Your Men Need Reassurance

by Matt Mattson

Hi there, fraternity recruitment chairs! You’re about to start another semester and you’re wondering what is the one thing you can do to make an impact on your chapter’s recruitment success. I got you.

First of all, I’ll warn you. This might be a sensitive subject with some of your brothers, so don’t just go sharing this post with them. Be gentle.

Here’s one big thing you can do to make an impact on your recruitment success this semester. Your guys need reassurance. Not about the recruitment process, or that you planned the right events, or that you have the best social media plan. They need reassurance about themselves.

Your brothers, like most guys, get a little nervous (secretly) about making new guy friends. It’s normal. They don’t talk about it, but it’s happening. And when they get nervous, they start acting weird. They start behaving in ways that are more about impressing each other than they are about connecting with potential members. Their goal becomes “making their brothers laugh”, not “making prospects comfortable.” They try too hard or too little. They do anything they can to not look “uncool.”

And this is all at its worst DURING RECRUITMENT.

You know the goal of recruitment is real, meaningful, connection with the best potential members. But your brothers will forget that. They’ll feel insecure, inauthentic, and will act inappropriately.

They need reassurance. They need the pressure to be taken off. If they think their job is to “recruit,” they’ll act like either shady used car salesmen or crappy frat dudes, and nowhere close to who they really are. If they think they have to be “impressive,” they’ll try to do that with the dumbest ideas they can come up with, not because they’re dumb guys, but because they’re desperately flailing for ways to not screw up.

Tell your guys, over and over, that their whole job is to be CURIOUS, GENEROUS, and AUTHENTIC. Tell them they don’t have to recruit, they just have to demonstrate brotherhood toward the potential members. Tell them that high quality people are attracted to high quality people, so just be “the best version of you” during recruitment. Tell your guys that their job is not to impress the potential members, but to connect with them — in real ways, about real stuff.

Reassure your men. They act like “they got this,” but they don’t. They’re normal guys who get as uncomfortable during recruitment as anyone else. Prepare confident, caring, relaxed brothers who show who they really are during recruitment, and the results will speak for themselves.