Basics of Recruiting

Successful recruiting activities can increase the number of clients participating in your cessation program, and ultimately increase the impact of your services on the community. To influence the number of people coming to your programs, recruitment strategies must heighten the benefits and reduce barriers to your services while enticing people to fulfill their own self-interests.  Enhance the effectiveness of your recruitment activities by:

• Developing marketing programs that offer an attractive bundle of benefits, at an acceptable cost, at a time and place when or where tobacco users will be most open to the offer
• Informing tobacco users that the offer is in their self-interest
• Investing the time needed to launch your activities
• Identifying the best medium for reaching your target population
• Developing an easy tracking system to determine the most successful activities
   

Sample social marketing ads (Adapted from Maibach, Rothschild & Novelli, 2002)

Who’s more likely to come?

As you set out your recruitment activities, do keep in mind that not all people who use tobacco will come to your tobacco dependence treatment program.  As mentioned before, the literature suggests that only 15% of tobacco users used an assisted method of cessation during any of their attempts to quit smoking (Fiore et al., 1990).  These people were more likely to be:

• Women
• Middle-aged
• College-educated
• Someone who had made a number of quit attempts
• Heavy smokers
   

Tobacco user's profile

Once you have set an impact goal for your selected target audience, the issue becomes, "How can I reach my target audience?" When designing your recruiting strategies, identify the tobacco-use characteristics of your target audience. Research has found relationships with tobacco use and characteristics such as:

• Alcoholism
• Being an "evening type" as opposed to a "morning type"
• Co-chemical dependencies
• Coffee and alcohol consumption
• Depression
• Divorce
• Driving accidents
• Frequent job changes
• Impulsivity
• Low levels of vocational success
• Schizophrenia

(Fiore et al., 1996; Fisher, Jr., Lichtenstein, & Haire-Joshu, 1993; United States Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 1989)
 

Some characteristics associated with tobacco use among children and adolescents are:

• General delinquency
• High school dropout
• Impulsivity
• Inadequate contraceptive use
• Low level of compliance within the family
• Low level of responsibility
• Low levels of parental involvement
• Non-conforming
• Not planning to go to college
• Previous use of alcohol and other substances
• Rebelliousness
• Rule breaking in school
• The "tendency to live faster and more intensely"
• Tobacco use among friends
• Tobacco use among parents
• Young age at first intercourse
  (Fisher, Jr., Lichtenstein, & Haire-Joshu, 1993; USDHHS, 1989)
   

Establish various recruiting venues

Stay open to various recruiting venues. Venues should be established as collaborative efforts with other social service and health and human service organizations. Many of these venues can be established through partnerships to mutually meet your needs and the collaborating organizations' needs.
For example, when recruiting highly dependent youth, consider the profile of these tobacco users. Risk-taking behavior is more prevalent among youth who perform poorly academically, do not participate in school activities, and demonstrate poor social skills (USDHHS, 1994). Collaborations need to be established with organizations such as:

• Charter and alternative schools
• Police departments
• Court programs
• Youth probation programs
• Youth parole programs
• Youth shelters
• Youth on their own programs
   

"Natural Environments"

In proactive recruitment, we reach out to interact with all potential participants in their "natural environments." "Natural environments" are the locations and events where your target audience is likely to spend their time.
 

Elements for successful recruiting in "natural environments" include:

• Being respectful of the situation
• Being tactful in your approach
• Knowing when to withdraw

For example, when recruiting youth, nightclubs, shopping malls, fairs, concerts, and movie theaters may be ideal "natural environments." When recruiting adults, parks, shopping malls, workplace fairs, school extracurricular activities, and religious events may be logical "natural environments."