For me, it’s the mild frustration of having tried applying to multiple guilds only to discover they literally ignore their website applications.
Applications are an excellent means of tailoring a guild’s community and atmosphere during its first few months of life, and makes it a much more manageable experience for leadership (presuming they stay on top of new submissions). From experience, though, I firmly believe recruitment via consistent interaction is the best way to go about things once a guild reaches the 6-12 month anniversary mark - when you’ve got yourself a proper and established group, folks usually start finding their own way to you and roleplay/OOC connections happen much more naturally. 
It’s not a method commonly used by a lot of guilds at the moment but I hope it might spread in good time. I hope you’ll be able to find one that suits you without needing to jump through any discomforting hoops Seladael!
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I’ve never applied for anything in my life. Hell, my current job I just showed up and took a desk and pretended like I was supposed to be there. I lead the department now.
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Personally, application processes are what pull my interest towards a guild more. While I know it’s not always the case with all of them who do require apps, in my experience, it shows to me that they value quality over quantity when it comes to their member base which appeals to me greatly.
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boomer job advice works for guilds too
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b o o t s t r a p s
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Our guild used to do face to face In character interviews. With an office and a contract and everything. I loved doing them. My guild leader loved not doing them, leaving them free to actually manage other aspects of the guild.
But even with a couple of assistants, I was doing at least 5+ interview scenes a week. Each one lasting an hour or more. Not counting all the times where someone agreed to an IC interview and I had to wait 30 minutes because they’re running late, only for them to cancel.
I was spending upwards of 8+ hours a week dedicated to nothing but IC interviews. That’s a lot of time devoted just to interviews, which mostly consisted of me copy/pasting/rephrasing the same questions over and over, with some light banter here and there to break things up.
Even then, I was a little hesitant on the whole move online applications myself. For much of the same reasons cited here. It felt less personal and interactive, which I think robbed us of an opportunity for immersion and showing investment in potential players. So I made sure we’d try and capture that in our application, which really plays out in a sort of one-sided-RP experience that still ties into the actual lore/RP of the guild.
And I’m actually happy with how it worked out. And all the time that’s been freed up!
The many hours I spend not doing interviews are now spent educating people about the guild. Also getting our guild involved in community events, and helping newer members better integrate into the guild through in character orientation, coffee dates, and the like.
My preferred method of recruitment personally is to meet and interact with people in game first, and when the question of hiring comes up, refer them IC to our goblin designed “automated kiosk” in the Drag, followed by the OOC link.
And even though we do use online applications, we have all the in game/discord contact information of our recruitment folks there. So if at any point in the process, someone wants to get in touch with someone for some RP or questions or anything else, they can just send a message.
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Becoming part of a guild community requires a cooperative effort. This is especially the case for roleplay guilds. Whether you’re recruiting for a guild or seeking to join a guild, all parties typically want to share similar ideals OOC and interests in the similar roleplaying theme(s) and style(s).
It’s impossible to tell if someone is going to mesh well with a given guild or community until that someone willingly puts themselves out there; either via guild application, OOC and/or IC outreach, or some other manner of interaction. Usually it takes more than a single one-off interaction to tell if a guild is the right fit, or if someone is the right fit for a guild.
My personal favorite way to determine if a guild is a good fit is to attend some of the guild events and to roleplay with some of the members - not just members of the guild leadership. Attending 3-4 guild events and a handful of spontaneous or walk-up roleplays with some members is usually sufficient to tell if a guild would be a good fit. This is the method we try to encourage within Silver Circle, and our open-door policy makes this a little bit easier and less anxiety-inducing for some of the more timid players out there. Once the player is ready to join and once the guild determines the player is a good fit an interview is scheduled and things move forward.
Here is a list of pros and cons for this method of recruitment:
Pros |
Cons |
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What sort of format sorcery am I witnessing here. Wowie.
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I created a table using simple HTML 
How to create a table on the forums!
How to Create a Table
The first line of the table, the header, is inserted using th.
Any data after that can be added using td.
Use tr to continue with the next line of your table.
<table>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>3</td>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>6</td>
</table>
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I mean read the realm forums’ first sticky if you want to be blown away by Feyawen’s post formatting skills
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I do and I shall!
I don’t like online guild applications and websites purely because I have enough bloody passwords to remember as it is 
In truth though it does get really annoying to be a member of several different websites or whatever, and remember to check them all. I like discord for that reason - it gives you a solid platform to interact outside of the game but one login allows you to access ALL your servers. It seems a better medium to me, and it’s what I use as a guild leader. But hey, each to their own!
There is a lot to applications and I , myself, am going back and forth on how much I want to incorporate them again or get rid of it entirely. Because we value making sure guild members are safe, we want new people coming in with the right mindsets that we do not tolerate certain behaviors. A lot of the times, applications help with the initial screening process to ensure that the person who is interested is not entering for malicious intent and sort of get a feel for things before hand.
But on the other side, sometimes you can get paniced at over checking on someone, and the questions and writing can be intimidating for other people esp if they are not use to this sort of process. I agree , not everyone should have to tell their entire story right away in a guild application because then judgement is made on something you’re probably not finished with.
Early on, the application process is what we had going for us because early on we had quite a heavy influx of people and applications feel best if you have a bit of a high ratio of people asking about your guild.
But over all, the biggest thing and the best I thing I feel is organic interaction between the players.
I’m sorry that you’ve felt ostracized about the application process, and this actually helps me think of bettering my own process as well! Just know, some guilds will require it and usually it’s just for the better organization of things over all and making sure things fit. But do I think they always work? Not at all.
I hope you find a guild that fits for you, and I hope its stress free for you!
I’ve been there, and man it does take a lot out of you. I think if it starts feeling like a job something needs to be reworked. I’m glad things are much easier and smoother for you and it’s helped me with some ideas!
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Tamani’s guild leader here and like many leaders, I was ambivalent too. Frist, what we did with ours was use a Google form. No password or log in required. Second, I got a Forms add-on that emails me a PDF and I check my email twice a day.
We ask 3 types of questions, and then have follow ups to that as well.
- Bookkeeping things: Your character name, avatar name, etc.
- The kind of thing that helps us decide if you fit: Can you agree to our rules, how is your character different from lore, what’s your publicly available story.
- An in-character part where you deal with a robot named B.U.N.N.I. Not only does this help get across our theme as a goblin company (although we can and do accept all races) but it let’s us see your roleplay and gives you a scene to interact with. By having it be a robot, everyone is aware that deviation isn’t something we can do on an application but that still makes story-sense.
Afterwards, we get in touch and the actual invitation usually takes less than 10 minutes, including a “Welcome Letter” from the boss. At that point we put you in touch with 2 people almost immediately: a friendly non-officer member who takes you out for coffee or a beer to say hello and our intake officer who’s entire job is to help answer questions and get you settled in.
And, for at least the first month you’re in our guild, you’re in the intro part of the guild as an “intern” and the direct responsibility of both Tamani and that intake officer.
This process saves time, lets you apply at your own pace and think out answers without as much pressure, and makes certain that everything that’s truly important to us in an interview is covered.
What it does not do: Screen you as a human being, good or bad. I have seen apps that tried to do this, interview processes, etc. I have never, ever, ever seen one that worked without a comprehensive psychological personality survey - even for a real job, although those can be better. And that would cost money few of us can afford to spend as well as feeling intrusive for the players of a game.
Does it mean we lose access to some good players out there such as the thread OP here? Yes, we do. But the advantages far outweigh that for us, as a guild. We’ve been doing these since late January now and it’s helped alot.
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When I create guild sites, it isn’t to see a full fledged character. I’ve also never seen a guild decline someone over a vague and detailless backstory, but just to see if the character fits. You wouldn’t have a high elf join a night elf traditionalist guild, would you? It is more to see who and what is a good fit.
Too many people don’t actually know what they want. They just want a RP guild that has people on all day so they feel the guild is big and active, but then leave because they don’t fit in due to their character or they want something else and rushed instead of shopping around a bit for guilds.
It also just shows us you kinda care a bit. It’s not just some guild you wanted to join then leave. There is some form of thought and commitment beyond a character. Most guilds either love new chara because they can help mold its development, or hate new chars because many of us abandon our alts.
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I feel like if you are going to require someone to send an application in stead of having them send it through a website or something have it sent though guild finder with them requesting to join.