Recruitment chair and VP of Recruitment responsibilities: a season checklist

What the recruitment chair owns, and what to delegate

The recruitment chair owns the process, not every task in it. Clubs call the role VP of Recruitment, VP of Membership or recruitment chair; professional fraternities often call it the Senior Vice President or recruitment chair. The job is the same: make sure every candidate goes through the same steps, on time, and that the club can explain every decision.

I ran recruitment as VP of Recruitment for Phi Gamma Nu, a business fraternity at Cornell. The Cornell Daily Sun described that setup as "piecing together dozens of Google Forms and Google Sheets." Much of the chair's job is keeping those pieces complete: evaluations, chat pairings, interviewer prep. The checklist below puts that work on a schedule.

Here is a split that works for most clubs:

National fraternities describe the role the same way. Delta Sigma Pi tells its Senior Vice President that "your main role is to oversee recruiting" and to follow the rules for eligibility, voting and non-discrimination. Delta Chi's recruitment chair description adds tracking metrics and preparing transition materials for the next chair.

Before the season: 6 to 8 weeks out

The weeks before anything opens decide how the season goes. Most mistakes in a recruiting season start as a decision nobody made early: how many people to admit, what counts, who interviews, which dates clash with midterms.

Read last season's notes and numbers

Start with what last year's chair left. Look for four things: how many people applied, how many got offers, how many accepted, and what the e-board said went wrong. If nothing was written down, ask last year's chair for 20 minutes. The guide to handing off recruitment covers what a good handover file holds, and club recruitment metrics covers which numbers to track.

Check the rules you have to follow

Write down every rule that applies before you plan a date. There are usually three sources:

• Your school. Some schools set dates, limits on interviews, or rules about what clubs may ask. Penn's Wharton Council, for example, publishes recruitment rules for the clubs under it (see the table below).
• Your national organization, if you're a chapter of a professional fraternity. National bylaws often set voting rules and eligibility.
• Your own constitution. It may already set quorum, voting thresholds or who counts as a member.

Here is what a strict set of school rules looks like. These are some of Wharton Council's published rules for its clubs, checked on 2026-11-06:

Your school's rules may be looser or stricter. The point is to find them before you set a single date, because a rule like "one interview per applicant" changes the whole season.

Hazing rules belong on this list too. Read your school's hazing policy, and check that nothing in your plan (late-night events, required "tasks", anything new members must do to stay in) falls under it. The guide to fair club recruitment covers this in detail.

Set class size, criteria and the timeline

Agree on three things with the e-board, in writing:

1. Class size. How many new members you want, and how many offers you'll send to get them.
2. Criteria. What the club is looking for, written as things an interviewer can observe. "Explains a past project clearly" can be scored. "Good fit" can't.
3. Timeline. Every date from the first info session to the day decisions go out.

The recruitment timeline template gives a week-by-week calendar, and final cuts and waitlists covers how many offers to send.

Build the application and the recruiting page

Build the application early enough that two members can test it on their phones before it opens. Keep it short: a few questions that show how a candidate thinks, not a second résumé. The guide to club application questions has examples by club type.

Update the club's recruiting page with the dates and the application link on the same day the application opens. Candidates will look there first. How to get more and better applicants covers outreach.

Set roles and access

Decide who can see what before any candidate data comes in. Admins run the season; interviewers see what they need to score. When someone graduates or leaves, remove their access that day.

Duplicate a Past Session

Fall 2026

Final Round 3 sub-roomsDuplicate

Round 2 5 sub-roomsDuplicate

Spring 2026

Final Round 3 sub-roomsDuplicate

Copies rooms, weights, subscores and rubric text

Example data

How Delibity does this

Next year's chair starts from your rubric

Duplicate a Past Session copies an earlier round's rooms, weights, subscores and rubric text into a new session. Past applications and candidates stay in the club's account.

When the board changes, add the new officers as admins and mark graduating members inactive.

How handover works →

Outreach and events

Events let candidates meet the club and let the club meet candidates. The chair's job is to make sure the events happen, don't clash, and get counted.

Hold one or two info sessions and a small number of other events. The Cornell Daily Sun found business clubs holding between three and nine recruitment events in two weeks, with many applicants feeling they had to attend most of them. Too many events wear out members and favor candidates who can attend everything. Check events against the academic calendar: an info session the night before a big midterm loses most of its audience.

Track attendance with a sign-in form or QR code at the door. Decide in advance whether attendance counts toward decisions, and tell candidates. The guides to info sessions and free QR code check-in cover the details.

Coffee chats

Coffee chats are one-on-one conversations between a candidate and a member. The chair's job is pairing requests quickly and making sure every chat gets an evaluation.

Open one request form. Pair each request with a member within 48 hours, and send both people an email with each other's contact details. Spread chats evenly across members so nobody does twelve.

Then chase. Keep a list of every paired chat that has no evaluation yet, by member, and send each member their own list. The guide to running coffee chats covers the whole process, and the coffee chat tracker covers the chasing.

Application review

Application review means every application is scored by more than one member on the same rubric. The chair assigns the reviewers and checks that nothing is left unscored.

Split applications so each one gets at least two reviewers, and so no reviewer gets a friend's application. Give reviewers the rubric before they start, with an example of a high and a low answer for each question. Keep each question's rubric to three to five levels, each one sentence long. Short levels are easier to apply the same way to the fiftieth application as to the first. The guide to reviewing hundreds of applications fairly covers the method.

Interviews

Interviews are where most clubs make their decisions. The chair builds the rubric, trains interviewers and keeps the schedule.

Decide the rooms first: for example a behavioral room, a technical room and a group case. Give each room a few weighted criteria and a short description of what a strong answer looks like. Train every interviewer on one practice candidate, so a 4 out of 5 means the same thing in every room.

Score during the interview, not after. Scores written hours later drift toward whoever was most memorable. The interview rubric template has a weighted example by room, and how to run club interviews covers rooms, rotations and scheduling.

Deliberations, decisions and rejections

Deliberations are the meeting where the club votes. The chair prepares the record, keeps time and makes sure every decision is written down.

Close every evaluation 48 hours before delibs. Build one page per candidate with their application, chats, events and interview scores. Send the voting rules to every voter in advance: who votes, the quorum, the threshold, how abstentions count, and who recuses.

At delibs, discuss one candidate at a time on a clock, vote, and record the result before moving on. The full process is in how to run club deliberations.

Send decisions at the time you announced, to everyone at once. A candidate who hears from a friend before hearing from the club remembers it. The rejection email templates give wording you can adapt.

After the season: retro, numbers and handover

The season isn't done until next year's chair can start from your work. Spend one hour on a retro and one hour on the handover file.

Hold a retro with the e-board within two weeks of decisions. Ask three questions: what took more time than it should have, where did a candidate get a worse experience than others, and what would we change first? Write the answers down.

Record the season's numbers: applicants, chats completed, interviews held, offers sent, offers accepted. Then hand over: add the next chair as an admin, give them the rubric, timeline and notes, and remove access for graduating members. The guide to handing off recruitment has a full handover list.

Putting the role on your résumé

The recruitment chair role is good résumé material because it is real project management with real numbers. Write bullets that name what you ran and what changed.

Track these during the season so you have them later: number of applicants, number of interviews, members you coordinated, and anything you improved, like how quickly chats were paired.

Example bullets (replace the numbers with your own):

• Ran recruitment for a 60-member finance club: 240 applicants, 3 interview rounds, 18 offers.
• Coordinated 35 member interviewers across 3 interview rooms with a weighted scoring rubric.
• Cut coffee chat pairing time from about a week to 2 days by moving requests to one form.
• Wrote the club's first recruitment handbook, used by the next two chairs.

The full season checklist

Copy this into your e-board's notes or download it as a spreadsheet. Change the weeks to fit your season; keep the order.

Recruitment chair season checklist

When	Task	Owner	Done when
8 weeks before	Read last season's notes and numbers	Recruitment chair	You know last year's applicants, offers and what went wrong
8 weeks before	Check school and national rules	Recruitment chair	Allowed dates, interview limits and banned activities are written down
7 weeks before	Set class size and selection criteria	E-board	Criteria written down before any application opens
7 weeks before	Publish the season timeline	Recruitment chair	Every date from info session to decisions is on one calendar
6 weeks before	Build the application	Recruitment chair	Application tested by two members on a phone
6 weeks before	Assign roles: admins and interviewers	President	Every member knows their role and has access
5 weeks before	Update the club's recruiting page	Recruitment chair	Dates and application link are live
4 weeks before	Plan events and book rooms	Events lead	Rooms booked; no event overlaps a midterm block
Week 1	Hold info sessions and track attendance	Recruitment chair	Check-in open at every event
Weeks 1 to 2	Open coffee chat requests and pair them	Recruitment chair	Every request paired within 48 hours
Week 2	Close applications and split review	Recruitment chair	Every application has at least two reviewers
Weeks 2 to 3	Chase missing chat evaluations	Recruitment chair	No paired chat without an evaluation
Week 3	Train interviewers on the rubric	Recruitment chair	Every interviewer scored one practice candidate
Weeks 3 to 4	Run interviews and score live	Interviewers	Every candidate scored in every room
Week 4	Close evaluations 48 hours before delibs	Recruitment chair	No score missing
Week 4	Run delibs and record every decision	President and recruitment chair	Decision and vote totals saved for every candidate
Week 4	Send decisions at the announced time	Recruitment chair	Every candidate told the same day
After	Hold a retro and record the season's numbers	E-board	Notes and numbers saved where next year's chair will find them
After	Hand over to the next chair	Recruitment chair	New chair is an admin and has the rubric and timeline

Example timing for a four-week season. A two-round season adds a week between interview rounds.

Go deeper

Each part of the chair's job has its own guide:

• How to run club recruitment: the whole season, stage by stage
• Recruitment timeline template: a week-by-week calendar
• How to run club deliberations: the meeting where the club votes
• Handing off recruitment: what next year's chair needs from you
• Club recruitment metrics: the numbers to track each season

Questions chairs ask

What does a VP of Recruitment do in a college club?

A VP of Recruitment runs the club's selection season. They set the timeline and criteria, and organize info sessions, coffee chats, application review and interviews. They make sure every candidate is evaluated, prepare deliberations, send decisions, and hand the process to next year's VP.

Is a recruitment chair the same as a VP of Recruitment?

Mostly, yes. Clubs tend to say VP of Recruitment or VP of Membership; fraternities and professional fraternities tend to say recruitment chair or Senior Vice President. Check your constitution: some clubs split the job between a VP who owns strategy and a chair who runs events.

How much time does being recruitment chair take?

Expect the most time in the four to six weeks the season is open, including evenings for events, interviews and delibs. Lambda Chi Alpha's description of its recruitment chairman says the position needs at least 20 hours a week. Pairing chats and chasing evaluations on a fixed schedule keeps the busiest weeks manageable.

What should a recruitment chair hand over to the next one?

Hand over the rubric, the timeline, the application, last season's numbers and a short note on what to change. Make the next chair an admin before you leave, and remove access for graduating members. A club that keeps these in one place doesn't rebuild recruitment every year.

How do I put recruitment chair on my résumé?

Name what you ran and the numbers: applicants, interview rounds, members coordinated, offers. Add one thing you changed, such as faster coffee chat pairing or a new rubric. Track those numbers during the season so you have them later.

Sources

1. Simplifying Club Deliberations: Paul Passarelli '27 Creates Delibity Platform, The Cornell Daily Sun: Paul's role as VP of Recruitment at Phi Gamma Nu (checked 2026-11-06) cornellsun.com
2. Collegiate Chapter Senior Vice President, Delta Sigma Pi: documenting selection criteria; eligibility and voting rules (checked 2026-11-06) deltasigmapi.org
3. Recruitment Policies, Wharton Council: an example of a school setting recruitment rules for clubs (checked 2026-11-06) groups.wharton.upenn.edu
4. Recruitment Chair: 2025 Officer Position Description, Delta Chi: metrics, campus policy compliance, transition materials (checked 2026-11-06) deltachi.org
5. High Delta: Recruitment Chairman, Lambda Chi Alpha: recruitment calendar, goals, at least 20 hours a week (checked 2026-11-06) lambdachi.org
6. Students in Cornell Business Club Scene Reveal Misconduct, Intensive Recruitment Process, The Cornell Daily Sun: three to nine events in two weeks (checked 2026-11-06) cornellsun.com