Why do guilds take days sometimes week to give an answer to an applicant?

[Pullup]

People are taking this the wrong way tbh.Not worth it.

[Addiena]

First of all yes this is kind of a rant.
I'm just wondering why 99% of the guilds out there like to prolonge the time it takes them to answer applicants just making them more anxious.
It if anything should be the a guild's top priority after raiding to answer applicants.
I was a recruitment officer for a top 50 guild for about 6 months before I quit raiding and after each and every raid I used to check our application forum and give organize an officer meeting to vote on the applications, I did not make it drag on and on and on endlessly for some odd reason.
Here are the reasons I think guilds take forever to answer applications because it sure as hell is not to make sure they have the right candidate because by the time you look at the previous raiding experience and the armory you have a pretty concrete idea of if you are going to recruit this person or not:

-1 To seem important, they make it sound as a job applications when at most its to play a game together more or less seriously depending on the focus of the guild.
-2 Because they geniunely do not care about new applicants and most of their trials are just used as collaterals until old members get back to raiding/any other purpose.
-3 Because they are on some sort of a break from the whole guild scene(vacation etc). This one is the only one which I can understand.

Now I would really like to plead to every single guild/officer/raid leader/recruitment officer out there that when you are applying to a guild and you ask for an answer does not mean you aren't a patient guy.It has nothing to do with patience.Especially since it's a more or less mundane task of accepting/rejecting people and the real ''application'' is during the trial period.
So please give people answers quickly.It won't mean you are less good of a guild,it won't make you seem less important it will just save people lots of time waiting to apply to other guilds/deciding where they will continue with their raiding career.

Thank you very much,

Please don't bother with flames as I most probably will not be reading this thread again this was just a message to everyone.

So its a useless post then .. I see

Why bother to post at all.

[Deleted]

First of all yes this is kind of a rant.

I was a recruitment officer for a top 50 guild for about 6 months before I quit raiding

Please don't bother with flames as I most probably will not be reading this thread again this was just a message to everyone.

1 you quit so why would you care. 2 give names if you claim to have been in a top 50 guild( not that i would care about it ) and 3 why make a post if you wont return and arent willing to disccuss with other people about why they do it.


I can only speak for my own guild, but were not focused on raiding as were more casual. We wait about a week to let officers look at the person and the name. besides that if someone wants to join a guild and is in another within 24h of the application he isnt very picky now is he and is someone likely to leave as soon as he can get into a better guild and not worth our time.

[Maeleena]

Most good guilds (thinking top progression guilds here, not a good fun guild) don't even respond to applications that they have denied.

[Redsniper]

Well, first off, why would you make a thread to not want feedback? Saying your not going to return to read it is pointless.

Second, it takes my guild awhile to get applications accepted / declined, because we want the entire guilds opinion on that person. We want everyone to see there app and if they know that person or have heard about that person, we want there impute. How are YOU supposed to judge a warlock when your a Warrrior? (just saying, dunno your class). So if we get 5 warlocks to post about his spec, gear and gemming, so of course i'm gonna make the applicant wait.

[Paperplate]

Guilds will have different processes and some might take a bit more input from regular guild members before giving the app the nod. Typically these days (especially you since you were in a top 50 guild) applicants are server transfers. Guilds don't want to give people the nod and force them to spend money on a transfer unless they're sure the probability of a good fit is high.

Also, yes, often times a day or so delay is due to key people being slow to respond (for various real life reasons).

A week without hearing anything is wayyyyyyy too long! But I can see a couple days on average, 3 days max before hearing back.

[Migey]

Stop flaming him for giving a valid point. If all you are going to do is flame, then don't bother posting at all.

I for one get very annoyed when i apply to a guild and they dont bother responding. I once applied to a good guild and they left me hanging for 3 weeks. I finally lost patience and jsut asked thier recruitment officer ''I've been as patient as i can but theres been no news on my application. Will i be accepted or should i try some other people''. His response was a suprised ''oh, we decided not to accept 2 weeks ago?''. I queried him on why he didnt post this in the application thread, and he claimed he couldnt be bothered, and that since i had been declined by the officers, i wasnt worth the time it took to tell me about it.

In the end i got into a better guild, but things like that still irritate me alot.

[Kesther]

It's a guild, therefore it's a guild decision when it comes to whether or not an applicant joins us for a trial in our guild. So we wait for the entire guild to come back with a bit of feedback, maybe they met them a few days ago and they were a complete dick?
Maybe they used to be in an old guild with them and they were really good but had problems with authority?
That's why we take a few days to reply to applicants, because we want to make sure there isn't any friction in the guild when a new member joins. For us it isn't a matter of 5 or 6 people just saying yay or nay being the end of it.

[Kifimbo]

well, as an officer of a guild, i can say, we take a few days to post a response because we want a majority of the officer/guildies to see the application(on a public section of the forum) and post their thoughts on the private version of the application post, then after a few days we respond. not all of us ar experts on all classes/specs so we wait for the group consensus. but it is also noted on the application template.

[Rlyskilled]

If you're an all around amazing player that the guild knows they'll benefit from you'll get a quick response.
If you're obviously awful at first glance and will not benefit the guild in any way you'll get a quick response.

Most players fall into the in-between category where it sometimes takes a few days for officers to speak with each other, speak with other raiders of the same class to get their opinions, sift through WoL reports, and go through the rounds to ensure said player would be an asset to their guild. They often aren't being flaky, they're being thorough. Simply ignoring applicants, on the other hand, is a bit pretentious. But what can you do, if you don't care enough to ask a member directly in game.

[unholytestament]

Stop flaming him for giving a valid point. If all you are going to do is flame, then don't bother posting at all.

Stop white knighting people who have openly admitted they don't care who responds to their topics. If all you're going to do is stand up for those who don't give a shit maybe you shouldn't be posting.

And all guilds are different. The OP just made some huge assumptions based on no information whatsoever (other than experience in a top 50 guild, which I doubt is true).

Though it has been my experience that the more automated the application process is the less efficient it actually is. Go figure.

[Lilija]

I think the delay comes mostly when someone applies with a class that is well represented in the guild.

I haven't applied to guilds much in my WoW career, however, those 2 applications I have made were really hard to miss ^^

[cdmcg]

You people complaining about not hearing back on being declined. How many jobs have you applied for? I have applied to countless positions in my career field and only a hand full that had nothing to offer actually responded back. If you dont hear back in a timely manner that means you didnt get it. Be a big boy about it and move on.

[Rugz]

God grant you...the serenity to accept what you cannot change and the common decency to shut the fuck up about it.

Seriously, your sig pretty much sums up the OP, he even said he's not reading this so stop defending him, he even left out option 4:

Not every guild is a dictatorship and some groups prefer discussion of an application before taking someone on.

[Velky]

Most guilds have their applications private. Therefore you do not know if that guild has just your application to look at, or 50 others.

I used to be a recruitment officer for my guild, and while I wouldn't wait a week to reply, I would wait a few days so others can review the app. Just because I was an officer, doesn't mean I was 100% up-to-date on every single class. Therefore, i'd let our Hunters look over Hunter apps, mages over mage apps and so on. I had several alts so I was able to chime in here and their.

Also, like others mentioned, they want all the officers to view the app too.

[Needonboots]

Stop flaming him for giving a valid point. If all you are going to do is flame, then don't bother posting at all.

I for one get very annoyed when i apply to a guild and they dont bother responding. I once applied to a good guild and they left me hanging for 3 weeks. I finally lost patience and jsut asked thier recruitment officer ''I've been as patient as i can but theres been no news on my application. Will i be accepted or should i try some other people''. His response was a suprised ''oh, we decided not to accept 2 weeks ago?''. I queried him on why he didnt post this in the application thread, and he claimed he couldnt be bothered, and that since i had been declined by the officers, i wasnt worth the time it took to tell me about it.

In the end i got into a better guild, but things like that still irritate me alot.

The OP wasn't alking about NOT replying, which is very bad mannered, but aout taking time to reply.


The fact is sometimes people have a few other things to deal with. Or maybe there's a few saying yes and a few saying no and they're trying to hash it over. Or maybe you applied for a spot competing with several other people, and they don't want to put everyone on trial, so they're deciding the best.

Snap decisions lead to poor applicants being recruited for trial. If you want to be in the guild, then wait. If you don't then don't bother applying in the first place.


Also I hear everyone on the internet has been an officer in a Top 50 guild. True story.

[Lagwin]

A few reasons...it takes time to get all the guild officers/gm on at the one time to discuss it or maybe something about your app is anoying them and they are wondering wether or not to take you

[obain]

Because by and large guilds with feelings of unwarrented self importance are run by sad little people with nothing else going on in their lives. They lack any sense of power or responsability in their offline lives and so try to excercise any measure they can to big themselves up in an internet based MMO in a desperate attempt to inflate their egos and feel a little better about their boring office job and failing relationship.

Thats the truth.

[Lilija]

You people complaining about not hearing back on being declined. How many jobs have you applied for? I have applied to countless positions in my career field and only a hand full that had nothing to offer actually responded back. If you dont hear back in a timely manner that means you didnt get it. Be a big boy about it and move on.

That is so true.

[Calibrhaw]

Been in a few guilds and they've all done recruiting the same way.
Guildleader or some other active guy within the guild spots the application. Sends word to say, the best hunter in guild for him to check it out (if its a hunter applying) then he leaves a comment or asks questions to the applicant if he found something to raise questions about, normally gets a fast answer that may or may not be satisfactory. Either way he'll then talk to his fellow guild-hunters to see what they say about getting another hunter in. What their activity will be like in the future to make sure threre wont be an abundance of the class signing for raids etc. When that is sorted an answer will be given. Time for this should be 2 days assuming theres noone on vacation etc. If its a borderline case and noone wants to take responsibility for inviting someone then have no use for them it could take a little longer. Either way more than a week should be the limit for any guild.