How do I recruit the right people to volunteer?

Worldpackers is a collaborative relationships platform that facilitates connections between travelers and hosts, helping you to find volunteers who have the profile you’re looking for your project.

Besides attractive volunteer positions, it’s extremely important that you, the host, have a recruitment process that considers what you need to have successful exchanges. Here are the main steps for a successful recruitment:

1. Set up your volunteer positions based on your needs

Only travelers who fit your pre-selected requirements will be able to see your open positions on our search page. Remember to update them based on your current needs to avoid missing out on opportunities, or attracting volunteers who don’t align with what you’re looking for.

To receive a good number of applications, we ideally recommend travelers reach above 40%. Our traveler reach thermometer, available in the Requirements section of your positions, displays this information:

Languages

When thinking about day-to-day communication with volunteers and what it will be like, don’t forget the importance of having a common language. To verify travelers’ language proficiency, you can:

• Exchange voice messages;
• Add specific language requirements;
• Read feedback from other community hosts regarding language abilities;
• Add an item to your Screening Questions to learn where and how someone learned a certain language;
• Watch travelers’ introduction videos on their profiles;
• Request videos from travelers where they share why they chose you as a host in a specific language.

Region

If you only want to host travelers from other countries, you’ll need to select the option “Only foreigners”. And if you only want to host travelers from your country, we offer the option “Only from my country”. If you don’t have any such requirements, you can choose the alternative “No restrictions”. Check your local laws so you can use these filters as well as possible.

Skills 

When you look at the skills listed on travelers’ profiles and compare them to the ones required in your positions, you’ll have an even better chance of finding the ideal person for your project. For each volunteer position, you’ll choose a number of skills:

Travelers select their levels of experience in each skill to be listed on their profiles: I’m an expert!; Some experience; or I want to learn.

You can also use our Screening Questions, Additional Information, and Description, available in each of your position listings, to make recruitment easier by not leaving space for any uncertainties from travelers.

2. Learn more about interested travelers

Find the right volunteers for your project by checking out relevant information on each traveler’s profile. A complete profile, with certificates and good reviews from other hosts, reduces the chances of a poor choice and demonstrates travelers’ levels of engagement. 

After looking through profiles and evaluating responses from applicants, chat with anyone interested in helping out at your place. Exchanging messages through our platform is essential to understand volunteers’ goals and motivations – after all, these are the people who will be sharing in your daily life and activities.

We recommend discussing habits, hobbies, life experiences, and anything else that creates a connection between you two. This will help you to begin your exchange already knowing a little bit about each other.

To save time while sharing basic information, you can also use our other features:

• Message Templates: Save rapid response templates to send your applicants and save time explaining the most important parts of your exchanges.

• Send and receive attachments and images on the Inbox and exchange relevant information such as maps and pre-arrival checklists for your exchanges, request documents from travelers, and more tools to assist with your process:

Not finding the right people?

If you need more applications to choose the ideal person for your project, you can also use our Traveler Search tool, which lets you choose one of your open positions and search for travelers who are interested in your country and match the requirements you’ve chosen. 

3. Improving your experiences

To keep offering good experiences, it’s important to take into consideration what volunteers who have participated in your project have to say: watch out for travelers comments - both public and private, within the platform or not - and guarantee your project will keep on growing!