The recruitment experience for members

Learn more about the recruitment experience from the members' perspective.

Note: If you have multiple communities, be aware that a member can only belong to or try joining one community at a time. If pending or active members of one community try to join another community, they will be redirected to the correct portal.

The following image shows how a participant becomes a community member. The recruitment experience varies depending on how a participant gains access to the recruitment survey.

Step 1: Access the recruitment survey

Participants can access the recruitment survey through a recruitment link or an invitation. Recruitment links are the recommended method of inviting people to join your community.

Warning: Nonmembers may consider recruitment invitations to be unsolicited emails, which may negatively affect your IP address reputation and future email deliverability. If you choose to send recruitment invitations, discretion is advised. For more information, see Alida External Sample Waiver.

Through a recruitment link (recommended)

Participants who click on a recruitment link are taken to the member sign up page, where they are prompted to enter their name and email address. The participant's email address status determines whether they proceed to the recruitment survey.

If the participant's email address is	Then
New	The participant proceeds directly to the recruitment survey.
An existing member's	The participant is notified and redirected to the portal.
Pending confirmation	The participant is notified and can choose to resend a confirmation email to the email address.
Associated with an Incomplete survey status	The participant proceeds directly to the recruitment survey to continue from their previous attempt.
A Disqualified or Over Quota email address from a previous attempt at completing the recruitment survey	If the recruitment survey is a modern survey, the participant sees a message informing them they have already completed the survey. They cannot retake the survey. If the recruitment survey is a classic survey, the participant proceeds directly to the recruitment survey, and the email address is treated as a new one.
A Purged, Undeliverable, or Unsubscribed email address	The participant proceeds directly to the recruitment survey and can complete it, but does not receive a confirmation email.

Through an invitation (not recommended)

Participants receive an email invitation with a link to the recruitment survey.

Step 2: Complete the recruitment survey

If participants select undesirable answers, they are terminated with a status of Disqualified or Over Quota before they reach the end of the recruitment survey. Only participants who complete the recruitment survey are eligible to join the community.

Participants using the same email to access a survey will encounter the same version of the survey, even if they drop off and come back, or if the survey changes. This also applies to test surveys.

Step 3: Receive confirmation email and double opt-in

When participants complete the recruitment survey successfully, the application automatically sends them an email with a link to the member confirmation page. Once the participant clicks the link in the confirmation message, they are updated with an Active member status. On the member confirmation page, participants confirm their email address and choose a password. This process is known as a double opt-in and is required by spam regulations.

Note: Do not use system upload to manually change member statuses for members who have completed the recruitment survey, but have not double opted-in. This is not a good idea because:

It bypasses the process of obtaining and recording consent.
It causes first and last names to be captured with a value of Unknown.

After participants confirm their membership, they become active community members who can be invited to participate in research.

Tip: Use test invitations and test recruitment links to see firsthand what the recruitment experience is like for participants.