As a clan leader, it is your responsibility to take care of recruiting new members. It is okay to assign responsibility to other members who want to help, but if your clan is falling because of immature members or lack of recruits, it is ultimately the leader’s responsibility, not the members’. A clan is like a sack of potatoes with a hole in the bag. You’ll ALWAYS be losing members. One of the most stressful things to deal with is mass leavings. I’ll write an article on dealing with this later.
Once your clan is established with at least ten members, I suggest introducing a system for trying out new members. Recruiting systems will vary from game to game, but an effective way of doing so is to go into public servers wearing your clan tags, and just have fun. People will see a well organized squad or team, and depending on the game, will see or hear you having fun and will usually ask for your clan website. I would suggest NOT advertising your website unless someone asks. Make sure you check the server rules; many clan servers will have rules against advertising. Make sure you are aware of recruitments. You don’t want your members promoting your clan the wrong way. It can be extremely hard to reverse. I have seen clan battles get way out of hand over simple issue like this.
Make sure you make a form beforehand. You can always modify this form later, but you want to make sure you ask for basic details, including: name, age, Email, MSN address, Facebook account, etc. And make sure they agree to a basic agreement saying they will act maturely, etc. This doesn’t have to be complicated. You can simply make a sticky topic in your forum and make sure that all new posts will follow the outlined format (similar to my community helper applications forum).
Make sure you get users to play on your servers before offering to recruit them. If you don’t recognize a username, put that tryout on hold until that person has played with you. I have found that often younger kids will apply without even playing on a server just so they can say they are in a clan. These situations never have happy endings. They usually end up with aggravated clan members and a disappointed recruit. I have absolutely nothing against recruiting young kids, I would just be extra careful during their tryouts. I would make sure they understand that your clan expects their members to act mature, etc.
Once you feel you have a handle of the member’s attitude, feel free to direct the recruit to your forum or recruitment page. Once you’ve approved the application, arrange a tryout date, and make sure the whole clan gets an opportunity to have a say in the decision.
