Recruitment & Responsibility:
Understanding the Changes in Recruitment Expectations and Their Consequences
Written by Le Libertie
Recruitment has always maintained vital importance in Europeia. By bringing forth new nations and members, it staves off the ever-continual forces of inactivity and departure that all regions face. And as our current recruitment effort continues, it is interesting to look back: not only at how the method of manual recruitment has changed, but how the expectations and culture revolving around recruitment have altered as well.
If there is one word to summarize the efforts of recruitment from the era of 2008 to 2017, it is ‘numbers.’ When recruitment thrived, it was when ministers set ambitious numerical goals and encouraged recruiters to rise up to meet them. Ministers prioritized making concrete quotas for total sent manual telegrams for the term and made pledges to increase the region’s nation count by a certain size.
Through competitions, reminders, and drives, recruiters were reminded of the importance of their service and were told to come up with numerical goals and meet them. “Having the goal set, not only for the individual, but for the entire team gave everyone a mark to aim for” long time recruiter Calvin Coolidge explains when recalling his recruitment activity in 2017. Weekly updates were made detailing and comparing the number of telegrams sent by each recruiter, with the greatest recruiter being given the ‘Recruiter of the Week’ award. Updates also included the awarding of recruitment stars to members, given only when recruiters met a certain amount sent telegrams. These awards were often proudly placed in the signatures of recruiters.
But in that era, one critical concept was, surprisingly, all but ignored: how nation age affects recruitment success rates. “Nation age didn't influence us at all,” Calvin admits. “We stopped recruiting when we were tired of it.” Calvin recalls that the concept was first explained to him by r3naissancer and Malashaan when he and Siol Alse broke the manual recruitment helper in an infamous competition in 2017. Many, if not most of the telegrams sent during events when recruiters sent massive amounts of telegrams in one day had essentially no chance of successfully bringing a nation to the region.
While recruiters such as Calvin, Malashaan, R3naissanc3r, and GraVandius spread the concept, it took a bit of time before the idea fully permeated the ministry. From 2017 to 2019, Interior struggled to create competitions that would incentivize effective recruiting, and not every recruiter was cognizant of how nation age affects recruitment success. But eventually, the importance of increasing success rates of telegrams became a critical staple of recruitment.
The adoption of the concept of effective recruitment had a number of consequences, ushering in a new era of recruitment. Huge competitions based solely on sent recruitment telegrams are unlikely to ever come back. The manner in which a player recruits has also slightly changed. Many players stop their recruiting session not when they have met a numerical goal, but when a nation’s age is older than a certain time. If recruiters want to attain a numerical goal, especially an ambitious one, they have to set aside multiple times to recruit rather than conduct a single session so that they continue to target young nations.
Culturally, a shift is also noticeable. Instead of simply being seen as lazy, sending telegrams to old nations without a likelihood of success is seen as deeply irresponsible. Some recruiters even compare the action to falsifying recruitment records, since recruiting old nations essentially brings no benefit to the region.
The beginning of this new era of recruitment has also brought the path to the top of the renowned Recruiter’s Hall of Fame more difficult. Rather than sending telegrams at any time and stopping only when desired like many of the top-listed recruiters did, the increased expectations of responsibility make recruiting more time consuming and thus more difficult. Fortunately, the newer Daily Dose Hall of Fame is a place where newer members can more easily make their mark.
While the nature of recruitment has changed over the years, every effort can make a positive impact. Sign up to aid Europeia in the maintenance of its great power and its pursuit of growth here!
