Recruiting.  The most dreaded word in any Guild/Raid leaders vocabulary.  Recruiting can be well, quite frankly, the most horrible thing you ever have to do in-game.  Seriously.  Of course anyone can throw together a cute  macro and spam it in trade chat (because guild recruitment channel is more desolate than desolace ever was) and gladly accept anyone who whispers a reply into the guild.  That’s an acceptable way of recruiting people if all you want is a very large and chaotic guild of people who may or may not get along over time.  Then there’s the process of recruiting people who will fit your guild and its various personalities.  That is the hard part.  Don’t get me wrong, some guilds have reputations that are so awesome people apply just to carry the name!  But the rest of us really have to work hard to get people to even look at us, much less decide they want to wear our tag.  How do you even decide if you need to recruit?

Take a look at your team size

Do you have enough people regularly showing up to your events?  If so, you are probably good, though you may look for more casual players and people who are ok with being alternates.  However, if you have places open on a regular basis, you need to fill those gaps.  I read somewhere once, you want a full raid roster, plus 20 percent.  So for my 10-man raiding team, we would want 12 raiders.  Wow that sounds super easy!  But…what if you have 7 DPS 3 Healers and 2 Tanks.  And you have a Tank who can’t make the next raid….well….crap.  So I can’t really support the 20 percent methodology,  unless you have people who can offspec tank or heal as needed.

Take a look at your roster

Usually the first place I look at when looking for potential raiders is my guild roster.  We are casual friendly, so we have quite a few people who may be ready to take the step into raiding.  I normally go to them and see if their interest fits the needs of the raid team, then I submit them as potential raiders to my raid leader..who actually makes the decision on who goes on the raiding roster.  But also, they may have friends who have been looking for a raiding home.  Never underestimate the social aspect of the game when it comes to looking for recruits.  A friend of a current member is more likely to fit into your guild than random person from trade chat (not always of course!).

Get input from your raid team

They may have people they know that aren’t in the guild that would make great members.  They may also be willing to change roles in the raid so that you do not have to recruit someone new into the mix.  It never hurts to ask someone in a dps role if they are willing to swap to a healing or tank role to better suit the raiding team makeup.  This, again, is something that I would have my raid leader approve first.  His job is to make the roster and plan the raids, mine is to provide a fun guild environment and a pool of possible raiders if needed.

When to recruit can be a hard thing to determine.  At the time of this post, we actually have about 15 people who are interested in raiding in ten spots.  We also have only two tanks and three healers as part of our main raiding team.  But some nights?  We have 8 raiders online.  How do you determine when to recruit in your guild?