Sorority Recruitment Prepares You For the Real World

Believe it or not sorority life is more than matching tee shirts, fake candid pictures, and themed parties.  Just like sorority life is more than all that, Recruitment is more than a popularity contest, matching outfits, and fake smiles. Being a member of a sorority means you are recruiting 365 days a year, whether it’s through formal recruitment, social media, networking with women in your classes, or the way you act while wearing your letters.  At some point during your time as a collegian, you will experience Formal Recruitment.  I’ve had the opportunity to experience the Formal Recruitment Process both as a PNM, Potential New Member, and as a recruiter. Formal Recruitment requires a lot of preparation leading up to the days filled with rounds of meeting new women. So how can Formal Recruitment help you in the real world?

Time Management Skills: Preparing for Formal Recruitment require long hours of preparation in the weeks leading up to the actual recruitment events.  For Fall Recruitment these days, known as Spirit Days, are crammed into the first few weeks of the year. On top of establishing new semester routines and remembering how to study, you now have to spend hours preparing to recruit your sorority’s future.  This requires time management.  For me, my agenda helps keep me sane during the first chaotic month of the fall semester. Time management is a skill that will help you be successful for the rest of your life.

Optimistic Outlook: Whether you are a PNM or a sister who is recruiting, the Formal Recruitment process can be very long and tiresome.  Sometimes you spend a long time in uncomfortable shoes and clothes, you go hours without eating, and you get hardly any sleep.  While these things sound awful, the experience you are getting makes up for it. There are two ways you can deal with these negative things: with an optimistic attitude or with a pessimistic one. Being pessimistic will make the whole process seem much longer, and if you are a PNM you will have a tough time getting into a sorority because nobody really wants a negative Nancy to be their sister. The better option is to have an optimistic throughout the whole process. Being optimistic will make you happier and allow you to turn the negatives into positives. This is a trait that will get you far in life. Living life with an optimistic attitude will bring you a lot more happiness and positivity, which makes life much more pleasant.

Communication Skills: Formal Recruitment is all about being able to converse with other women.  It is through these conversations that you either figure out the organization you will call home or the women you would like to add to your organization. Without these conversations recruitment really wouldn’t exist. Recruitment teaches you how to have quality conversations and how to communicate even when a conversation is dying. Being able to communicate in awkward or normal conversations is a skill that will help you in the workplace, socially, and on a daily basis.

Appearance: Believe it or not, first impressions are incredibly important.  During recruitment first impressions matter, which is why it is important to be groomed. This means your hair should be done neatly, attire should be on the conservative side, makeup should give off a clean appearance, deodorant should be worn, clothes should not be wrinkled, nails should be trimmed and painted neatly (or not at all), and perfume should be on the lighter side. Learning to make a great first impression through a well-kept appearance is something that is good to know how to do as you will need to do this during a job interview.

Good luck to everyone engaging in the Formal Recruitment process this Fall! Just remember that the experience you are gaining is helping you develop better professional skills, which will help you post college.

Congrats to one of our new writers, Michaela, for this amazing article!! She also blogs as The Shore Life According to M!

Why Rankings Are Irrelevant

It’s inevitable for ranks to happen in the Greek community, especially if it’s made by other people in the Greek community or from vicious websites for anonymous people to comment negatively. It’s easy to take a peek at these comments and read relentlessly what strangers are saying. These ranks suddenly became a popularity contest by outsiders and a forum for anonymous users to leave hateful words.

It’s impossible to have these rankings remove the invisible “top house/ bottom house” stamp on your sorority. However, it is possible to not have these ranks affect you.

Sororities are something to experience if you are from the outside looking in. Otherwise, the person who is making such rude comments is literally making rude comments for no reason at all. Who are they trying to impress by demeaning a sorority? Rankings have a lot to do with perception than actual facts. Many comments made on ranking websites contradict with each other. One commentator will call XYZ classy, while another calls them trashy. You shouldn’t value the opinions of strangers who have no clue what really goes on in that sorority.

Although, it may be hard to pin-point who is making these rude comments, they are irrelevant. No fraternity man can truly understand the bonds of sisterhood. No sorority woman can understand what it’s like to be a member in another house. Yes, they socialize with you and see the endless amount of photos popping up on their Facebook feed, but they cannot live vicariously through you.

These rankings do not define you or your sorority in any way. Women joined sororities for the bonds they want to make. From bid day to graduation day, sorority women are wearing their letters proudly. Since the beginning of recruitment, you may have had an open mind to going panhellenic because you were searching for a sisterhood. What happened within those parties changed you because you finally understand what it means to be a sorority woman. There’s a high chance that after day one of recruitment, you wanted to call yourself “A ____” because you wanted to do what these women were doing, you wanted to match endlessly with them, and you wanted the same bonds they already made with each other. You saw yourself calling those girls your sisters.

You don’t have to explain to anyone why your sorority is ranked high or low. In the end, you earned those letters for embodying your sorority values and you’re making the best memories with your sorority sisters. You shouldn’t choose a sisterhood based on biased ranks and you should not let those ranks affect your sisterhood. The best thing to do is avoid that negativity and concentrate on your amazing sisters. 

Editor's Note: This article was written by one of our new writers, Christina. Please show her some love in the comments for her first post! 

Impromptu Memories

My years in Delta Zeta afforded me some awesome opportunities I would have never experienced on my own. I’m not talking about business contacts or having to buy chapter clothes that now double as interview outfits—I’m talking about sisterhood events that brought me all around Columbus, and even outside the city limits, and the memories I made with both sisters I saw regularly, and those I didn’t.

I had never even heard of Sky Zone before we started planning 2013’s bid day. Now I’ve been there twice, both times with my chapter, and I absolutely loved it. Though I love hockey, I probably never would have attended a Blue Jackets game. But when the Greek Life office offered us seats in the press box, I was beyond excited. And when my sisters and I had so much fun we decided to make a weekend of it and hung out at a local spot before heading to an Ohio State hockey game, it combined for a weekend I won’t forget.

Tip: only jump off the walls if you want to snap your neck

Because even though I would probably not have made it to Nationwide Arena without DZ, it’s the impromptu sisterhoods like the OSU game that have always been my favorite.

OSU hockey game

The entire month of October was devoted to scary movies in the informal room. And, subsequently, Insomina cookies to make us feel better after The Exorcist girl rotated her head all the way around. It’s my favorite thing to talk about every year during recruitment when I pass through the informal room during house tours.

It’s the sisterhoods we have after the Mirror Lake jump each year, all congregated in our dining room tracking mud all over the house (much to our house mom’s dismay, sorry Barb!) and talking animatedly about the night and potential hypothermia we faced to show *ichigan we’re still better than them that I remember the best.

Or the times I’ve spent on the mouse mansion floors upstairs, talking about the most random topics until four in the morning when I had to get up for an early class the next morning.

Even though planned sisterhoods are all about bonding with one another, it’s always the unplanned ones that have the most lasting impact. They're worth the late nights; the relationships last far longer than the desire to take a nap.