Being part of a guild can be a great experience. It becomes a pool of people that help each other for running flashpoints-operations-PvP, crafting, grouping for questing, RP, and just general hanging out and being friendly. To that end, I am trying to offer guild leaders a palette of resources that they can choose to use (or not) to recruit in whatever ways they think are best.

1. Recruiting thread in the SWTOR forums.

http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=309

This is definitely the place to start. You guild should strongly consider posting a recruiting thread with your guild's name, your faction (so many forget this!), and your guild website.

In addition to name, faction, server, and website, these are the basic elements of a good guild recruiting post

• Guild focus (RP, raiding, PvP, socializing)
  
• General idea of what your guild does (overview, raiding, PvPers, etc.). This may be a guild mission statement summarizing what your guild does and how they do it.
  
• What kind of people you're looking for (adults, Mandarin-speakers, women only, experienced players only, etc.).
  
• What kind of characters you're looking for (which classes, roles, levels, or specs).
  
• What times your guild raids and what you have cleared so far (more important for raiding guild, less so for others).
  
• Whom to whisper in-game for information (probably better with a list of 2 - 5 characters from different players so you have broader coverage).
  
• Strictness of policies about salty language.
  
• Availability of VOIP, type of VOIP (Mumble, Raidcall, Vent, Teamspeak) and expected usage.
  
• Age limit or lack thereof.
  

The way your message is presented says something about you as the guild leader and about your guild. What image are you trying to project? Serious? Fun? Laid-back? Adult? Elitist? Professional? Silly?

Other non-message considerations include:

• Must be posted in the right place in the recruitment forums (it's stunning how many are not!)
  
• Must be honest (for instance non-family-friendly chat, as well as focus, number of people, accomplishments).
  
• Must have a clean layout and be easy to read.
  
• Must have proper grammar and punctuation. As a corollary, leet speek is right out if you're trying to appear to be professional, adult, or serious.
  
• Should be written with a TL;DR summary at the top or with the assumption that most people will only read the first three or four lines. All your critical information should be in those few lines.
  
• Don't waste people's time, should be as concise as appropriate
  

Keep updating your guild thread! Go back every week and post something meaningful about your guild. Perhaps a list of new people, characters who hit 50, or a wrap up of last weeks events and a listing of next weeks events. Some guilds post a lot of "we're awesome - join us!" messages with no content to keep their threads bumped to the top. Some people think this is good, others think it is just a lot of meaningless pixels - you'll have to make that decision for yourself as to whether quality or quantity is more fitting for your recruitment style. Regardless, it's important to let people know you're still around, active, and doing fun things with fun people.

2. External Guild Website.

There are a number of places that will offer you a free guild website. It's best to have a place where your people can check in, and where you can contact them as needed to plan events. These are all fine options, and I don't endorse one over the other. Check them out and see which one suits your needs.

http://www.enjin.com

http://www.guildportal.com

http://www.guildlaunch.com

http://www.shivtr.com

3. The Ideal Guild Quiz.

It's an online matchup for guilds and people. The guild leader answers 30ish questions about their guild, and then anyone who takes the quiz is matched with that guild depending on their answers. It's a great process because it helps ensure that people that find your guild through the quiz already have some qualities in common with you.

http://www.tortoolbox.com/quiz

The SWTOR forum mods stickied this thread about the IGQ.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=3189

If you want to get on it you need to have a SWTOR guild recruiting thread stating your guild name, faction, goals and website in the appropriate LFG forum for your server and to be actively recruiting.

If you email support@tortoolbox.com they can get you set up on the quiz.

4. The Web.

The first place to look is in the non-SWTOR forums for your server. If you don't know where those are, you'll need to do a little homework to find them (Google 'em up!).

Plus several other sites have guild links:

http://swtor.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Guilds

http://www.wikiswtor.com/Guild_directory

http://torwars.com/category/guilds/

http://torsyndicate.com/page/MemberSitesGuilds

http://www.reddit.com/r/SWTORGuilds/

http://www.swtorprogress.com/

http://torwars.com/category/guilds/

http://swtorhub.com/forums/guild-recruitment

5. General chat has pitfalls.

There is a diversity of viewpoints on this, and I'm going to offer you my reasoning - however, this is just my opinion, and you should do whatever is right for your needs and your guild.

General chat scrolls by very fast. It's hard to make a lasting impression without spamming your recruiting message frequently. By spamming your recruiting message frequently, you may be annoying the people you're trying to recruit.

Also, by sending out a broadcast message, you're unlikely to find the kind of recruits you want. You're better off letting people look at your goals and philosophy and having them apply (or go through an apprenticeship, or find a sponsor, or however your guild works with new members).

On the other hand, there are a lot of guilds that do recruit by posting messages in general chat, particularly on the higher level worlds if they're looking for higher level characters. Some of these planets have fewer people so general chat doesn't go as fast.

6. Random whispers have pitfalls.

Both sides of this have been brought up in subsequent comments. Some guilds choose to whisper people out of the blue, because the guild has observed that character doing something cool. Cool might be being a war-zone dominator, a good RPer, or many other things.

Some people don't mind one and only one polite whisper inviting them to check out a guild.

Some people are really put off by random whispers.

You'll have to decide on this tactic for yourself.

7. Be people that other people want to hang out with.

People want to hang out with cool, fun, interesting people that are having fun.

They don't want to hang out with jerks, snobs, or rude people or people who are bickering.

If your guild consistently demonstrates nice behavior and are obviously having a lot of fun, they are going to attract potential recruits.

If they're bullies, complainers, or arguing...

8. Be visible.

The best way to recruit is to make your guild visible and to show how your guild is a great place to be. If you aren't visible in game and on the forums, if your guild only communicates in guild chat, if your guild only groups with other guildies, then they're effectively invisible.

• Get out there and have your guild do that thing that it is that they do so well. RP in public using /say and /me. Send premade teams into warzones and play hard and play fair. Group up and do heroics.
   
   
  
• Be active on the SWTOR forums and your server forums. Have people post things about what your guild does and what they're going to do. Obviously, people who post things that are interesting, positive, and fun are going to be more attractive than the people who are trolling, flaming, or griefing.
   
   
  
• Make new friends. Group with people you don't know for heroics. Talk to people in warzones. Consider having guild events or raids or pvp premades that have a couple of spots open for new people and advertise them publicly.
   
   
  
• Be helpful. That one dude who keeps spamming general chat because he's never done Flashpoint X and really wants to? Help him out even if you're way over-leveled. That guy who keeps trying to do the Heroic 2+ with his companion and getting stomped? Offer to group with him or stand behind him and heal. The guy who's fallen seventy times trying to get to that datacron? Offer to bring in a couple of guildies to force push/tow cable him up to it. Send your 50s out to the starter planets and give away some credits or low-level gear to lowbie characters that want them. Offer to help with heroics. Even if you are sending your healers in to just stand behind the low level guys and heal them so that they can outlast the heroics, then that's a kind thing to do. Of course, be very careful to talk to the lowbies first so you're not accidentally helping someone who doesn't want any help.
   
   
  
• Consider opening up some guild events, or throwing public server wide events. By hosting events your guild gets great exposure, and shows off that you're nice people by doing something altruistic. Maybe it's a PvP duel tournament, a swoop bike race with a million credit purse, or a RP social with a bunch of door prizes. These are fine ways to show off your guild, meet new people, and create a good atmosphere on your server.

Regardless, here are some options for recruiting, and I hope that your guild ends up finding just the right amount of just the right kind of people.

Paige

Or you could just play and enjoy the game, and do pick up groups, and if you like the people you group with offer them an invite; if they ever feel like joining a guild in the future.

Why does it always have to be a chat box ****.

Or you could just play and enjoy the game, and do pick up groups, and if you like the people you group with offer them an invite; if they ever feel like joining a guild in the future.

 

Why does it always have to be a chat box ****.

Heh yeah it's odd you can't say

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1. Recruiting thread in the SWTOR forums.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=309

Then go and post this in there, we don't need that spam in here.

What a great guide, Scorpienne! Thanks for putting it together and posting it.

As a reminder to everyone else... we expect for our community members to be respectful toward one another. If you don't like a thread, or think that it doesn't belong, that's fine but being rude to others in the thread or being disruptive in the thread is not allowed.

Then go and post this in there, we don't need that spam in here.

Hi there! As I understand it, the server forums are, in fact, for specific servers. This is a sort of general advice that applies to many types of guilds, so I'd have to post it in *every* server forum group. I figured it was more efficient for me to put it here.

Furthermore, I'm not recruiting for *my* guild, or anyone else's, so in that sense, I don't think it qualifies as spam.

As always, you're quite welcome to report the post to the mods as spam, and let them moderate it as they see fit.

Paige

Great post, you make a very good ambassador for the game and thanks for the TORSTATUS work. With the increased pop's the general chat window is flowing by fast.

Thanks! Me personally, I don't like the chat window guild recruiting, so I don't do it. As with everything, your experience might be different than mine. There are a *lot* of guilds that do it.

paige

Hi there! As I understand it, the server forums are, in fact, for specific servers. This is a sort of general advice that applies to many types of guilds, so I'd have to post it in *every* server forum group. I figured it was more efficient for me to put it here.

 

Furthermore, I'm not recruiting for *my* guild, or anyone else's, so in that sense, I don't think it qualifies as spam.

 

As always, you're quite welcome to report the post to the mods as spam, and let them moderate it as they see fit.

 

 

Paige

Great contributors always get a fan base, but sadly also a hater base. Shrug if off, girl

Great contributors always get a fan base, but sadly also a hater base. Shrug if off, girl

Sauska! Heya! Heh. :-) No worries. This is about the *least* contreversial thread I've ever posted (it has not a bit of quantitative analysis!). I was surprised, but definitely didn't get my feelings hurt.

Paige

Sauska! Heya! Heh. :-) No worries. This is about the *least* contreversial thread I've ever posted (it has not a bit of quantitative analysis!). I was surprised, but definitely didn't get my feelings hurt.

 

 

Paige

Hey, Paige! Hope you remember me from the "Guild Status" thread. This guide should definitely be stickied, and I'd be happy to have you onboard for a SWTOR idea I had. :3

Hope to hear back from you soon.

Whales