In my almost 4 years of playing WoW, I’ve had occasion to read a number of applications that had widely varying degrees of success in providing folks with a picture of who I am and what I am looking for in a guild. Too few of the applications got to many of the core considerations that help a guild – an guild members—determine what makes a good fit. But all it takes is a little bit of reflection and a few minutes of editing to give your guild application a makeover to help it better present what the guild is looking for while helping screen for guildies who are a good fit.
The Basics
At a minimum, an application should always include:
- What is your main character’s name, class, spec and level? Nip future drama in the bud by having a permanent record of what role the applicant said they wanted to fill as well as who their main character is.
- What are your professions and their level? A max level character without any professions trained smells like eBay. If the professions are confusing (tailoring on a plat wearer) or far from completion, it merits a follow-up to determine why (i.e. do they lack follow-through, they are confused about armor proficiencies, etc.)
- Please provide your armory link. Yes, you could go search for it yourself. This is one of those ease of the reviewer questions that also gets to the applicant’s ability and willingess to follow instructions and do a little something extra for the officers.
- Why are you leaving/why did you leave your last guild? People almost always lie on this question, or at least soften up their reasons, but there is usually a kernel of truth to it. If you know anyone in their most recent guild, send a tell to inquire about this person.
- Who do you know in the Guild? Follow-up with those named to see if they personally endorse the application.
- If you don’t know anyone in the guild, what is prompting your application? This question goes beyond tracking whether your guild forum or Live Journal or WoW Insider recruitment posts are working. If someone noticed your nicely geared 80s hovering at Krasus’ Landing on your drakes and app’d because they want to get them some, you may want to consider that motive and how it fits in with your guild environment.
- What is your RL age? Or, are you over the age of 18/21? I personally hate the "how old are you" question, but some variation of it is good to see if the applicant is in the same age bracket as your other players, or if your guild has an adults only policy, to see that they are (or at least are pretending) to be old enough to join.
Applicant’s Personal Play Style and Expectations
- What level of content have you completed on your main character (i.e. highest level raid, heroics, etc.)? Always good to see how they describe their playing background, and to see how it stacks up to their armory. Ask me about the applicant who said they had done "all the raids" and "knew all the bosses."
- What is your level of interest in running heroics? 10-man raids? 25-man raids? And which instances? You want to see an interest level in line with their experience, i.e. not a brand new 80 without heroics wanting in on ToC.
- In general, describe your perfect day of playing WoW. How would you ideally spend 8 hours of playtime? A getting to know you question to ferret out if their interests lie in instancing, PvP, alts or what have you.
- What are you looking for a guild to provide you with? If the answer is free repairs, free enchants, and T9 and that's not how your guild rolls, at least you found out now. Setting expectations on what the guild will do for its members is crucial at the applciation stage.
- What skills, accomplishments or other assets would you bring to the guild if invited? This is their chance to strut their stuff and share their strengths and experience with the guild.
Your Guild’s Raiding and/or Grouping Expectations
- For our raids, we have minimum requirements you must meet before being invited. Those minimums are here [link]. Do you meet our minimums for the content in which you are interested in participating? If not, how do you plan to gear up to meet them? If someone is a new 80, and wanting to raid ToC 10, unless they are a missing link you are motivated to gear up in Ulduar to fill that spot, you'd like to see a realistic gearing up plan, involving badges and a serious heroic grind to get them.
- We require the following mods and tools for our raids [list]. Is there any reason you would not be able to use them? This question is to identify the stubborn, those who will never be on Vent, and the folks who have 2fps in a raid.
- Our raiding days are YYYDAY StartTime-EndTime. How often do you think you would ideally be able to attend at those days/times? Don't hide away this information — let folks evaluate at the application stage if your raid days and times will work for them or not.
- We use the Suicide Kings/DKP/Loot Council/Roll distribution system for loot in our raids and 1 epic/1blue/Roll in groups. Would you agree to abide by that? You rarely see loot rules on the application but a lot of loot drama happens from new recruits who don't like the loot system and seem to have not known what they were getting into.
Guild Flavor
Most of the guild applications I've seen excel in the flavor questions. What I like about them is it makes it pretty easy for me to see if a guild is a place I'd fit in well. For instance, if the application asks about the weirdest pace I've had sex, and that is question #1 on the application, well, it's probably not the place for me.
Since I don't know your guild, I can't give you sample questions, but I can give you some ideas on where to start:
- If most of your guildies share some other commonality or interest, ask about it
- If there is a running joke in your guild that involves an either/or/would you rather, put it in the application
- Have a question that has to do with your guild's name
- Do you have any infamous current or past members? Have a question on them to
If you build a strong guild application, that reflects what you and your guild are looking for in new members, you greatly increase your chances of recruiting members who are a good fit — and who stick.
Other Guild Management Entries in this Blog
that’s a very interesting take. I love that SHP has you draw your toon. It’s a pain in the butt, but it’s really cool.
I like the Art Pad question too — it’s a great flavor question that also checks to see if you are a good sport!
I have been slowly taking in all of the suggestions and questions after my initial, “AMEN!” to the raiding proposal. I’ve been pleased with the majority of it, but I’m still left beating my same dead horse: empowerment of those designated as authority. And if someone needs proof, we saw what happened this past week when a certain lovely pally scheduled raids.
I agree– the raid responsibilities need to come with a raid officer or progression officer rank in the guild. I know it is a PITA to add in new ranks manually but I also know they could:
1) use a mod to add them in
2) juggle the officer ranks up a notch since Dusk was the only Captain rank prior, and use the resulting empty entry officer level as a raid officer rank.
Great post, I do think those guilds, especially those focused on end-game content should have questions that focused on this.
That being said. I was spot on with my old Horde guilds I joined they ‘feel like a home away from home’ and yes I still have alts in all my old guilds. 🙂 I definitely did not lie on my app at SHP. 🙂
My first Ally toons (not so much) I didn’t lie on apps however my first guild experience wasn’t that great. I know that is largely due to the fact that my first toon BM Hunter was the first toons I made. I admit it, I was naive and thought all guilds were ‘just like me’ friendly, nice, will help other out when needed’. Let’s just say, I learned a lot about picking the ‘right guilds’ with her. It only took one time.
With my Horde guilds, I was smarter and have had amazing experiences. BB is my newest server and the first guild I picked although great on paper, and the members were nice simply wasn’t the right guild for ‘me’. 🙂 I’m glad I realized this within the first few weeks after joining. I still felt guilty about leaving even though I contacted an officer in advance and posted on the forums. SHP, for me, is ‘ my in-game home’.
I do think regardless of who is in charge you should treat them with respect. That being said even if an officer makes the roster if I have a real life obligation that interferes I will back out. I will point out it’s something I rarely do but (occasionally) it does happen, 🙂 Even if they aren’t an officer, if you’re in ‘charge’ I treat you how you should be treated with respect. I might not even like how you treat me personally but I’ll give you the respect if ou’re organizing an event I’ll give your the respect and not crap on other because I don’t ‘like’ your attitude. That is the way it should be. 🙂
I have to agree that SHP feels like home to me too. It is by no means perfect — but I never feel that my voice is not heard. And that is often all most people want — to be able to speak up and be listened to regardless of if their ideas are implemented or not.
I also think you should respect your Officers, but that it is a two way street. I didn’t respect my clueless druid lead with her lack of knowledge about the class, but she also didn’t show respect to the other non-officers in the guild. It is difficult, or possibly impossible, to have respect for someone who treats others as inferiors based on guild rank or amount of time as a guild member, for instance.
You’re right, it is a two-way street. The few times I’ve dealt with some clueless officers I left. It sort of surprised me. I used to follow the guys blog and he’s very popular in the blogosphere but had a chance to get and up close and personal look. I wasn’t impressed.
Naturally in a perfect world people treat others how they want to be treated, but I know that always doesn’t happen. 🙂
Aighh… left out part of my comment. The guy was the GM of the guild and he promoted his friends to officers. I commented about that in one of your recent posts.
By the way, great post. 🙂