Guild Wars 2

So I want to get a sense on where the community stands on this before I try anything. The questions are this (Anyone can answer, but guild leaders responses preferred)

- Is there a demand for guild recruiters?

- Are guilds willing to pay for recruiters finding quality people?

- [This one is targeted towards guild leaders] Would outsourcing your guild
recruiting allow you to focus more on your guild content, especially if you knew the recruiter can get you [X] amount of good players in a certain demographic or player type within a certain time consistently? Would it be worth the cost?

That’s all for now, depending on the responses I might have more questions but your opinions will influence whether or not I want to drive into a pet project I’ve been planning. Thanks

No, to every single question you asked.

Never even heard of this before as something that’s done.

Generally people either advertise in map chat or invite people they’ve met and spoken to.

I think that you’re going to have to illustrate what you can do for guild leaders/officers that’s better than the free advertising they get from their guild members.
Let me offer that I please don’t want you to do anything that will increase guild recruit spam in map chat. I really wish they’d put that stuff on a guild recruiting bulletin board in every major city. With a crier broadcasting it in a very short-range local chat right outside the guild HQ in Lion’s Arch. (Which is the only place it would ever appear in chat.)

@Tapioca Thanks for taking the time to respond

@Bruno Yeah, I thought of the idea back when I was running my own guild. I was good at recruiting but it took up all of my time. I figured that this would be a way for small guilds to grow without taking time away from developing the guild, that it would grow at a constant rate even if they’re not on at the moment. Both methods are the traditional ways but as I said, depending on your goals, it’s time consuming and it’s time you can spend on guild development or game play. Thanks for the reply!

You could always give it a try. Just because it’s not in game doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for it. It might be more lack of anyone trying to do this than lack of need, though I’m not sure how it could be paid for or how well it might be received if some guild members were thought of as “bought” by guild funds.

@Elden I agree, I’ve never been a fan of map plugs either. Word of mouth in marketing is the most powerful but not reliable. Of course you have organic marketing which would be the free advertising you are talking about, but also what I was thinking was something along the lines of “I’ll give you [X] amount of recruits a month/week/day and in return, when the job is done and you feel like they’re quality people, you pay me [Y].” If you combine the two together, you get a powerful and more reliable mix and once the guild engages their member base enough, then the job is done and they’ll have a working system in place were that free advertising becomes more consistent and we move on to the next guild who needs the help.

@Bruno Great question! I was thinking setting a quota based on where they want to be in the next few month and set a price based off of variables like current guild size, what they budget for, how specific the group is. As for the buying part, I feel that the time freed up from recruiting goes into getting to know who joins. Like for example lets say I’m a pvp guild wanting more of people playing [X] class well, I tell the recruiter I want that type of person and when those type of people start rolling in I can start doing runs with them to feel out the fit, if it’s what I was looking for. If so, great! welcome to the team! If not, I tell the recruiter to readjust the type I would want.

Also bear in mind this is something that is more of a convenience and a service. More of an independent contractor relationship trying to bring together like minded people and placing them where they will feel that they will fit in the most of the vast sea of guilds out there big and small.

I’ll give you [X] amount of recruits a month/week/day and in return, when the job is done and you feel like they’re quality people, you pay me [Y].”

To be blunt, I can’t see this part as causing anything but trouble for you. It’s too subjective. What is a quality person and how would it be determined? If you get 10 recruits for a guild and the guild leader later refuses to pay, saying they aren’t quality people, then you’re out of time and gold. It would have to be gold upon acceptance into the guild.

Except that in game, there is no legal system in place to guarantee contractual obligations. No review of your actions to say that in fact you performed your end of the contract or that you didn’t. And of course, no way for either party to obtain restitution should the other fail to meet their obligations. Because ultimately if you give someone gold in game, it’s theirs…whether or not they earned it or did what they promised.

In answer to your questions, no…to all of them.

@Bruno It would have to be in good faith. Trust on both ends, which that point I can see where things can go south, as in the recruiter misinterprets what is needed, guild doesn’t tell the recruiters, then at the end of the time period they say “oh btw all these guys suck we’re not paying you jack, kitten off”. That’s one of my concerns and why I’m asking the public.

@Necrotic again as mentioned above I think it’s about dealings in good faith more than anything. The recruiters building an honest reputation even if that means taking in revenue in the form of accounts receivables after the job is done. As for performance tracking, seeing what is done is easy, a guild has access to a backlog of every person who joins and leaves and who shot off the invite. What I’d think would work would be an established relationship with the leaders and officers so that they can send the invite so it doesn’t run this risk that a recruiter would go into a roster, get rank control, then start deleting people below the rank where the recruiter is.

Just also wanted to thank everyone for their involvement in the thread. Most of you expanded on why you responded the way you did and I love that, it’s what I’m looking for. My objective isn’t to have everyone agree with any questions, but to see if this is even something that would work logistically and would be beneficial to the community at large. Please keep replying I look foreward to doing some more refining on what we have so far.

So a few more questions. I took some time and thought about it a bit more and here’s what I’d like to ask.

- [making the assumption that a guild need more members, is willing to pay, and wants to focus on other topics in their guild’s growth] do you think it would be better to take a part of the payment in the beginning between 20-50% (retainer fee) of the quote agreed upon or better to pay every week as members are invited and actively stay for the whole duration of the week?

- Does it make sense to create 2 ranks below the standard member (recruiter and recruits) where new members are more or less in a waiting room rank below the recruiter to be approved by an officer or leader to a standard member rank (Vetting the selections into the guild).

- If yes, in your opinion would this be a fair measure of performance? Can you think of a better solution if no?

Thanks again guys, you’ve been good to me so far and again I love that! I can’t wait to read the replies after I’m done with class today.

I suppose there are always people out there that would find it easier to have someone else do the leg work for them. I don’t think asking for partial payment up front is a bad thing, but a lot of people probably aren’t going to be gung-ho about it. Suspicious group that we are, too easy to get scammed.

Personally, I don’t see how someone would find this ‘helpful,’ but then again, part of my vetting process is typically very hands on (ie actually playing with the person and letting them get to know me as I get to know them). The ones that I’ve taken a more laid back, ‘typical’ recruiting approach with don’t stay for more than like 48 hours. shrug

I think the OP needs to realize that this is a service that the employer doesn’t know they need. Rather than asking in the forums, I suggest that the OP

• Find a guild of middle size that is obviously attempting to recruit.
• Offer their services to them on a contingency basis, with minor payment to reach recruiting targets and major payment for recruits that become full members and remain for at least a month.
• After successfully doing this a couple of times, the OP will have strong references from actual clients, who will be (or at least should be) happy to recommend the OP to other guilds.

Crampz.9120:

- Is there a demand for guild recruiters?

Of course not, I doubt that more than 5 people reading this know what this would mean.

Crampz.9120:

- Are guilds willing to pay for recruiters finding quality people?

Again, of course not — most guilds think they can get this for free and/or are doing fine on their own. In some cases (some of them even accurately), GLs think that recruiting is a key component to a healthy guild, since it gives the leadership a chance to develop a connection to a recruit before they join.

Crampz.9120:

- [This one is targeted towards guild leaders] Would outsourcing your guild
recruiting allow you to focus more on your guild content — [w]ould it be worth the cost?

Again, of course not — the vast majority of GL/officers can’t imagine how their jobs would be different if they “hired” a quality guild recruiter.

Incidentally, if all the OP is offering is to write recruitment advertisements and publish them in various maps, I doubt if their service will have long-term value. There’s no question that most guilds that spam /map would do better with better adverts. However, the GLs that understand this already know to write more creatively; the ones that spam boring adverts are unlikely to see the issue.

tl;dr there is a needed “matchmaking” service, but it’s not one that anyone is going to be able to offer for coin on any sort of regular basis. Those that need it the most won’t see the value.

As a guild leader, I can honestly say i don’t see any demand for outsourcing recruitment.

It’s not at all time intensive, and having the ability to do it internally is paramount to the stability of a guild of any size, as you’re often going to find yourself needing to fill ranks as people drift away, have real life obligations, or otherwise don’t remain as active as they once were.

I also find it extremely important to pace recruitment, and having a bunch of new people end up in the guild too fast runs the risk of those members not being given a chance to effectively integrate with the existing population, which causes all kinds of headaches in terms of people forming cliques and general guild drama developing.

When you pace recruitment out and give each recruit time to settle and integrate before actively seeking others, your guild tends to remain stable, friendly, and an easy place for your members to get along and find guildmates to help them with their goals.

making recruitin more rapid, in my experience, is actually detrimental to the long term health of any guilds. Any time in the past where I’ve rapidly added more than a few members to a guild in a week, in any game, that guild quickly collapsed or became unmanagable.