Questions to Ask PNMs
Questions for talking with potential new members across a recruitment week, running from easy openers to the quieter conversations near the end. The guide notes which round each group suits, what most rules forbid, and how to write notes the chapter can actually use.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How is your day going, honestly?
Why ask it
The word honestly gives her permission to say tired, which almost no PNM volunteers. One truthful sentence at the start makes everything after it less scripted.
What are you hoping to get out of this week?
Why ask it
Aims at her goals rather than her worthiness. Finding friends, filling an empty schedule, or keeping a promise to a parent are all real answers, and each tells you what she needs from you.
What made you sign up for recruitment?
Why ask it
There is usually a specific reason: a sister, a roommate, a mother, or plain curiosity. Whether the decision was hers or someone else's is one of the most useful things to learn early.
Who told you about Greek life before you got here, and what did they tell you?
Why ask it
What she has already heard shapes every question she asks you. If it came from one relative or from social media, part of your job is correcting it rather than repeating it.
What are you studying, or what are you deciding between?
Why ask it
Offering deciding between removes the pressure to have a plan. Undecided is a fine answer, and how she describes the choice is often more interesting than the subject itself.
What did you do outside class in high school that you want to keep up?
Why ask it
Keep up points forward instead of asking for a list of achievements. It also turns up things a chapter can use, from intramural sports to being the person who runs the group chat.
What kind of volunteering have you done, if any?
Why ask it
The if any matters, because plenty of PNMs have done very little and will otherwise pad the answer. Willingness to start is fair to weigh, and honesty here is worth more than an inflated list.
What would make a group feel like home to you?
Why ask it
Gets her real requirements instead of a definition of sisterhood: people who text back, quiet evenings in, someone to study with. Then you know whether your chapter can honestly offer that.
What do you want your weeks to look like once the semester settles down?
Why ask it
A practical question about the shape of her life. It surfaces a job, a sport or a long drive home before either of you builds expectations around a schedule that does not exist.
Realistically, how much time do you have for something like this?
Why ask it
Realistically is the important word. A modest, truthful number is better information than an enthusiastic one, and it protects her from joining something she cannot sustain.
What do people get wrong about you when they first meet you?
Why ask it
Most people know the answer and are rarely asked. Quiet at first, too intense, hard to read: whatever she says is usually accurate and beats your own first impression.
What are you good at that would never show up on a resume?
Why ask it
Leaves room for the things nobody lists: fixing things, staying calm, remembering birthdays, cutting hair. Chapters run on exactly these, and they never come up in a values conversation.
Who do you call when something goes wrong?
Why ask it
Support is a fairer subject than achievement. Whether she names a friend, a parent, a counselor or nobody tells you what she is hoping to find in a group of people.
What has this week actually been like for you?
Why ask it
Better than asking how recruitment is going, which gets a polite answer. Sore feet, one conversation that went badly, a friend who was cut: this is often the first unscripted thing she has said today.
What do you most want to know about being a member that nobody has answered yet?
Why ask it
Most PNMs are carrying a question about time, cost or what membership really requires, and fear that asking looks bad. Invite it, then answer plainly, with numbers where your chapter allows it.
Is there anything you are worried about if you join?
Why ask it
Worries are specific and answerable: money, homesickness, hazing, losing study hours. The chapter that answers one directly gets remembered as the one that told the truth.
Without naming anyone, what has stood out to you about the chapters you have visited?
Why ask it
The framing keeps you inside most Panhellenic rules while still hearing what she values. Notice whether she talks about people and conversations or about houses and outfits.
What do you want us to know about you that has not come up?
Why ask it
By the third day she has told the same three stories repeatedly. This is the invitation to say the fourth, which is usually the one she wanted someone to ask about.
What would help you decide by the end of the week?
Why ask it
Puts the decision back where it belongs. The answer usually names the information she is missing, and supplying it does more for her than another round of questions.
Is there anything I can do to make today easier?
Why ask it
Small and practical: water, a chair, a bathroom, someone to walk her to the door. This is what PNMs describe afterwards when they explain which chapter felt kind.
How to use these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Which questions fit which round
- Open house and first rounds: keep it light and concrete. Where she is from, her roommate, her summer, whether she has managed to eat.
- Philanthropy round: explain your cause first, then ask what she has done and which event she would actually show up to.
- Sisterhood round: this is where the questions about friendship, support and what would make a group feel like home belong.
- Preference round: one question and a long conversation. Nobody should be interviewed at pref.
Check the rules before you start
- Ask your recruitment chair what your campus permits, especially on dues, other chapters, and anything a PNM asks about parties.
- Alcohol, dating, money and politics are off limits in most systems, as is asking her to rank chapters or hinting about a bid.
- Do not ask about test scores, class rank or family finances in any form, however casually.
- If she volunteers something painful, thank her, move the conversation on, and leave it out of your notes.
Making a short conversation work
Most rounds give you a few minutes, and the PNM has already had roughly this conversation several times today. One question with two follow-ups teaches you more than six questions read off a list. Ask about the answer she just gave rather than jumping to your next item, and offer something true about yourself in between so it does not feel like an interview. When she asks you something, answer it fully. PNMs remember which chapter gave them a straight answer far longer than they remember being asked about leadership.
Notes and voting
- Write one specific fact or quote per conversation, within a minute of it ending.
- Keep what she said separate from how it felt, and mark the second as your own impression.
- Watch the vocabulary that hides bias: polished, put together, not our type. None of it describes anything she said or did.
- If your only hesitation is that she was quiet, write that she was quiet in a loud room, because that is what actually happened.