Welcome to my first report as the Tribune: Recruitment. At the beginning, I would like to thank Muz and Raken for entrusting me with this job. It has a vital meaning for our club and it is going to be a very challenging one. I promise to be a well-behaved Tribune.
Some of you recognize me already, but for those of you, who are not aware of who I am, let me introduce myself. I am Xantros, a member of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood for a little bit more than 3 years. I am current Professor of Writing Department in the Shadow Academy and Aedile of House Scholae Palatinae. I have also served for around a year as a Magistrate to the Master-At-Arms.
Right, there are more important matters to deal with now, so please, forgive me lack of more detailed introduction.
Recruitment is a vital matter for the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. Unfortunately, it is also an extremely time-consuming thing. Thus, I open applications for the Recruitment Team. The deadline is the 28th of October, 11:59 P. M.
I am looking for three to five volunteers, who are ready to dedicate much of their DJB time for recruiting efforts. It is a job, which I would compare with something between Magistrates and Preators. A lot of work awaits for us and the duties are not easy. I do not wish to discourage you, but you need to know that being a recruiter is a very demanding job. It differs a bit from standard HR recruiter job, as we go more into marketing and advertisement areas.
What do I expect from you, if you wish to apply for the job? Put aside your 30/60/90 days plans. It is primarily my duty to do them. Put aside lists of your positions and credentials, unless you have directly dealt with recruitment things before. I can track your history in the DJB and contact suitable people.
The candidates for the Recruitment Team need to meet the following criteria:
Basic knowledge about the DJB – you need to know how our club work. I do not care about your rank. You do not need to be an Equite 3. You may be a Jedi Hunter or a Padawan and be familiar with the Brotherhood in a degree high enough to do this work. Instead of rank requirement, I will take the time, which you have spent here, under the consideration. Preferably at least six months, but if you can prove your knowledge about the Brotherhood, I may lower this requirement to four months, but not lower.
Determination and persistence – certainly, we cannot predict all of the events in the future, and it may turn out that you will be forced to resign sooner than you have expected, but if you wish to become a member of the Recruitment Team, you need to be ready to work in it for a longer period of time. You should not give up after a month or two, if you do not have a good reason for this. If you are uncertain about your determination and persistence, do not apply.
Kindness and assertiveness – sometimes, dealing with other people may be extremely annoying and difficult. In case of direct interactions with people, which you are to convince to join the Brotherhood, you must be nice to them, no matter of their behaviour. On the other hand, you must also be assertive and capable of dealing with trouble makers, even if they continue complaining and so on.
Useful skills – we are going to come up with lots of articles, banners, videos and other advertisement materials, which we will utilize to recruit new members into the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. Thus, it is a mandatory requirement for candidates to be able to prepare high quality articles, graphics or videos. Displaying one of these skills is enough, but the more the better.
Creativity – we need to approach people in various ways, which will bring their attention to the Brotherhood. Thus, you need to be creative and capable of coming up with new ideas and suggestions, which may be utilized in the recruitment process.
Quick e-mail turn-around and IRC presence – we need to be in constant contact with each other, members of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood and people following us on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. Thus, I require at least 36 hours e-mail turn-around ( preferred 24 hours ) and regular IRC presence ( at least four times a week, possibly on everyday basis ).
As you see, I do not require any specialized knowledge about marketing and advertisement techniques, social media and other means to attract people from the candidates. I can provide you with necessary information and training on these issues, so do not be afraid, if you are not familiar with them.
However, there are two things, which will increase your chances to become a member of the Recruitment Team:
Real life education / experience – if you have ever studied marketing related matters or worked in marketing divisions, especially with social media involved, it will make things easier. You will be able to work in full pace sooner.
Time zones – I would like to see our team be able to work in different time zones, in order to make one of us constantly available to the members of our club and to update Facebook and Twitter accounts as soon as it is possible. Thus, if I have two similar candidates, but one coming from an ‘unoccupied’ time zone, I will choose this one. In a perfect situation, the difference should be around 6 hours between each of us, but I will not insist on it, if there are more suitable candidates from the same time zones only.
What are the duties of the Recruitment Team members?
As it has already been stated by Muz and Raken, we are tasked with taking care of whole process of recruitment, especially with maintaining our social media accounts. For this, we need to write articles and short messages, prepare graphic and video materials, crawling the Internet for interesting Star Wars related news and information, spreading word on forums and getting in touch with owners of websites, which may be resourceful for us.
I will oversee works of the Recruitment Team, so I will be involved, at least partially, in every activity taken up by us. Other members of the team will focus on maintaining social media on their watch and preparing advertisement materials. I do not wish to strictly assign the duties to specific person, but I hope that we will have at least one graphic maker in the team.
How to apply?
Due to specific duties of the Recruitment Team, I ask you for unique applications. First of all, I would like you to send in a piece of your work. It may be either an article about the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, a banner or a video. You may send in one or more of these things, but only one of each type. Everything depends on your decision. Each of the submissions should be prepared directly for the recruitment purposes.
Apart from a piece of your work, I would like you to answer the following questions:
How much time you may spend on your work for the Recruitment Team?
What do you like in the Brotherhood?
What features of the Brotherhood would you emphasize in the adverts?
What do you think would improve the members retention rate?
Your answers may be as detailed as you wish. The most important thing is that they must be honest. No further researches are required. Just express your opinions and ideas.
Shortly - to get this job, you need to impress me. It is the most important thing in advertisement - impress people and do not allow them to forget about you.
Send the applications to [Log in to view e-mail addresses] to the 28th of October.
What if I am not able to become a full-term Recruitment Team member?
There is always something to be done. We will always accept high quality advert materials, even if we do not directly ask for them. There will be competitions, which you will be able to participate in. The best entries, even outside top 3, will get utilized in the process of recruitment. We will work out the guidelines and quality standards for recruitment stuff soon, so you will know how to prepare materials to increase the chances to get them accepted.
My plans are probably the second important thing at the moment, so I am going to satisfy your curiosity without any further delay.
The first month in my office is rather organizational one. I expect that choosing people to the team, preparing duties spreadsheets, working out social media accounts, setting standards for recruitment materials and discussing general plan shall take around two, maybe three weeks, if taking the upcoming Chapter of the Dark Crusade under the consideration.
Real work shall begin in three weeks, when we will start preparing first materials for recruitment process. We will dive into the depths of the World Wide Web, in order to spread the word about the Brotherhood and to find interesting news for all members of our club.
In the meanwhile, I will contact with leaders of Clans and Houses, in order to ask them for help and to discuss matters, which may be beneficial for all of us.
I do not go into the details at the moment, as the exact outcome is not yet predictable. A lot of work is to be done by all interested people, in order to make the process of recruitment as effective as it is possible. I estimate that the first really visible actions will be taken up just before the next report of mine, apart from random news from me, which will appear on the website.
I am present on almost every IRC channels maintained by the Brotherhood and its subunits, on everyday basis. It is highly probable to meet me there between 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. GMT+1. If you cannot talk to me via IRC, you may always send me an e-mail at [Log in to view e-mail addresses] I will gladly answer it as soon as it is possible, usually within 12 hours from receiving it. If you have any idea, suggestion, question or comment, do not be afraid to approach me. I do not bite.
I am very enthusiastic about this new job. Brothehrood-wide organized recruitment and advertisement efforts shall be more effective than the individual actions, which have been take up so far, even if they were set by Clouse leaders. However, I do not wish to make false promises about superb effects, which will appear just within few weeks since now. It is not the way it works in. My long-term goal is to make the Brotherhood more recognized among people outside our organisation and our friends. It will take some time, probably more than a year, and not necessarily will result in dozens of recruits a month.
We must work within the limits of a fan-based, fee free organisation. We do not have thousands of dollars to spend on TV campaign or any other costful ways of advertisement. Instead, we will focus on guerilla and viral marketing. It is a little bit harder to run a successful viral campaign, but it is also much more effective than typical mass media campaign. An example of great viral campaign is Cadbury Gorilla commercial.
The advert itself is called epic and you may find its original version at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Aj6g8uSoaw What is special about it, is that it got multiple responses and both professional and amateur spin-offs. It has made its fans create many Facebook groups and it has even been discussed and parodied on The Sunday Night Project by Channel 4.
You may find some unofficial versions of the advert on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpo3EVoEblc&list=PL8497F368F6B051D7 Here you will find behind the scene materials about creating the advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAjkDgk1QlE No matter, if this short movie is an official one or not, it perfectly suits the general mood of the campaign.
We need something like this. As mentioned before, we cannot spend on adverts as much money as any company. We need to base our efforts on our creativity, sense of humour and tools, which we have at our disposal. However, I am sure that we may succeed despite the limits imposed by our abilities and the nature of our club. Modern technology offers us many ways to achieve our goals and the only thing, which we need to do, is to make good use of them.
Every month, I will provide you with a little bit knowledge about marketing, so that you may learn its secrets and help us in our quest. I hope that you will find my hints useful and interesting.
TL:DR
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That was a really interesting read, Xantros, great to see that you've got a good handle on what the DJB needs and can hopefully get out of social media :)
[Inserts obligatory joke about "What does the Tarthos Lion say?"]
Congrats Xantros, your first report was a great read and I can't wait to see what you and your team come up with
Holy report, Batman. I'm anxious to see what you and your team can come up with Xantros. I'm half excited, half terrified. :P
And Goat...Tarthos Lion isn't a thing, anywhere. Well, anywhere that matters anyway.
Which is why it's one sound that no one knows.
Tarax...Being only half terrified? You must be a really brave person :P
Thanks for your support, guys!