Recruitment Strategies and Membership Retention

Having the ability to recruit new students to your organization is key to its success. There are so many different student groups at Yale – it is important that you distinguish yourself and employ proper recruitment strategies in order to grow your membership. Dwight Hall is always willing to help you in this process. If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to membership@dwighthall.org.

The product of research, experience, and conversations with other member groups, this guidance can help you come up with a plan for recruiting student members in the coming school year.

If you’d like to offer additional guidance to other groups, please let us know! 

General Advice for Member Group Leaders

Recruitment for student groups is unique because of the demographics and schedules you must accommodate for. Still, some of these more institutionalized approaches to recruitment might serve your organization and its long term recruitment goals.

• Recruitment should be an ongoing process.

Don’t just recruit at the beginning of the semester, but whenever possible. It is more beneficial to have a few highly engaged members who join the organization mid semester than a large but unresponsive panlist.

• Develop a recruitment strategy

Discuss recruitment with your membership and ask them what compelled them to join the organization in the first place. Set goals and make plans for recruitment throughout the semester. It won’t happen unless you intentionally set forth to recruit people.

• Delegate a role to thinking about recruitment

This outlines recruitment as an ongoing goal of your organization and increase accountability for your recruitment plan.

• Solidify what makes your member group unique 

By solidifying your mission and the elements that make your member group unique, you are better able to distinguish yourself among the many groups that are trying to recruit students.