Guild Progression: Getting to Know You

Great! You've followed the advice earlier in the week and you've recruited people. You've formed your committee, you've asked the questions, you've answered questions. You've finally sent the /ginvite. Now what? I'm here to help.

You have a website for your guild right? Awesome. Get the new recruit signed up for the website right away. If there is an approval process, see if there's a guild member on who can kick that off. Getting them with a login/password to the website is critical at this point. I've been in too many guilds where the website isn't all that crucial. And thus new members don't often find out about the site right away or go there and find it under utilized. If you can make this your first official business with the new guy (or gal) you'll drive home the importance of using the site.

Hopefully your website is also just chock full of juicy tidbits and posts. If not, it might be a good idea to appoint some "seeders" who will go out and post some starter topics. Make them just a little bit controversial. Nothing gets a board moving like some debate. In addition to active boards you should have posts that are marked "sticky" somewhere near the top. Each post where it's relevant should include links. They should list things like required guild addons to the WoW client, required voice communication addons, special configurations for the addons, the IP address of your voice client, the password for anything that needs it, basically anything the new member needs to immediately become an active member of your guild.

In another section you should have a link to your guild charter. If you don't have a charter -- WRITE one. Stop what you're doing right now and go write it. I'll give you a few.

Done. Good. Somewhere close to that, you should list the officers and class leads (if you use them) in your guild. It's also a good idea to have a suggestion with consumables for raiding or instancing, who in the guild can make them, and who in the guild will make them for little or no money.

A buddy system for new recruits works wonderfully. Introduce them to their assigned buddy. If there's no one else available, you become the buddy by default. An introduction to the key guild people and his or her class lead can go very far at this point to making them feel welcome.

Ask if there are any questions again. Some have surely popped up.

On your end, you probably have some administrative work to do as well. If your guild uses officer notes or public notes in a particular way, set them up for the new guy.

If it makes sense and there's the right mix of folks on, organize an appropriate level instance run immediately. Nothing assimilates a new guy to your guild better than IMMEDIATELY driving home the point why he just switched guilds.

Most of this is common sense. Treat them like you would a guest in your home, and they'll soon feel at home in their new home.

Guild Progression: Filling out the ranks

It's time to expand your guild by recruiting. Maybe it is because you're finally ready to start raiding in Karazhan. Maybe it is because you've got Karazhan on farm and are ready to start ramping up to the 25-man raid instances. Maybe it's just because you can never find a tank (or a healer or a mage or a rogue or...)

Whatever the reason is, you need people. You need them now. But you don't just need a warm body. You need the right warm body.

There are a couple of things you can do to help.

1. Clearly define why you are recruiting. Do you need more healers? Do you need just more people? Is your goal to raid, pvp, instance, etc.?

2. Form a committee of your leaders who will be responsible for recruiting. It sucks to do recruiting all by yourself.

3. Write a list of questions which you will ask ALL potential applicants. Focus on things like other guild memberships, why they left their last guild, their goals in the game, their playing schedule. Keep in mind that recruiting someone who only wants to PVP when you're recruiting to fill a raiding schedule is not a good fit.

4. Be aware that the question "Why did you leave your last guild?" will most often lead to a skewed version of the actual events. Don't be afraid to ask clarifying questions. If they respond with, "I could never get a group" ask them to elaborate. You might follow up with "Were there just no other toons at your level?" or "How did you try to engage that guild in grouping with you?" I've seen people leave my guild saying they could never get a group. And I know for fact that they rarely said anything in guild chat about looking for a group.

5. Treat this like a job interview. Have potential members interviewed by several people. It is the best possible idea to include the class lead responsible for the potential member (if you guild uses class leads)

6. Be ready to answer questions. The interview is merely a dialogue-it should work both ways.

7. Especially ask interviewees if they have any objections to downloading guild required software (addons, voice communication, etc.)

8. Know when to stop the interview. By your third question, you probably have a pretty good idea about whether this person will "fit in." Don't be afraid to ask a few more clarifying questions, but when you've made up your mind, stop asking questions. If you've already decided "no" its a waste of your time. If you've already decided "yes" but continue the examination for 45 more minutes, the interviewee may have decided your guild is not for him.

9. Know when to stop recruiting. You should only recruit when you need to. If the need for tanks is filled, don't keep recruiting them. :o)

10. Take advantage of various means of getting the recruiting word out. Blizzard realm forums have recruiting sections. Wowinsider has a weekly column. Wowwiki has sections on recruiting. If you have a guild website, post the information there. And don't neglect the tried and true /lookingforguild spam.

Now. You've got a guild full of the right warm bodies. How do you integrate them into your guild? For that, tune in later.