Do's and Dont's of recruiting for dummies

I'd like to offer some common sense for those who are new, or whom could use it for bettering your recruiting ability whilst still maintaining a decent reputation for your faction.

I've facepalmed so many times over watching some guilds at it, let's just sit back and take it step by step.


Chapter 1. Advertising.
Before you go spamming all the chats with your recruiting advertisments, you need to consider a few things.

1. Who are you.

What does your guild do? Perhaps you're merely a PvE guild, simply looking for friends or a tight nit "family" type atmosphere to help each other and enjoy the game.

Maybe you're all hardcore killers, jumping at the first chance to take a kill, joining in dragon temple every week and territory war to boost your egos.
Whatever it is you do, you need to know this so you can advertise it directly to people who are like minded.

2. What makes your guild so great that people will join?

What's different about yours compared to all the others who advertise the same thing? Remember that recruiting is like advertising, you've got to really sell yourselves. And no, cookies don't count. Everyone has them.

3. What are your goals/direction?

Is your guild set for long term total map domination, just trying out some territory war for fun, or are you all PvE focused, focusing on twilight temple, Frost and FBs. You need to include this in your advertising.

4. What are your rules/ethics/morals?

Even if there's only a couple, (There are no rules, which is fast track to failure) you need to desigin some sort of ethos for your guild to base their actions and decisions on during gameplay.

This is extremely important, and it will affect non-member's opinion of you, your sever wide reputation and your officer's course of action for discipline.
Generally, your rules should match what kind of guild you are.

Say for example, a PvP guild who values their good reputation may want to put a level range on players they can kill, making it so their opponents have a chance to fight back. Most guilds will always have rules regarding kill stealing, molds in instances, drop stealing ect.

Chapter 2. Recruiting.

1. Like minded people.

Now that you've estalished your guild's identity, goals, morals and the ideal community you're after, you need to seek out like minded people.

If you choose to recruit via worldchat, remember some of the PMs are going to come from people you potentially don't want, or could cause you drama in your guild. Advertising who you are is the first step to eliminating those you don't want, but you also need to filter them further.

It may sound a little harsh, but a little drama can cause huge problems. Don't be afraid to say no or kick people. Create a chat room with some other officers and members, and invite people who are interested in your guild to that room. Talk to them and answer their questions about you, to see whether they'd fit in with you.

If they don't ask questions, and keep begging to join, it's not always such a good idea to let them in. I've found that most will simply use your help and turn out to be disloyal.

2. Do not want.

Through your travels, you may come across some people that are fairly high levelled, but not in factions. It may strike you as strange, but the general understanding is that "Anyone who is 60+ and not in a guild, does not want one."

You'll more than likley get rejected if you send them an invite without saying a word, and they find it annoying too.

3. Forums.

Well, I may aswell just include this part, even though not everyone uses the forums, a fair majority still do. Some only visit this section of the forums to find/recruit for guilds.

A forum post recruiting for your guild will stay static (so long as you keep it updated) and allow you to completly detail yourselves unlike world chat. It even stays there when you're offline too. Remember to use them.

4. English, please.

Alot of people don't respond well to "1337" (leet) speak and weirdly butchered english such as "rec member xx+ msut b actve we do xx, xx , xx , xx pm mi"

Especially those who aren't fluent in english won't know what on earth you're saying.

5. Detail it, don't cut it.

Even if it requires two worldchats, get a faction mate to type out what needs to be said straight after you. Get your message across in plain english, fully explaining who you are, what you are, and what you do. People won't join you if they don't know these fundamental things, and most important of all, include your guild name!!

World chats may be expensive, but so is levelling a guild. You need to be prepared for the cost of your guild. It takes time, effort and a fair whack of coin to become a fully fledged, operational guild.

Chapter 3. Positions and merges.

Mergers are extremely tricky and in my honest opinion, it's best not to do them at all if possible. The general consensus is that the leader or director even other officers will demmand some sort of standing or position in your guild that they merge to.

This can upset the balance in your own guild of your members having to suddenly report to different officers they don't know and don't trust, and the members who worked hard to earn their positions in your guild will feel offended and neglected. This is a one way ticket to a chain of drama usually resulting in older members leaving one after another as their friends go.

On the other hand, a merge more than likley won't happen if the other guild realises they can't obtain any positions. Even if your two guilds have similar values and goals, some things are always done differently and these are quick to clash on mergers.

Never ever never ever recruit for, or promise positions to people you don't know. Nor is it smart to place level restrictions. A level 20 could be the wisest and most suited for a marshal position in your faction, but some level 60 who thinks he's leet 'cause he's got cookies and clothes could be in it instead making terrible decisions and further ruining disputes between your members.

People you don't know or trust in officer positions can potentially be the weapon of mass destruction that nukes your guild.

Chapter 4. Do it and Don't it.

Don't - Spam people with invites. It's considered as harassment, no one likes it.

Do- Take no for an answer. If they don't want to join you, and they've made that clear, suck it up and move on. Begging them/ continuing recruiting will only make them annoyed and most likley they'll blacklist you.

Don't- Spam world chat constantly with recruiting. Space it out, it'll cost you less and people won't yell at you.

Do- Go out of your way to help people whether it's a quest, some extra mobs in an FB or whatever. People will appreciate it and remember your name. Remember that whatever positive or negative things your members do, it affects your guild's reputation.

Don't- Promise positions as an incentive for people to join. Positions require responsibility that comes with the power, you must only give these positions to people that you trust to be mature.


Do- Tread carefully. Just to save you the embarassment, assume that people you chat to about joining know everything about the game. Alot of people these days are 90+ with low level alts. If they're new, it'll be ovious.

**Don't- "JOIN OUR FAMILY". The guild members that you really want (ie: Serious members who are looking for a good guild and will stay there for a while) will want info on your guild, and not just "WE ARE A FAMILY!". I mean yeah, there are "tight nit family factions" but those factions are factions that dont spam world chat so random strangers can join a family. -StormHydra.

Don't- tell them to join you, explain why they should.
If someone pmed you saying "join us" and that's all... would you? I wouldn't. Why should I?
You didn't even tell me what your guild name was.

This is all for now but i'll update this when I can think of more, or if anyone would like to add some input, i'll credit you for it .