jacobcarson877

Welcome back!

Record against top teams? Great. Record against bottom teams? Mid. Sounds about right.

The new mascot of Team Recruitment, "Recruitment P"!

Thank you for your service.

Recruitment is not in charge of what graphics they get from the community, sure they can crop it sometimes, but sometimes the resolution is already garbage. Until they have enough content to actually make informed selections I can't imagine this is a top priority. Sure, could be better, but as you said not necessary. So like what gameplay footage are you planning to use? Where are you getting clips of popular Youtubers and streamers talking about our forum? How many of our members have the experience in video editing to even approach this level of content? I don't agree with this, but its not outrageous and I see why you think this would be better. No real comment. Once again, Recruitment is at the mercy of the Graphics creators. Sure templates would be nice, and those are pretty much one time things, but we can barely get enough people to keep up with the VSN Graphics let alone a team with multiple posts a week, each with their own unique cover graphics. Something to work towards maybe, but only if we have more numbers. I know that others have already talked to you about this, but this was a ballsy move, and could have REALLY backfired. I'm obviously not the only voice, but as much as your changes are cleaner, they're also just... fine? The corner logos feel like too much, the side lines clash on my eyeballs, and the real thing holding it together is that it is your specific graphical style. The moment another person gets in on it, without being solely templates, it feels like a disaster waiting to happen. Do I think Recruitment could use some templated weekly content, yes. I think your ideas behind standings, leaders, trades are fine and dandy. If you really want the extra 2 capped TPE I'm sure someone could swing the same deal as VSN gets, with the expectation that top quality products get some top quality pay. If you want to do that, keep your head down and do that. You make great graphics. I'd love to see works of your quality on the Instagram, but we need enough people to commit to that quality to warrant a full makeover. Much more eloquently put, but maybe too little too late.

I'm 50/50 on it. I don't love earning without being able to grow, and I do love calling players up when they're actually ready to contribute and not just because they hit 400. Sucks to be a rookie and not have a shot at contributing just because you had to be called up.

This is not at all my expertise, but a few people have reiterated an idea that I've also been thinking about for a while, about who specifically would be a higher conversion rate as opposed to the Youtube Be A Pro people. They're more of a spray and pray group, but who really loves what we do? I will say again I don't have any specifics, but maybe if people with some of these interests or experiences can chime in and point the team in a good direction then maybe we can get somewhere. So here's a list of communities I could imagine enjoying our product. - people interested in Sports Journalism or Sports Management - people interested in Creative Writing - people interested in fanfiction (there is a significant niche that go HARD for hockey) - people who are interested in Sports Analytics (maybe avoid betting groups? but hey who am I to say) - people interested in Graphic Design - people interested in Tabletop Roleplaying Games (I'm not kidding, overlap is small, but, well a decent amount of the people here) - people interested in starting in the sports podcasting sphere I'm sure if we can find a few Discords/Subreddits/Twitter circles/Youtube ads there could be some decent conversion there. We'd have to tailor the pitch to match their commonalities with our community but I'd love to see more people in here who enjoy the content making, and want to share their creative works with us! I do also agree with the idea that coming up with a few easily fillable templates from some nice standardized updates on trades, standings, league leaders etc. would make for some awesome content. Maybe switch from a more regular graphics posting to maybe a "Top Graphics of the Week" post with a few of them, and keep that standard high. I know Instagram murders resolution and uses a wonky aspect ratio but maybe this can give us the opportunity to work with that better and come up with fewer posts but at a higher production level. I'm not sure what any TikTok initiatives look like but slideshows are huge on TikTok, since people take a lot of time to work through them and end up playing the sound repeatedly, increasing viewership. Maybe a couple of those a week, one with the Top Graphics, one with Standings Updates etc. Maybe even get a TikTok challenge going in here, for every x number of views you get 1 Uncapped TPE, up to 5 or something. I also like the idea of an internal recruitment drive, starting at the Trade Deadline, give a couple bonus TPE for each recruit during that week. Nothing that would cause huge inflation, but use that sense of urgency to your advantage. I am really optimistic about your work though, and despite the numbers not immediately showing up, I am confident in the people in the team, and I think they are some of the best the VHL has to offer for the position. I don't know what kind of transparency you could provide, but as a non-transparent organization to 99% of the community, it does make Recruitment an easy target for backlash. Most people don't know what you do, and how well you do it. If there is some way to summarize that present it, (and yes we BOG need to get back to doing this too, although without being paid for it, we get a little less backlash) then perhaps the community will be less likely to be at the team's throats. This would probably require a formal leadership and dedicated archivist. Best of luck, and hope some people bring some great constructive suggestions.

lotsa wins for me!

Proud of you! Keep up the great work!

So basically you can go edit your Media Spot to be: " Dear Recruitment, I have an idea for how you could spice up your posts on Instagram! Wouldn't it be cool if we came up with some templates from standings, stat leaders and trades? I could offer my services if you think that would make for good social media content. Let me know if you like my ideas, Z" I'm sure the Recruitment team would be much more likely to accept your criticism in that form.

THIS is valid criticism, and I'm glad someone with insider knowledge is able to come up with that. Saying the Instagram is ugly and VHLM rosters aren't at the size we'd like isn't really a fair criticism, since we can't know that they hadn't fulfilled their specific tasks, and just haven't gotten the results. (Noting this was not your criticism, but I imagine you understand where the inspiration for this article came from)

Absolutely agree, but, one could feasibly do all 6 and not bring in the amount of members needed. I think we're both on the same page that it isn't necessarily a work in = value out job, and without transparency at least for the common member, we can only judge on the value out. Their job is to put our product in front of people who should want to join, that's my only opinion difference.

So as you may have seen, there have been some tensions between the VHLM/E GMs and the Recruitment team. Their player counts have not been stable or particularly numerous these past few seasons, and with most of Recruitment’s work happening behind closed doors, it can make them a rather easy target. Much like the popular disdain of the VHLE, where we all watch players go inactive the moment they make the transition there, and a new approach to Recruitment failing to bring in new active members as of today, it can be easy to confuse correlation and causation. I think we can all understand when I connect the concept of Recruitment to that of Sales. While I am no businessman, I know a few things from merely being alive, that pertain to the art. The first is that you cannot control the number of deals you close, merely the number of contacts you make. Recruitment’s job is not to bring in members, contrary to what some may think. It is to put the VHL brand in front the appropriate number of eyeballs that might be interested in our community. I think we can all agree that not enough eyeballs are seeing our social media pages that would be interested in joining our community. I imagine that this is where the outrage is coming from. Social Media would become our largest traffic driver were we to actually build a large audience, but that will inevitably take time and/or luck. Does this make it not worth our efforts? I think it is very much worth our efforts, as other pools of eyeballs are dwindling the more we scoop from them. The second piece of knowledge is that in order to land a sale, one has to provide a product that the person thinks they want. How do we do that? We connect whatever interest they currently have, with whatever experience we think we can offer them. Our existing pool of Youtube recruits connected with the idea that we’re something in the realm of Be A Pro from the NHL series, and we use our understanding of that connection to draw traffic to our site. We also know that this connection is not exactly true, as our core gameplay experience is in fact nothing like Be A Pro. The actions taken to participate in this league do not involve a controller, or even a visual aspect. The connection between video game enjoyer and writer/artist/podcaster is superficially connected, with a very low conversion rate. But, considering the number of eyeballs that see it, and the simplicity of just clicking a link, Youtube does bring the most eyeballs to the front page of our website. They may even make a player and click all of the buttons on the Player Management page. But then what? I remember this part of my creation process, and I would have quit had I not left the tab open when I went to bed and woke up to some messages from VHLM GMs. Video game enjoyers want to do a thing, and when you’ve made that sale, they want to dive right in, and with nothing more to do, they close the tab and never come back. Obviously, this isn’t true for everyone, we have a large number of active members from Youtube, but with enough eyeballs, there will certainly be a few that buck the trend and stick around. While this is something that works, even at a low conversion rate, it is better than nothing, and useful to bump up some smaller classes, it should not be our primary method moving forward. The final piece of wisdom is that one of the methods people make sales is by applying some sense of urgency. People are willing to purchase something just because it is on sale, or because there is limited stock. If people don’t feel like it is the best time to purchase something, they may never. How many random snacks from the grocery store have you only tried because they were a limited time offer, or on sale, even better a 2/5$ sale on a couple of 3$ bags of chips? May as well buy 2 at that point! The season cycle moves so quickly (in terms of real life, I know those offseasons are killing everyone), there are so many important events that we could use to draw people in. Get in before the draft! Get in this week after the trade deadline! Get in just in time for season start, or theme week! Refer a friend this week and get a free Doubles Week! People are going to act far more spontaneously when forced to act with urgency, or to extend the value. Is Recruitment really failing? Not in the slightest. I think it is actually really great that they’re putting awesome work in front of eyeballs, even if it is just ours for now. Yes, they need to use a tried and true method at the moment (which they are), to bring raw numbers to the table. But Youtube is, in my opinion, our worst method of Recruitment, since it is pretty well a lie straight out of the gate. We aren’t Be A Pro, and we have nothing in common, gameplay wise with that medium. There are also less and less people spending all of their days watching NHL videos on Youtube. People are back at work and school, and viewership in general continues to move towards other platforms. It is very responsible for the Recruitment to be thinking about the long term, setting out a foundation to get continued and steady members rather than large booms and busts. Their work hasn’t paid off yet, and as they lay out policy and expectations for generations of Recruitment members, they will have to work overtime to do the Recruitment style of old, while also adapting to modern times. Many of us can remember 2020 and how many new members were flowing in, but that was a different circumstance, and any dwindling since can’t solely be attributed to incompetence. Lets leave Recruitment to recruit, they also have brains and know numbers are low, and lets get ourselves back to keeping the members we do have active and engaged. Lots of love, Jacob P.S. Shoutout to my homies on and related to Recruitment. P.P.S If you genuinely have ideas, shoot a DM to @Moon, the team has always been open to discuss ideas with me and I assume others!

So with daily posts (which I imagine would be the professional standard), plus on call posts for trades, signings and such, how many people can be reasonably expected to handle that volume of content? People get paid like real salaries to do this kind of work.

ick

And who is making all of these professional grade graphics?

I mean to be fair NYA has offered (before the season began if I remember correctly), so the player is choosing not to play over playing for NYA. I would expect that assuming this trade goes through, as NYA takes reasonable action to get their own active goaltender, that VAN would be obligated to offer. If Pedersen still sits, that's not really anyone's issue.

Jesse Teno

you could have gotten 0, i did last week

All very much confirmed, we love to see it. I personally never buy them, and since they can't be used to claim Doubles Weeks or Theme Week or anything like that I don't see the appeal but they are HOT sellers, mostly for people who regularly do PTs, or used to and missed weeks are are stepping back in activity. We do get a lot of first gens, but I wouldn't say its proportionally much different. There's a small group of people who do it pretty regularly, usually goaltenders. Or people who took a long pitstop in the VHLE, and then their VHL GM tries to find way to get them to spend money in a way. But yeah, usually just the leftover money at the end of a career. Woo Player Store!

3/4 points and a heater from Wolanin!

In order to claim TPE from writing, it has to be at least somewhat VHL related. Fun update on an NHL player however!

London is off to a wonderful start so far, really fulfilling the vision the team came in with. We have conceded the least amount of goals so far, even with a few particularly lackluster backup goalie performances this week. Jesse Teno has been a workhorse and the team defense has been particularly strong. Special Teams has made a major difference so far, averaging a powerplay goal a game so far, at a league leading 23.5% conversion rate. The penalty kill unit has also been in the top quarter of the league, giving us a special teams goal differential of 9 in the first third of the season. Our goal, quite simply, almost painfully simply, is to score more goals than we concede. Why yes, that is the point of the game you might say. What this means to us is that scoring is not a scale from 0 to infinity. It is a binary of enough and not enough. So long as the number of goals we score is greater than that of our opponents, which we are keeping very low, then we have done enough to win the game. We have positioned our players to be playing the minutes that best apply to them. We know that we have a distinct separation in talents between our players, and each one is positioned to be the best possible for their task. I do not ask my top scorers to play on the penalty kill, because I need their energy to be focused on running a top powerplay, and winning the game at even strength. In the same vein, I need my lower scoring players to be in the position to run a top quarter penalty kill, and focus on reducing goals against. So far, everyone has done their job to near perfection. As the season moves along, I expect players like Sjin and Ivan Retoslav to begin breaking in offensively, both as members of the powerplay and also in sheltered even strength minutes. Our defenders are used primarily to defend, outside of Lloyd Braun. Braun is built as a dedicated powerplay quarterback, and has picked up 11 points with the man advantage already. Nesbitt, Solyom and Jeckler take on the majority of the tough defensive minutes, particularly youngster Jack Jeckler, who plays a significant portion of their time on the penalty kill. Finally, we have been blessed with an absolute masterclass of a performance so far by Jesse Teno. They currently lead starters in Save Percentage, and Goals Against Average, by a significant margin. Unfortunately our schedule has had Teno sitting a lot this week, as we get our mandated backup starts out of the way so Teno can take us all the way to the playoffs. There is a long road ahead but we can be way more comfortable to let loose and grow knowing such an elite goaltender is behind us. London looks well suited for the kind of hockey that the playoffs will require, and while it is still early, we hope that this team can last the pace and try for another championship!

The race to see who will capture some personal hardware this season is on! The S83 players are leading the way, hoping to get one more opportunity at personal success. Leading the charge for that group is Scotty Sundin, leading the fairytale Chicago Phoenix, and the league in Points, and tied for third in Goals. Following him closely is Landon Wolanin, and despite more than a 600TPA advantage, has yet to find the lucky bounce, shooting 54 more shots than Sundin in the opening third of the season, yet only finding the back of the net twice more. Chicago does not seem built to last the pace, but until we start seeing a significant drop in scoring, Sundin may be able to win a few trophies by the end of it all. The rookie scoring race is also quite hot, with 3 new members of rebuilding squads getting off to a hot start. Warsaw’s Maxim Anisimov currently leads the way, followed by Seattle’s Severus Targaryen, and then Moscow’s Axle Gunner. The Unites States are off to a physical start with Larry Abass Jr of Los Angeles is leading the league in Hits, New York’s Tord Yvel is leading in Shots Blocked, and teammate Womp Womp Womp Womp Womp Jr leads the league in Penalty Minutes.