Applying to a new guild

[Erolian]

There really is no point in the long and detailed guild apps because to put it simply people can lie to extreme degrees about anything that doesn't directly show up on their armory. If they have half a brain they can appear to be the most well trained dog a GM could ever ask for when in reality they just want loot and have a terrible attitude. The only thing it does is guarantee any liar or douche you get also has at least a bit of intelligence to go along with it.

[Totaltotemic]

ITT: People that actually believe that heroic raiders still play the game outside of raid time. Flex? Total waste of my time. Talking to someone that I don't even know that wants to join the guild? Good luck, I'm not actually online to do that most of the time. I don't want to sit around and chat with some random for 30 minutes every time they want to join only to find that they have trouble keeping a simple DoT up or something. If I did that with the 10 different people that whisper me every week about that I'd go insane. It's much easier to point someone to an app than to expect that I should be on 24/7 to talk to them.

Anyone that doesn't think applications are worth anything has simply never been a part of running a raiding guild. It becomes very apparent the second you start recruiting that unless you want to personally have a chat with tons of different people only to end up disappointed and having your time wasted, you have an application process to "talk" to them for you.

[Deleted]

What do you learn about someone's raiding capabilities by reading a fuckload of random shit? half the shit I write are blatant lies or stuff I copypasted from theorycrafting sites.

You learn stuff about the person.

For example, you're lazy and apparently don't have much trouble with telling blatant lies or copy-paste someones else work to make it look like it's yours.



And, the guilds that do want applications are the guilds that usually aim higher, or they got quite much interest. Plus, it'll be easier for the officers to come to a conclusion if they can read some applications and then discuss it, because it's written so they can easily re-read if someone forgets.

Just search for the guilds that don't require applications - There are lots of them.

Stop whining.

[cFortyfive]

There really is no point in the long and detailed guild apps because to put it simply people can lie to extreme degrees about anything that doesn't directly show up on their armory.

While certainly not wrong per se I don't think it really matters at least as far as our guild is concerned for instance. Sure you can lie about stuff but at some point people will find out unless the persons is so good at it that it was worth it to have that player around anyways as you hinted and at the end I still feel that it saves everyone involved in the recruitment process from the guild more time than conducting ts interviews with everyone who asks.

[Clevername]

because in most guilds they'd like to not only know about your in game abilities but also the fact that you're not a huge douchebag and have a decent sense of humor or at least that is the case in my guild. 1/2 our interview is just getting to know you questions so we can make sure you're not going to be someone we can't stand to listen to in vent.

In addition, if someone can't be bothered to fill out an app for 20 minutes then they don't have to patience to wipe / learn new fights and will probably not be a guildy long. Guild officers HATE having to recruit new people when someone leaves so they try to be selective and pick someone that actually shows they want to be in the guild and will hang around.

[vandalhart]

so they can deny you if you misspelled a word

[prwraith]

so they can deny you if you misspelled a word

Seeing as most forums have a spell check button built in, and most browsers these days underline mis-spelled words. If you actually do, you're a fucking unobservant moron. Because if you can't notice a red underlined word on a forum how in gods name will you notice if you have the debuff in a raid.

[Deleted]

No where did I say that or imply that.

You were implying that in that the recruiters do not barely get any information from an application and that it is possible succcesfully tell lies in an application (lol).

[jayeffkay]

I think someone else needs to look at themselves instead of completely judging the basis of nearly ALL decent guilds. There is a reason it exists, and its not because "oh it was just around in the past." Like all things, if it works- it stays. Personally, with your attitude I would not want you apart of my raid group. At all.

I saw your personality and attitude because you refuse to do any sort of applications. Don't you think that the system works now? You pretty much just proved it.

You can judge me over horseshit applications all you want, I'm a no nonsense person who would rather be theorycrafting and absolutely perfecting my class, farming mats and doing stuff ingame then wasting my time on guild websites and applications.

I get it exists hence my first paragraph in my previous post. I understand there are people like in all things taking advantage of the system. The whole genre is infested with selfish loot whores and drama queens. Personally I could give a shit about precious loot and big fancy numbers, I cared solely about the benefit of the guild regarding ingame progression and reputation wise. I remember in TBC when we had one guild who gave loot solely on merit no DKP, or rolling. It went out to however it would help the guild most.

I've been through all the messed up guild drama in chat, vent, during down time, raids, etc. You name it I've seen it all. The analness of the application system is there now to try and prevent all this. Like I said in my previous post alot of it has to do with Blizzard's failure of current game design when there's no more challenging 5mans or starter raids like Karazahn, or a 10man Ulduar that didn't share a 25man lockout. It now relies much more on the application system. The test drive is what mainly sells the vehicle. You can jerk each other off in an interview all you want but that doesn't sell the car and if it does great, but don't be surprised when you find something that doesn't work later down the road.

Can you blame me for hating the current system knowing what it was like. Regarding the application system I'm batting .000 and trust me I didn't have this attitude when I applied back then, and I know how to act in an interview. Wasting money and more importantly time server/faction transferring back and forth to try and find the right fit, plus those applications felt so phony compared to the Classic/TBC/WOTLK tryouts method and building raiding guilds based on relationships in which I still have with these people to this day.

[Tisane]

Screening.

All nice and well if a person does 1 zillion DPS, but if other members (doing 1 zillion DPS) are leaving because Mr.1-zillion-DPS is being a **** to other guildies, there's not much point in taking Mr.1-zillion-DPS into the guild.

[njorde]

It depends on the guild. The more exclusive a guild, the more purposeful an application is. I'll just tell you what I found being an officer in a Semi-HC guild during LK and a member of a HC I guess "elite" guild in Cata.

First there isn't much of a difference in the purpose the application process between casual and "elite" guilds. We have applications to asses two things: the character and the player. The only difference in terms of your character in "elite" guilds is that there's a high gear/exp req. for the rest of your application to even be considered. The only difference in terms of the player is that elite guilds are going to close your application as soon as they see a weakness over other applicants/members of the guild where as casual guilds will be much more forgiving. In the end, we're just trying to see if you're have the capability to perform and the will to carry through with it after months of slow progress. The Alt run you suggested only tells us one of those things, where an application can tell us much more about the other. Further, it seems redundant to schedule a trial run to see if an applicant can start trial runs. I'll speak on behalf of all current officers/GMs to all who read this: You're in the application process until promoted to a member.

The applications we reviewed weren't there because we wanted to feel official, or even a hard guild to get into, they were there for raid efficiency. When we bring in a trial we have to make changes, and even bench people. Constantly switching trials can really slow down raid progress. Members leaving the guild can bring raid progress to a standstill and in many cases when this happens, it can cause a domino effect until the guild disbands. These two things that hurt the guild come from certain attributes of applicant such as: unfortunate badness, no will to improve, poor attendance, lack of dedication/interest in the guild, and the occasional "I don't belong here O_O." I'll try to explain how we figure this out based on your application.

The applications tell us a lot more about you than you would seem to expect. This stands true in real-life, too.

We don't care if everything you wrote in the "how do you play your class" section is from the sticky, but I do care if you truly did just blatantly copy and paste it into the answer field then tried to sell it as if it was your creation. That's plagiarism and lying. The best applicant I've seen just linked the stickies, but it was the way that he explained what he does to go beyond the sticky and how he could explain why the sticky info was optimal that sold us. See, every guild has this section despite it seeming so pointless because it isn't at all pointless as we're able to derive 1 of 3 outcomes from it: (Sub-Par) You don't know how play your spec propery. (Par) you know how to play your spec properly. (Unicorn) You know how to play your spec optimally and you're constantly looking to improve. This section is usually a reflection on their performance. Applicants who go in depth tend to have high rankings in the charts, people who regurgitate the basics tend to have basic dps/hps, people who seem to have never read a sticky tend to perform as if they have never read a sticky.


Another common section in applications is the attendance field. it's usually pretty obvious when people are lying. Keep in mind that most officers have read hundreds of trial applications and have seen how they performed. It only takes a day or two of trial runs to know exactly what the applicant lied about in his or her application. We take note of this and the more we see answers that tend to be lies, the more skeptical we become of the applicant. One thing I've learned about humans from reading applicants is that they tend to lie in similar ways when it comes to applications. My old guild used to have a "Will you be able to have at least 90% attendance? Explain." field, people who put "of course, I'm a thoroughly dedicated raider!" or even worse, "yes." were almost always lying and didn't show to raids during their trial period. People who responded with "Yes, because I have. . . [insert: actual explanation giving officers faith that his real life and raiding schedules will be compatible]." tended to become full time members pretty quickly.


The "Why" sections are also really important. This really separates the people who are applying because they want to become a part of the guild and progress with it and the people who are applying for gear/ach. so they can leave and apply to a high ranking guild. As expected, most people just BS this field and put in the answer that they think would be appealing. Since we're a semi-casual guild, it's not a deal breaker, but if you write that and then another applicant fighting for the same spot actually tells us things about the guild and specific reasons why the guild is a good fit - he's getting in.


Across all the sections we're assessing your personality. Occasionally we have applicants that completely overkill the application right paragraphs upon paragraphs in every field. As long as it's not just being lengthy and verbose, these applicants tend to scream patience, concentration, and ambition. If show in your application that you can't write 1000 words in an application (keep in mind, it's not a well-developed critical essay, it's simple answers you already know) without feeling annoyed or strained, how are we going to think you're going to perform when we're on week 4 of 30% LK wipes? Even casual raiding can be strenuous. It's understandable that the application process is as well.


Last, remember that it also just helps us filter through who gets to do trial runs, without applications we would be wasting a tremendous amount of time. The objective is guild progress, saving time by making potential applicants apply instead of interview/trial run them prior to adding them as a trial is an obvious choice from the perspective of a guild officer.


TLDR: Casual guilds are looking for the same qualities as HC guilds, just with more leniency. It's not only your answer that tells us about you, but also how you answer. In some cases, the how you answer is much more important than the literal answer itself. WoW applications are essentially the same as real life applications. The more exclusive the position, the more work you're expected to put into your application.

[Deleted]

What ability? The ability to find a website, register for their forum, and lie (assuming one does not have the required skills and XP).
Yep pretty much every one who plays wow measures up.

People with the skills and brain to actually apply to a Heroic raiding guild capable of clearing all encounters pre-nerf, will know that "Lies will get you no where tiny Tim". As Firefly say, do you really think the people reading the applications are completely morons? Sure, you could claim to have a world first kill and that you just sold your original account. If you don't have the skill, you most likely don't know your class properly either and that will show on your armory and in your answers. And if you actually made it to a trial, then what? If you do not have the required skill or experience, how are you going to fool anyone?

Bitch please^^

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Except the answer is really "as many as you want as long as you eat after buying the fifth noodle bowl."

Well sure, if the one popping the noodle cart stays at it the entire night..... I mean really? You pop a cart inside the raid, people grab their noodles and waves goodbye to it.

Don't know what sort of raiding you're doing, if you actually think the right answer is "as many as you want as long as you eat after buying the fifth noodle bowl".

[Spacetauren]

I'm an officer in my guild - in fact I'm replying to this thread just so I can hit the #10 thread count to post a recruitment thread with links - and I'd say it's 50/50 on what we see in someone's application and what we see them do during a trial run. If you can't even put the effort into filling out what by and large are short, simple text answers, it really doesn't bode well for your overall appeal.

[Sul]

This comparison doesn't work. Professional sports players get paid multi-million dollar contracts for their skills and attributes.

No one here is making a salary to stab Garrosh in the ankles.

While he used a pro sport as an example the guts of what he is saying holds true , raiding is a team game ,even park footy clubs have trials , as someone said in another reply if your too lazy to fill out the app then there is a good chance you wont fully commit to a raid schedule or to work on gearing your toon to the best of your ability .

My guild for example doesn't worry about how good you are so much as are you willing to do whatever you can to make sure you have the best gear available to you , one member for example thought it was just too boring to get the legendary cloak so he isn't in the team

[LeperHerring]

You can judge me over horseshit applications all you want, I'm a no nonsense person who would rather be theorycrafting and absolutely perfecting my class, farming mats and doing stuff ingame then wasting my time on guild websites and applications.

And I can assure you the recruitment officers would rather be playing the game or drinking beer or whatever rather than reading applications or building web sites. Try to remember there are other people involved than you. Nobody likes application processes, it would be amazing if great players just appeared out of nowhere to fill a raid spot, but unfortunately the world does not work like that and a large amount of boring work from both applicants and officers has to go into filling those spots.

[Hakto]

I am the recruitment Officer for my guild.

We have an application process because it is the only way the guild can assess potential applicants prior to them paying to transfer across.

LFR or Flex/ half the guild doesn't do them.

Besides if you can't be bothered to spend 10 minutes on an application, why should we bother with you?

It's also a way of preventing potential drama if our Guild members dont like an applicant for some reason. Very few people apply to a guild less progressed than themselves, so frankly it is up to you the applicant to show why we should take you.

Most raiders are not online much outside of raid and even if they are it's for their own benefit not for the benefit of some random that wants to run an LFR or flex to prove he is worthy.

If you don't know your own class well enough to answer relevant questions inside 10 minutes then are you really ready for heroic raiding?

[Lunatick-3]

As a raid leader who's spent a lot of time recruiting over the last 6 years, I'll say here what I tell my current officers. Raiding (and heroic especially) is primarilly about following instructions. There are multiple strats for most fights, and if you arent executing the same strata as the rest of the team, you can cause wipes. If you do a poor job of following the first instructions we give you ("please fill out this application as completely as possible") why should we expext you to follow instructions in a raid?

[Deleted]

People with the skills and brain to actually apply to a Heroic raiding guild capable of clearing all encounters pre-nerf, will know that "Lies will get you no where tiny Tim". As Firefly say, do you really think the people reading the applications are completely morons? Sure, you could claim to have a world first kill and that you just sold your original account. If you don't have the skill, you most likely don't know your class properly either and that will show on your armory and in your answers. And if you actually made it to a trial, then what? If you do not have the required skill or experience, how are you going to fool anyone?

Bitch please^^

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Well sure, if the one popping the noodle cart stays at it the entire night..... I mean really? You pop a cart inside the raid, people grab their noodles and waves goodbye to it.

Don't know what sort of raiding you're doing, if you actually think the right answer is "as many as you want as long as you eat after buying the fifth noodle bowl".

Well to be fair you could get 20 bowls if you wanted in a short timeframe, it has no use, but you can.

[Deleted]

Applications are mainly a communications check and a way to save time for a recruitment officer. We don't want to spend our in-game time typing back and forth for 10-20 minutes per potential recruit. It's quicker for us to point them to an application form and read it at our leisure. Consider that if I had 10 whispers in 1 day and talked to them all for 10 minutes, that's eating nearly 2 hours of my play-time.

That said, I don't place much value on long applications anyway. My own guild's form consists of a few general info questions (name, age, armory link, any good alts, main spec (if not currently in that spec) and then some simple guild history and social information. It's less than half a page and shouldn't take more than 10minutes to fill out. It's mostly used to gauge your attitude and whether you'll fit in, since my guild is not "just" a WoW guild; we're all close friends that play a lot of other games together and would like people we bring in to get involved on that level rather than seeing us as a means to an end. 9 times out of 10 we'll invite you for a chat on voice comms or to a raid if most people like the look of your app.

[Deleted]

if you cant be arsed filling in an 10min "Application" then you obviously have no intention of spending time reading up on Class, Game, and Boss Mechanics. Let alone taking the time to read up and watch tactic videos on up coming encounters or how to get the most out of your character, The application process is not only to see what you have supposedly done, it is also a way for other officers who may not have spoken to you to get a feel of who you are, what you state you are capable of and what your goals are.

They are also a great way to weed out those people who would not be welcomed into our communities, you know the type Get an invite then immediately start causing grief, begging for gold / boosts etc. I am sure that if you don't want to fill in an app that there are lots of guilds out there, But don't complain that they are filled with bad's when they employ an open door policy and have no method of screening a recruits suitability.