Exciting announcement- Alex Smith to take on candidate advisory role and improvement project
Mike Wheeler
we have an exciting announcement regarding our continued efforts to provide the best possible advisory services to our active officers.
Alex Smith was recently both an EC and one of the best candidate Marshalls in our history. And seeing the need, Alex has volunteered to lead our project with Luke Calimlim to design "the world's best candidate experience" to continue to differentiate us from other fraternities. They also have a second project-"how to ensure maximum candidate retention".
These are two critical projects for our future success. And they tie to other projects like recruiting excellence. We need to recruit and retain 40+ men each school year with the goal of getting back to 75+ active members. Obviously, it does us no good to recruit 20 guys and only retain 10. And we want to make sure that all of our candidates are getting a level 10 experience. This will help with their commitment to the fraternity, their preparation for leadership roles quickly, and their desire to recruit more men to our cause.
Thank you Alex for taking on this important mission. You have been successful at your other roles and I know you will be here as well.
To guide each of our projects, we have decided to come up with a new vision statement for each to define what the ideal outcome is, level 10 as I call it. If you don't know where you're going, you won't get there. And we are going to the top of the mountain.
Here is a rough draft and starting point of our candidate excellence vision statement. Alex and Luke will tighten it up.
**Best candidate experience
We provide the best candidate experience of any fraternity at UC Davis, and possibly anywhere in the country. We love our candidates and we want them to feel welcomed, to feel our love. We do not treat them like pledges or lesser than us. We treat them with respect and empathy, as we expect them to treat those that follow them. We see them for who they are now and what they will become… Our brothers and future leaders of our fraternity. They are our lifeblood, our most important thing. The entire chapter prioritizes them over anything else. Without them being well-trained and enthusiastic, we have no future.
We help them to succeed, not leave them alone to figure it out for themselves. We realize they are young and that it is our job to actively train them. We give them a roadmap for success both as individuals and a group and challenge them to be the best candidate class of all time. This is an entire chapter function, not just the candidate Marshall. Every active member owns the success of the candidates and prioritizes what they need. That includes making ourselves available for and even initiating interviews. We assign big brothers and mentors early on in order to encourage them and shepherd them through the process. We help them with academics, time management, and social integration into the fraternity.
When we rush someone, we are committed to them and are not looking to cut anyone. We will do anything possible to help them succeed and cross to becoming actives. We help coach them on behavioral issues so that they avoid obvious pitfalls. And we try to intervene early if there is a challenge. If they do not succeed, it's on them, not us - as we are sure we have done everything possible to incorporate them.
The result is, we have the happiest and most engaged candidates anywhere. They tell me 30 days after they have started, "it's even better than you guys told it was going to be. I am having the time of my life. I am so glad I made this decision. Coming here has changed my life. And I can't wait to become an active and serve in leadership. I also want to recruit all of my friends to this outstanding opportunity."
Note that we have drafted several other project mission statements to help guide the ideal state of each of our project. Please see attached (recruiting, housing, trekking, and career development)
Mike Wheeler