wrong. My point is, they are out there. Good luck finding one!
Scard Mar 28th 2011 7:52PM
As I understand it, this is exactly how the new LFGuild tool will work come patch 4.1. Guilds will be able to post these types of details for people who are looking for guilds. Much more effective than what we have now.
Galestrom Mar 28th 2011 3:48PM
The perks and such are nice, but I have to agree; they're secondary. We're a level 22 guild, however what sets us apart has nothing to do with any in game benefit, and everything to do with the agreement we make before we even begin playing together -- our code.
This code states that we do not take things personally, we talk about failure (not to make folks feel bad, but to quell repeat mistakes -- a potent source for drama), we're courteous, friendly, helpful and respectful, we're participants -- not just spectators, and we generally know how to follow directions. Beyond our raid requirements, these are our only hard rules; and they allude to a drama-free, laid back environment focused on little more than enjoying the game we love.
Seems basic, but this code seems to set us apart; and it's been incredibly fun watching it come together. I don't think there's a person among us that doesn't fully recognize the guild as being one of the best we've ever been part of -- and that makes recruiting that much easier.
It's a given that people want to play the game with others. Find what sets you apart as a guild, and recruit on that. Playing with those who appreciate your environment is an epic, highly rewarding experience.