Recruiting business students

[bmire3206]

My team has been relatively unknown to the average high schooler, but we recently have improved our recruiting efforts and now have plenty of technical related underclassmen. It seems like we have great team forming, but right now we have pretty much one student for the business team and when she tries to get more people to join that side they only think we build a robot.
My question is how do other team recruit non-technical team members?

[Torrance]

Some generic advice is to adapt your recruiting techniques to the type of people that you want to recruit.

For example, instead of creating a poster to put around campus that says
"Like designing, building, and programming things? Come join the robotics team!"

try saying:

"Do you like writing, graphic design, public speaking or MONEY? Come join the robotics team!"

Although it is possible to find people that think robots are inherently cool and like business, in my experience those people are rare and you're better off finding members for your business team by recruiting directly to people that would originally join other clubs like Speech and Debate.

[cgrace]

Originally Posted by Torrance

Some generic advice is to adapt your recruiting techniques to the type of people that you want to recruit.

For example, instead of creating a poster to put around campus that says
"Like designing, building, and programming things? Come join the robotics team!"

try saying:

"Do you like writing, graphic design, public speaking or MONEY? Come join the robotics team!"

Although it is possible to find people that think robots are inherently cool and like business, in my experience those people are rare and you're better off finding members for your business team by recruiting directly to people that would originally join other clubs like Speech and Debate.

I agree wholeheartedly. FIRST has been spreading the message that it is more than robots, and while FRC does include designing, building, programming, and other technical skills, it also includes fundraising, community outreach, public speaking, and other social skills. So whatever method you choose for recruitment, make sure the "more than robots" concept is clear.

Don't forget to emphasize the benefits of being on an FRC team: business members, like other team members, are qualified for the scholarships that FIRST offers, and make sure to mention that business members learn networking, fundraising, and other social skills that are incredibly helpful for many career paths.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by bmire3206

My question is how do other team recruit non-technical team members?

Individually. If you have a specific need that is not filled from general recruiting, sit down with a few people (teachers and students) and figure out who at your school could fill that need if [s]he were involved. Then recruit one or more of the specific individuals identified. As noted above, the message will likely be a bit different than your general recruiting message. For "business" people, the two most likely points you'll need to make are:

• What's in it for the recruit. (scholarships, experience, resume fodder)
• Why the team needs the recruit. (already discussed)

[snoman]

We have asked our local university business professor to put it out to his students as a project. The college student would help mentor our team. With media, outreach, and a business plan. My fingers are crossed.

[MooreteP]

We recently hosted our school's FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) team to see if they wanted to work with us to use our team as a model of Project Management.

I am hoping that one or two of their members will join our team, and use us as a business model to present at their annual local conference.
They were quite impressed with our organization.

[Jon Stratis]

Recruiting business-minded kids is hard - they hear "robotics team" and find out the rest of your pitch, even if that pitch has nothing to do about the robot.

To help with that, we've been inviting in guest speakers from local companies to work directly with our business team for a night or two. Someone to talk about websites, someone about branding, someone about finances, someone about grant writing, etc. Then we advertise to the entire school " there will be a speaker coming to talk about grant writing next Monday from 6-9.". The only mention of the team at all is a small tag at the very end, "sponsored by The Robettes". That gets kids interested in that topic in the door while helping the kids we already have signed up learn a bit more about their job. And once a kid comes to that first meeting, you have a bit of a captive audience and can talk to them about everything the business team does. It's less scary for them if they see first hand that they can go to one of your meetings and never touch a tool or walk into the shop.

[Tyler_Kaplan]

Like many others have said, I would highly emphasize the fact that the business team can learn skills such as leadership, public speaking, fundraising, communication, delegation, and a whole lot of other non technical skills that go along with being in a business team. It might be beneficial to ask certain teachers if you can do a short (5-10 minute) presentation to some of their classes to emphasize these points.

[Phoenix Spud]

In the past few years we've had a relatively large "strategy" (media + business) team. There are a number of ways I think we've accomplished this:

1. We always say we operate as a small business, doing everything from business plans to videos and building a robot.
2. We use our sponsors names! We've found business students are often interested in getting contacts that can help them in their careers.
3. Our "robot" kids will bring along their business friends, this has probably been our most successful approach. Everyone has that friend who doesn't like robotics, but likes *fill in the blank*.

Hope that helps!

[Brian Maher]

Last year, 1257 recruitment flyers that we handed out at our school's club fair listed a mix of technical (design, programming, electrical) and non-technical (business, fundraising, video-making, PR) tasks that our team would tackle. A lot of people just don't know the sheer variety of skills that it take to run a successful FRC team. Less tech-y students hear "robotics" and think there's no place for them, when that couldn't be more wrong.

[troxbots]

On The Power Hawks we actively talk to kids we feel would be interested in that subject area, including our mentor/teacher. We also have 3 versions of our flyer 1 general, 1 build, and 1 business. Each one is tailored to the needs in those areas.