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How to Recruit: A Guide for the New Recruiter 2.0
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NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#1 - 2014-05-25 18:54:07 UTC  |  Edited by: NightCrawler 85
This guide will contain tips for a person who is either new to the role of recruiter or would like to learn new tips on finding, evaluating and interviewing potential new members for their corporation ("corp"). Needless to say the two guides will have quite a bit in common.

If you are a recruit looking to join a corporation i would suggest that you read the "How to find the corp that is right for you" guide.

How to find a recruit.

First and foremost, your potential new member needs to know that a corporation meeting their interest is recruiting. There are a number of ways to get your message to them.

1. The recruitment channel.

To join this channel, open the channel window (the "speech bubble" icon at the top of your chat window), go to Corporate (second from top) and join the appropriate channel for your corp's main language. At this moment you can choose between English, Russian, German and Japanese.

Please note that I can only speak about how things are in the English recruitment channel, so it might be different in the other ones.

Depending on the time of day, the Recruitment channel can be very active. You'll find a mix of new and old players looking for a corp, as well as recruiters advertising their corp. So were do you start? Think like a recruit!

Start by making your life easier by blocking the excessively "spammy" advertisements. Once the channel is moving at a more normal place, you have three choices.

a) Post your own advertisement. I suggest that you wait about 15 minutes between each time you post the advertisement itself.
b) Wait and see if someone advertises that they are looking to join a corp, and strike up a conversation with them.
c) Try to start a conversation in the channel and get (hopefully good) attention to yourself this way.

I would advise that you to keep any sensitive information about yourself and your corp out of this channel. Save the details for a private conversation with the potential recruit.

Things to keep in mind :

The advertisement you can post in a chat have to be pretty short due to the character limit (about 253 characters). I would advise you to make a short message that states something about your corp and then include a link to further information, such as your recruitment post on the forums or your recruitment page on your web site (if you have one). Making the advertisement stand out a bit is a good idea but don't attempt to be too clever. Different players use different screen widths and the more creative you are, the more likely something will come out messy, strange or simply annoying.

If you are concerned that your activities will earn you unwanted attention, you may want to consider other means of recruiting. There are people out there that will look for "rich" or "undefended" corps and attempt to install spies for nefarious deeds.

2. The recruitment section on the official Eve forums.

Once your corp has a good steady member base, I would advice you to use the recruitment section of the official Eve forums as your primary method of recruiting.

The recruitment forum has some rules you have to keep in mind. The biggest rule is that you are not allowed to bump your own post more then once every 24 hours. This also includes having other people bump it for you, or using alts to bump it. Please note that the 24 hour rule does not mean that you have to wait exactly 24 hours before you bump it. Say that you bump your post at 23.00 EVE time on Saturday, you can bump it again at 07.00 EVE time on Sunday. Essentially, as long as the date has changed you will be fine.

I would recommend that you bump your post during the timezone you are recruiting for - if you are looking for EU players bump it around the morning time for EU, if you want US bump it during that time, and if you want AU bump it during their prime time. If you have members from all over and want to change the time just don't bump the post for a day and bump it at the new timezone you want the next day.

So, what do you post? What will your advertisement show potential new members? This is a fun question and the answers change from person to person and from corp to corp. Here you have a lot more room to play with and you can either make it a wall of text (I'm a fan of the walls of text myself ) or a shorter, very clean, straight to the case advert. Think about the mentality of the members you want to recruit and what you are looking for in a member.

Again I would advise that you try to make your advert stand out a bit. Don't make it too shallow or cold, but don't try to be too clever. Strike a balance between giving enough information to let a recruit know that your corp might be the one he or she is looking for, without giving away sensitive or unnecessary information about yourself or your corp.

So what should be included? Again, think like a recruit!

Suggestions (not all will be necessary or relevant) :
Corporation activities.
Type of area the corp operates in.
Skill point requirement.
Voice chat requirement.
Language requirement.
Timezone requirement.
Any ISK requirement.
Public channel (Note: if you don't have one by now you should!)
Preferred ways of contacting the recruiter.
Any other requirement that a recruit might not meet.

The goal is to not waste the recruit's time or your own time.

1/5

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#2 - 2014-05-25 18:54:18 UTC  |  Edited by: NightCrawler 85
3. The in-game recruitment tool.

This is a very passive way to recruit. There is a small cost (in ISK) to maintain the advertisement and I would advice you to keep it up at all times when recruitment is open.

You can create an advertisement by going to the Corporation tab, Recruitment, Corporation Ads, Create Advert. From here you will be able to specify what you do as a corp, what timezone your recruiting for, were you operate and similar.

This tool is very handy but it is very important that you are honest and do not misrepresent your corp! Just because you have one member that does incusions once in a while it does not mean that your corp does them, and just because you have one PVP'er it does not make you a PVP corp. Remember, the recruit will contact you based on what they think you do from the advertisement, and you're wasting both your time and the recruit's time by being dishonest. If there are things your corp wants to do you can advertise that you do them, but let the recruit know that its something you are trying to get up and running.

Due to all the options you won't need to cover much in your description, but for the creative writers out there you will have about 1000 letters to put into your advertisement. This should be enough for some details. Remember to list your recruiter(s), and please make sure your recruiter(s) are aware over the fact that they are listed as such. Don't forget to include a link to your forum post!

Those are the 3 main ways to find a recruit, but of course there are other less obvious ways! I hope you did not think that recruitment is easy! Lol

Possible other methods for recruitment :

- If you are looking for new players, stay in starter and/or new player tutorial systems. Offer advice and help to new players, get to know them a bit and if it seems appropriate extend an invitation to join your corp.
- Join the channel "Unemployment" and be sure to read the MOTD first.
- Be active on the EVE forums and leave a link to your recruitment post in your signature.
- Actively read the recruitment section of the forums and post your advert in threads were you think the player will be interested in joining your corp. Try to avoid "copy pasting" reply adverts in every single "Looking for corp" ad you see, as this makes you look lazy and careless about who joins. Be sure to read the advert first!
- If you are a corp that works with newer players, get your name listed on the EVElopedia, Educational organizations.
- Get to know people! Don't be afraid to talk in local, random public channels, or strike up a conversation with that random person that accidentally convo'd you when they really wanted to show info on you. You never know what will happen.
- Post your advert in local as you travel. Personally I don't approve of this, but this is a personal preference.
- Ask your current members to extend invitations to friends they have in the game that they feel will be a good fit for the corporation. (thanks goes to Vera Algert)

Alternate recruitment forums (Please note that I am not advocating their use, nor am I familiar with their rules)

EVE University Work Fair - http://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=67995
Kugutsumen - The Eve Online Section - EVE Online Uncensored - Recruitment Forum
Failheap Challenge - EVE Online - Recruitment

Special notes.

1) Having a third party do the recruitment for you.

For some corporations this method might work, and it might save you a lot of time, but in general i would strongly advice against it because of the risks involved.
- By letting a third party do the recruiting, API check and interview on your behalf you run the risk of accepting members that are really the third party's alts or friends, that are joining with the intention of awoxing or stealing from your corporation.
- This method also means that you have never really had any face time with the recruit, which means that there is no way you can know if the recruit has a good personality or can get along with the corp as a whole.

Please do not confuse this with referrals from friends and similar, this is a recruitment service, thus very different.

Thank you goes to "Anonymous" for pointing out this particular recruitment method to me.

2) Merges

A merge between two corporations can either go extremely well, or really bad. I would not advice you to merge with a random corporation (no matter how tempting the member boost is). A sudden high influx of new players into an already established group can create a lot of drama and tension between both your new and current members.
However, sometimes its worth taking the risk, but talk to all the members the people that would be joining. In general i would say that if your going to reject one of them, you should reject all and instead offer the people you like to join individually.
The "best" merges would be with corporations you have worked with for a while, that way you know their members, and you know that the two groups work well together.

*This is just my personal preferences. You and your leadership need to discuss these things between your self and decide what you feel comfortable with as a corp.

3) Recruiting for FW corporations.
EVEFactionWarfareDotCom is a site that will help recruits that are looking for corporations that are involved in FW. If you are a FW corp this is a site that has been recommended to be in the past.

2/5

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#3 - 2014-05-25 18:55:03 UTC  |  Edited by: NightCrawler 85
4) Recruitment for RP corporations. (thanks goes to "anonymous")
The Backstage forums has their own section where recruiters and recruits can post their adverts. Please make sure you read over the rules before posting.

What to do when someone contacts you about joining the corp.

A) The background check

This will be as thorough or as streamlined as you want, depending on the needs of your corporation.

1) Look at the character's age. If you are not interested in having a new player join your corp, a player who has been in EVE for 2 days is not exactly something you are interested in. Bear in mind that the person might be using an alt while going trough the interviews (do not promise a membership until you know who the player's main character).

2) Look up the character's employment history. If they have bounced in and out of corporations and you get a bad feeling when the recruit explains why their history is so extensive, try to contact the previous corp(s) CEO or diplomats and ask about the person in question. Depending on your level of paranoia this can be a good thing to do no matter what.

3) Check the person's forum history. While this may not turn up information (especially for newer players) in some cases you might find that the person has a bad attitude normally and is not acting like their usual self around you, that the character was bought or if the person has a history that they did not previously disclose (thievery, awoxing and so forth). You may find Eve Search useful for this task as it provides a great deal of flexibility with your search terms.

A quick note on bought characters. As long as the transaction is performed within CCP's policies then it is not a violation of the game rules. However, "where did the ISK come from to buy this character" and "Is this character/alt also joining" are perfectly valid questions for a recruiter to ask.

4) Check their killboard. Yes, even for industrial characters who state that they never PvP.

Look for questionable kills. If they have kills against their own corp members, you may be looking at an awoxer. If they have losses in shuttles/rookie ships with dozens of PLEXes in the hold, you may be looking at an ISK launderer.

On a more routine note, look at their kills to see who they have flown with in the past. Look at their losses to see if the circumstances match up with their own ability and history.

5) Look them up on EVE Who - In some cases people will leave comments (bad or good) about a person as a warning to future recruiters. Since there is no moderation, take any information from this or any other third party site with a grain of salt.

6) Eve Skunk (Thank you goes to "anonymous" for this addition)
Eve Skunk is can come in handy for recruits and recruiters alike.
Trough this site you will be able to read alliance mails and see a alliance's standings. If a recruit has done something to cause issues within the alliance/corp there is a big chance they would have sent a mail about it to inform its membership, and set standings towards that person.
Please note that not every alliance can be found on there, but its worth checking just in case.

7) EveLocal
Just like Eve Skunk this is one of those places were you might find something, so its good to check on the off chance.
In this case you would be more likely to find the random smack talk from a recruit in Jita local, but since people like to brag you might find that the recruit is sitting telling people about their latest theft, posting scams, or just shows a really bad attitude that is hidden from you during the interview.

8) EVE Spies
EVE Spies is a site where people can report a player that has done something "naughty" such as awoxing or robbing them blind. In order to get a person listed on this site proof is required, thus there is less chance that the person in question has been falsely accused of said crime. As usual, there might be exceptions.

9) AWOX Killboard
Of course there are times when corp members are playing around and one of them "forgets" to deactivate their guns before the other person explodes, but this site can make it easier for you to see if your recruit has been involved in corp on corp kills.

10) If these basic questions check out to your satisfaction, you can check their details provided by an API key. How much information you want is up to you, but I would advise you to look at the basics such as ISK, skillpoint (SP) and implants. Be aware that if the person has a wallet that is negative (as in, the character's ISK balance is less than zero) this typically means that the character was caught doing something naughty like buying ISK with cash (outside of CCP's sanction). Accept this player if you and your leadership feel ok with doing so.

If your potential recruit is a "brand new player" with some really nice and shiny implants and a wallet that is way above what you expect from a new player, ask more questions. It is possible its just someone who bought a load of PLEX, they had a friend that already plays help them out (who?) or your recruit is someone pretending to be a new player and they sent ISK from their main.

Potential programs to check a recruits API key.

EVEMon
API checker (thanks goes to Dyvim Slorm)

3/5

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#4 - 2014-05-25 18:55:54 UTC  |  Edited by: NightCrawler 85
One last note about background checking. Keep in mind that anyone can make a claim about another person. Even if you see one person saying that the recruit is bad or did something wrong, it does not mean its true. Talk to the recruit and make your own judgment. I would also like to add in that even if a recruit has a "shady" history, it is possible that they have changed their ways and just need someone to give them a chance to prove themself.

B) The actual interview

Now that you've looked over the character's background (and perhaps made a note or two on particular questions you would like to ask), let's move on to the "face to face" interview.

I'm writing this with the assumption that your corp does not have a webpage form or similar that needs to get filled out answering the basic questions. Personally, I prefer to not jump straight into "recruitment mode" but instead start off with some small talk, just checking how the recruit responds and to get an idea of how he/she talks. I want to know what kind of person I'm dealing with and if they would fit in well with the corp. But others might find it easier to skip the whole introduction and small talk and get straight to it. This is up to you as a recruiter to decide.
Please also note that some recruits might be nervous, not knowing what to expect. Do your best to make the recruit relax and "be themselves". This makes the recruitment process a lot more enjoyable for the both of you.

Here are some basic questions you should ask. This is definitely not a complete list.

1) How did you find the corp?
2) Why are you interested in joining?
3) What in particular stood out with this corp compared to others?
4) What do you want to achieve as an Eve player? As a member of the corp?
5) What do you expect from the corp?
6) If the recruit was referred to you by someone else, ask them why they were sent to you.

Try to stay polite. I am fully aware that this is not always possible, and in some cases you have the right to be directly rude if someone is being difficult or unreasonable, but do your best. Keep in mind that nothing is stopping this person from making a very angry forum thread about you and your corp if they feel that their recruitment experience was not what they wanted.

If possible, try to have the recruit interact with other members in your corp. This could be as simple as an invitation to "hang out" in a public channel with other members of your corp or as complex as a trial run in a corporation activity. If they simply can't get along after having spent an hour in the same channel/activity, they won't be a good fit for your particular corporation.

If you and the leadership is comfortable with it, let the person join your corporations TS/Vent/Mumble sever. Someone might seem great over text, but once they loose the ability to reread and really consider their answers and change it five times before hitting that enter button you might find that they are quite different from how they portrayed them self in chat.

Never lie to a recruit. If you are not in 0.0, don't tell the recruit you are. If you don't have operations in a certain timezone, don't tell them you do. Of course you can make the truth sound more attractive, but straight out lying won't do either one of you any good in the long run and it will earn you a reputation of dishonesty.

Follow your gut feeling.
If you have a bad feeling about a recruit, do not recruit them! If you are worried that your just being to paranoid, have another recruiter talk to the person in question.
Of course this means that sometimes you will turn down someone who could have been an excellent addition to your corporation, but as the saying goes, better safe then sorry.

Turning down a recruit.

This part is rarely fun (for the recruiter or the recruit) but it will happen to you at some point. If you never turn down a recruit you should question if you're really lucky... or maybe you are missing something and you should become a bit more paranoid!

There are many reasons to turn down a recruit. Perhaps they don't seem to fit well with the corp, they don't have the appropriate SP/knowledge base, they have a bad attitude, they canott meet some of your corporation's requirements, or simply because that nagging voice in the back of your head is saying that something just seems wrong. No matter what reason you have, if a recruit does not seem right you will be doing both of you a favor by turning them down.

Here are some pointers to try and make this conversation as easy as possible for the both of you.

1) Stay polite as long as possible.
2) Be honest with the recruit. Tell them why you are turning them down.
3) If appropriate, offer advice on how to improve whatever made you turn them down.
4) Refer them to a more suitable corp, if you know any.
5) If the recruit simply refuses to accept "no" as an answer block them from future contact with you. If you have a public channel you can block them from that as well.
6) Respond to their threats/posturing/silliness with a smile. Don't let the recruit get a reaction from you that can be posted and used to make you and your corp look bad.
7) If the recruit demands to speak with someone higher up, well, this is up to you. If your CEO/diplomat is okay with this then go ahead and invite them to a conversation. Otherwise, politely let the recruit know that the CEO/diplomat does not have time to talk to every recruit that gets rejected.
8) Don't bother to try and fool the recruit by saying "It's Not You, It's Me" - it doesn't work when you break up with someone, and it doesn't work when your rejecting a recruit Blink

4/5

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#5 - 2014-05-25 18:56:41 UTC  |  Edited by: NightCrawler 85
Tips and tricks for the recruiter.

1) You might find that you recruit a lot of new members and it seems like they all leave. Don't let this discourage you. The numbers I normally give a new recruiter is that only 2 out of 5 recruits will stay around and active for more then 6 months. No matter how much research you do in the recruitment process there is no way to be 100% sure it's a good match.

2) I recommend creating a public channel for your corporation. You can fill the MOTD (Message of the Day) with useful links for new recruits as well as examples of your corporate "culture" - entertaining quotes, epic killmail links or whatever is appropriate for your corp. Make sure you have your recruiters and preferably the directors, diplomat and CEO in the channel.

This is not just handy for recruits, but also an easy way for other people to get in touch with your corporation's leadership as needed.

3) Turn off your CSPA charge. Yes it's a small amount, but it can be really annoying and some might simply choose not to contact you because of it. You can do this by going to your EVE mail, then settings.

4) I would advise against having someone else write your recruitment advertisement. If your character is the one posting the thread, you should be the one writing the advert. Potential recruits will notice on the different writing style and some will question how accurate the advert is when it's not written by the same person trying to recruit them.

5) "Buying recruits" by offering ISK, ships or similar upon joining. Personally I'm against this idea, but for some corporations it does work. Discuss it with your corporation's leadership.

6) Poaching, or the act of recruiting away new members from friendly corporations. While its a viable tactic in the recruitment world it's also a good way to get a bad reputation and to lose your friends. If you do engage in this activity, be very careful, especially from corporations/alliances that have mutual "blue" standings with you, as this can make your diplomat's job difficult.

7) Recruiting raises your public profile, and any form of recruitment or public advertisement can get you wardecced, listed as a potential target for corp theft and similar. This is a risk you have to accept.

8) In the event that you have more then one recruiter, and you are on different timezones and you turn down a recruit there is always the chance that the same recruit will just come back later and talk to different recruiter. Try to set up a system were its easy for recruiters to communicate with each other. If you have a forum i would advice that you use this since then the information can be saved and wont disappear and get forgotten among the rest of your EVE mails, and its easy to find the information again if needed.

9) Shamelessly stolen word for word from Radius Prime, thank you for letting me use this
Recruiting is pure people management and doesn't end when the new player gets in. That is where it starts. Make sure to involve the new player in the group, to take him out in fleets and ask for his thoughts (or his supervisors' thoughts on him) on the corp, the game and whether his expectations are met. When dealing with a total newb it might not be a bad idea to assign a wingmate/buddy vet to him to show him the ropes, talk to him and involve him in what the corp is doing.

10 ) Thanks goes to Veto Heraly for this one.
Use the API key to look for alts, contract history and mail. The contract history and mail can both help you discover if this is an alt, or help you look for anything "suspicious" that may or may not affect your decision on accepting the recruit

Special notes

1. Forum post made by Captain Meric. This post contains way to much information to actually include in the guide it self, but i would advice any recruiters to read over it.

5/5

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#6 - 2014-05-25 19:02:50 UTC  |  Edited by: NightCrawler 85
Conclusion.

Well there you have it, a step by step guide that will hopefully help you find victi...err players who will enjoy their time in your corporation Smile
I am sure there are recruitment tools I don't know about and I'm sure there is information here that should be expanded on, but this should put you off to a good start and hopefully a nice career as a corp recruiter Big smile

If you have information you would like to see added to this, please either post in this thread, or send me an evemail.
This time around i have left plenty of space for additions so space should no longer be an issue.
If you do not want your name mentioned in the post please make it clear that you wish to be anonymous. Thank you in advance!

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#7 - 2014-06-07 20:53:38 UTC
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#8 - 2014-06-20 06:55:06 UTC
Updated with information regarding RP corporations.

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#9 - 2014-06-20 19:04:53 UTC
cheers for this, ill actually pass it on to my old corp, they should find it rather helpful.

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
NightCrawler 85
Phoibe Enterprises
#10 - 2014-07-08 02:08:01 UTC
Another small update. EVE - Live seems to have been moved to EveLocal, thus link and name is now changed so it goes to the correct place.

Phoibe Enterprises

The Eve Reader -  Audio Recordings of Eve Chronicles
Shwartz Aideron
Why can't I play in peace
#11 - 2014-08-12 17:18:09 UTC
Outstanding job with this Nightcrawler; it's refreshing to see a well written thread that is purely designed to be helpful. This has answered several questions I had regarding my new recruiter position. I wish I could like it more than once!
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#12 - 2014-08-12 19:18:44 UTC
Shwartz Aideron wrote:
Outstanding job with this Nightcrawler; it's refreshing to see a well written thread that is purely designed to be helpful. This has answered several questions I had regarding my new recruiter position. I wish I could like it more than once!


You can, just like every single post of NC in this threadP

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