Thoughts of a pirate recruiters and me, a used car salesman?

The last two weeks has been quite busy for me and The Bastards - recruitment has been open for two weeks and we have plenty of exciting prospects coming into the corporation. Some older, less active members may need to make way for these newer chaps as The Bastards continue to expand, renew and reinvigorate. It is a good time to be here, active, flying in space and fighting for a spot on roaming gangs.

No room for complacency and this is a good thing.

We are about to close the recruitment cycle again in order to keep on top of things.

Let me make some things clear: I manage the recruitment side of things inasmuch as usually being the first contact point with applicants before they are handed over to one of four nominated recruiters who take on the candidate until a vote is cast on their application. These recruiters of ours are either senior members or directors of the corporation. I also take on a fair number of applications myself as does Mynxee with her Alliance director hat on.

We currently have twenty two applications and we have rejected three already and there are eight more we're about to chop or ask them to withdraw. The last bunch of about a dozen are coming through to the two week mark where the initial vote is cast between the recruiters and a random selection of corp mates who have been flying with a particular candidate.

Have had some varying responses so far: some failed candidates take on board the reasons why their application was rejected, many see it as positive and have vowed to fill in their knowledge gaps. Others less so.

In the last three months since I took over the rather haphazard recruitment process, we have had many successes. With the newer pilots doing a tremendous amount of damage in isk as well as ransoms. Some eventually washed out or moved onto other corps and this sort of personnel-churn is inevitable. We're still looking for more suitable pilots.

Out of some fun and interest I decided to check the master list where I keep track of all recruits that have ever crossed my desk. This list has information on their stage in the process, whether they've been accepted or rejected or withdrawn and my notes. While the more detailed discussion is confidential and internal to the corporation, here's a summary:

Total candidates applied since October 2008: 113
Candidates accepted: 29
Candidates withdrawn: 29
Candidates rejected: 35
Candidates in queue: 21

A candidate's application is usually withdrawn if there's been no more communication from the applicant for over two-weeks. This has happened a lot, where the initial communication between both parties were enthusiastic and positive but then, it peters out. It could be a fault in our own processes but when the applicant doesn't log on and makes no effort to keep in touch, we have little choice but to withdraw the application. An email or a chat informing us of other important events and responsibilites would have been useful to both groups. Most withdrawn applications never get reactivated. So far, only one candidate who was withdrawn, re-approached us to continue the application process.

Those that get rejected are for a number of reasons. Some I can share and they include:

1. No working mic, despite repeated attempts at getting one. You need one eventually!
2. Refused to hand over limited API key - screenshots not allowed!
3. Prematurely sending in an application to the corp - when it was stated clearly that this would be instant rejection.
4. Really sloppily filled in application form - looks like you don't care, so neither do we.
5. Dodgy employment history - jumping from corp to corp, staying no more than four weeks in each. Some employment histories had over 35 corporations. It looks like you wander around and can't stay in one place - so chances are, you'll leave us too. So, bye-bye.
   
6. Smack talker. You love smack, and have smack template in your bio. Then bye, bye.
   
7. Being a dick in the interview. 'Nuff said.
   
8. Really, inexperienced in pvp and didn't match the character SP level - character was purchased or given to applicant.
   
9. Not a good fit - chemistry isn't there.
   
10. Evasive - not sending in API key, logging off when we convo him, dropping out of vent when asked a question.
    
11. Character is a corp thief and proud of it. We're not interested.
    
12. Irritating git and doesn't listen to orders and wanders off when in fleet.
13. Acting like a child when internet space ship blew up. Learn to align and warp out dumbass.
    
14. Account sharing with loved one. Very sweet but NO.
    
15. My pirate toon is not my main. I have it for fun only. We're pirates full time, so bye-bye.
    

Most common knowledge gaps that I have found in a fair few of the applicants include not knowing how to use the directional scanner properly or understanding what can cause a global criminal countdown and the difference that is from an 'ordinary' aggression count-down. There is still the dreaded 'hidden' countdown that sometimes results in your ship being popped as it undocks.

Ship fits are usually okay for the most part but some are, well - odd. Warp core stabilisers are a strict no-no. As is fitting frigate guns on a battle ship, because you didn't have the skills for bs sized guns. Also, fly only what you can afford to lose - don't undock with your faction fitted megathron. SELL the faction fitted megathron and buy a dozen of well-fitted thorax class cruisers and go on a roam! You'll have lots of fun.

There's also a number of applicants who do well in the interview, decent skill set and they're active but they're don't 'get it' about piracy and yes, dropping to -10 in sec status is consequence of your new life style so embrace it.

A bit of a ramble but it hasn't been all desk bound recruitment work. I did go out and FC a couple of fleets over the week and it was fun. One evening we had a mixed gang and popped a well fit abaddon in our frigates. The abaddon was piloted by a pirate from the corp, 'The United' and we tackled and then popped him in our frigates. That was fun and we had a chance to see some of our applicants do their stuff and I was, in the main, impressed with them. The roam ended up with us in 0.0 space where we took out a munnin only for us to be eventually bubbled up on one side of the gate. I lost my rifter and someone else their rupture. Still, not a bad trade. Each night there's a roaming gang moving out, most roams are successful so plenty of loot to be had by all.

Actually, The United have been the news for a fair few weeks - a number of subjects ranging from what appeared to be a failed attempt to over Neo Spartan territory to The United being accused of manipulating their kill board to some other inane bit of forum driven drivel.

Ah drama and fun times indeed.