It’s Never Too Early – Part III

July 16th, 2013

Over the past couple of weeks, I have offered suggestions on how maximizing the opportunities available to you over the summer to best prepare for your organization’s events and activities in the coming school year. Now that you have reached out to campus and community leaders to determine what resources are available, have begun working towards booking speakers, and are planning events, now is the time to consider recruitment.

Recruitment is another aspect of student organization that is underutilized. Striving to think of new, innovative ways of bringing students to your meetings and getting them to actively participate in your club is a vital step towards reaching your goals.

Recruitment

Extending your outreach to get others involved is a very important step in the development of your organization. There are many different ways you can work on recruiting over the summer months. While your direct recruiting cannot happen till your first “student fair,” a lot can be done digitally to foster excitement and interest.

Many organizations fail to keep active social media pages over the summer. This is the easiest way to maintain interest with your members. Certainly, you might not want to post or tweet as much as you would during the school year, but it makes your organization look like it is more than just a weekly meeting.

Next, beyond the active social media pages, now is the time to start considering new ways to get people to join your club. Students, particularly freshmen, will have lots of choices when they first get to campus, and you want to be sure to leave a great first impression. You should brainstorm with the other leaders in your group to think of handouts or things that can be offered to potential members. There are hundreds of items that can be found online and personalized with your name and logo at very low cost. Effective use of the free handout is a great way to ensure that when the student walks away from your table, they will remember you later on.

As stated earlier, recruitment is one of the most important aspects of your club, and successful recruitment can make an enormous difference with what you will be capable of doing throughout the year. A strong fall recruitment plan is also crucial; as students may find themselves preoccupied with too many other activities by the time spring comes. Planning now provides for the best opportunity for growth later.