Two CRUCIAL principles of a successful matching are:

- start SOON

- respond FAST

 

Respond FAST:

- an e-mail from an EP applying to the project should not be

responded LATER than 24h after you received it; 

- have a responsible person that only schedules interviews;

- create a facebook group with EPs that have already been

matched and respond there to any questions they have;

 

Start SOON:

- for the summer peak you need to start matching in Marchm 1st.

- for winter peak you need to start matching in September 1st. 

- it is not recommended AT ALL to plan projects OFF PEAK.

The supply on the platform is low, and Romania is not one of the

top wanted countries, so even the few people that are on the

platform will not neccessarily choose us. 

 

OGX VPs contacts

- create a database with contacts from OGX VPs in other countries;

you can either research them on the platform or ask the EPs that

you already matched to give you their contacts. You can easily

promote to them your projects this way and maybe they can convince more of their EPs to participate to your project. 

- it is much easier and effective to contact direcly OGX VPs, and ask them to propote your projects to their EPs, than it is to randomly e-mail 1000 EPs on the platform - it's time-consuming and it doesn't bring results. 

 

Platform contacts

- of you really want to contact EPs from the platform, be sure you do it in an organized way. Have more people research them and divide the period of search in order not to get them twice: e.g. Andrei searches EPs with realization date fom 1st to 10th April, Maria searches from 11th to 20th April and Dan searches from 21st to 30 April; you put them all in a spreadsheet and then you can e-mail them all at once;

- the e-mail that you send them should not look like an advertisment and should be simple and if possible personalized; otherwise they won't even look at it. It has to contain only the MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the project:

• timeline and realization date

• accommodation type

• food (Y/N)

• if they have free time for travelling 

• if they receive TTT conference or LEAD for EPs

• TN code

• contact details

 

Facebook groups

- from my experience they are rather inefficient, because everybody posts in them, but NOBODY READS them. 

- however, if you really want to post on facebook groups, my suggestion is to use simple posts, as the ones in the slideshow above, which should contain only the neccessary information.

 

Partnerships

There are two kind of partnerships:

LC2LC partnerships - your LC with an LC in another country will partner up and they will send you EPs, possibly they will promote your projects to them. You need to keep contact with them and create a realationship. Get to know them better.

Avoid signing contracts, because it's time consuming, just tell them that you will take any of their EPs as long as they pass your interviews. 

*Create a database with all your contacts, so in case you will need at some point to contact them, you will have them all in one place.

*Ask the OGX VPs the contacts of their fellow VPs and slowly you will create a network of contacts. 

CY2CY partnerships - the country to country partnerships are managed by the MCVP and this usually means that we provide the with the national booklet which contains the national projects, and then they promote them in their country. These partnerships are more general, in the sense that you won't know if your LC will receive EPs out of them, or how many EPs you will receive. 

IMPORTANT - do not rely ONLY on partnerships - they may not happen, so you need to be prepared.

 

The interview

The interview is supposed to help you evaluate the EP and decide whether it is suitable for your project or not, but it also had the purpose of answering the questions of the EP so that he can decide if he wants to join your project or not.

It is very important to teach your members to IDENTIFY CHARACTERISTICS and EVALUATE ANSWERS of the EP, not only read the questions in the interview guide nicely. Have them write observation at each answer they receive and in the end write a concluding paragraph like a feedback for the interview - it may seem boring but this way you will educate their critical observation skills and your selection process will be more qualitative. 

 

In this document you can find a general model of interview guide and specific questions for each national project we have. 

 

 

 

 

 

Make sure you answer all the questions of the EP and that you get back to him with the answer YES/NO(+feedback) in no longer than 48 hours. Respect the FAST RESPONSE principle. 

 

!!! For the projects that require testing more technical skills you can also include a practical selection stage. For example for ReBranders you should also ask for a portfolio with their works and give them an assignment (eg. create the logo for your country, write an article about ReBranders) and then ask them TO DETAIL AND EXPLAIN HOW THEY DID IT, so you know for sure that it's their work and not copied. 

 

 

Tracking matching

 

As a VP your job is to track everything that is happening in the department. If you have a TL on matching you can work with him to implement the tracking system which will help you process a large amount of applicants and interviews. 

 

Starting with this year we will start using PODIO, and in each TN form there will be a link to an application form with the informational we need from each EP (such as e-mail, EP code, skype, project they applied for, facebook link). Your main FOCUS should be that the members respond to the e-mails and they interview the applicants, and after this that they report it on PODIO. This way you will see each move and you will be able to evaluate who works, who doesn't, where do you lose the most time. 

 

The ideal way is to have a matching team, in which ONE person and only one is responsible to schedule all interviews. At the same time there should be a spreadhseet where your members will write their names in the slots when they are available in advance. This way the person in charge with scheduling interview will know when to schedule them, and you will stop wasitng time with ping-pong e-mails with the EPs on when to be the interview because you will tell them that you are AVAILABLE AT ANY TIME, since anybody in the department can interview the EP, not only the person who answered the e-mail.

 

In the documents below you will see an example.

 

 

 

 

 

You should also organize weekly CORE meetings in which you should meet with all the people doing matching and evaluate the week and set objectives for the next one. You should ask them about pending answers that they are waiting from EPs, you should send together reminders to EPs to send EP ANs and so on. 

 

Documents: EP AN & TN AN

After you had the interview and decided that you want to accept the EP, you send him a Congratulations e-mail and you ask for the EP AN from him, giving him the TN code that he should use in order to write it. This EP AN should be signed and stamped by him and his EP manager. After he sends your the EP AN you can send him the TN AN. You have here a standard model of the TN AN which you should use.

 

 

 

 

 

VISA

The VISA process is mostly the same in every country which needs VISA, but it takes different amount of days for them to obtain the VISA.

For example in Ukraine they can obtain the VISA in 5 days, as opposed to Egypt where they have to wait 15-30 days to obtain it.

 

There is the list of the countries which need VISA to enter Romania. Some of them only need the documents presented below, but there are other countries which have a star* near their name in the list which means you need to obtain a stamp on the INVITATION LETTER from the Center of VIsas in Bucharest. The MCVP will facilitate this periodically after you send the documents to Bucharest, ORIGINAL, written in the NAME OF THE LCP and SIGNED by LCP, WITH STAMP and in TWO COPIES. 

 

There are three documents which you need to send to your EP in order fom him to obtain the VISA. Use this format and only personalize it to your LC.

- Invitation Letter

- Undertaking

- Guarantee

 

 

 

 

 

You can send this VISA booklet to your EPs.