Recruiting With Alcohol Is Easy

by Paul Manly

Why do chapters use alcohol during recruitment? Because it’s easy.

Attracting young men to our fraternal organizations with alcohol and women is easy. That’s why it’s been happening for decades.  Chapter leaders often tell me that they’re fed up with their members that are “just here to party.” They’re tired of members that aren’t bought into the character development and philanthropic focus of the organization. Chapter leaders consistently complain about apathetic members who only show up to parties. There’s a way to fix that, you know…

Think about it this way. You apply for an internship at a big company. When you arrive, your interviewer greets you with a big smile and a handshake. He’s playing cards with a handful of employees at a conference table. The interviewer explains that the work environment is quite relaxed. Apparently, employees play tons of card games at the office every day.

You interview well, and you’re hired. During the training process, all employees and trainees are playing cards. The company trains you to be awesome at playing cards. You’re even asked to survey the company and learn from each individual employee what their favorite card game is.

You complete the training process and show up to the office on a Monday with a brand new deck of cards in your briefcase. Now imagine that your supervisor hosts a staff meeting for all employees and interns. He shares with the staff that he’s really upset and frustrated that everyone comes to work and just wants to play cards. It seems like unless some kind of card game is going on, the employees aren’t happy.  No work is getting done, and the company is failing.

Sound familiar?

If alcohol is a focal point of the recruitment and new member education process, then alcohol is a focal point of membership.  We can’t be upset when members only want to party if that’s the only value we could articulate during recruitment.

If you want your chapter to be about more than just parties, then illustrate that during recruitment.  As a chapter, develop a list of values; a list of things that your chapter values in its members. These don’t necessarily need to be your Fraternity’s official values, but they could be. Create descriptions for each value and coach your recruiters to talk about these ideals during recruitment.

If your chapter wants to recruit with alcohol, o.k. But if Fraternity and Sorority wants to grow up, we’re going to have to find the next generation high-quality leaders. I’m not confident that the people able to take Fraternity and Sorority to the next level join because of free beer.

Recruiting without alcohol is harder, I agree. But it’s worth it.