As many of us have, I've been with many guilds throughout my WoW career and each have had very different application processes. Just by my personal nature, I have always tried to fill out the application to the best of my ability and to answer all of the questions as completely as possible.
Having reviewed many an application, both as a one-time Guild Master, and now again as an Officer, I have seen some very impressive applications, and some very, VERY poor ones. Some key things I usually look for are:
- Knowledge of class
- Overall completeness and attitude
- Guild history
- General and Raid availability
Class Knowledge
The most telling "tool" in this department is your character's Armory profile. There are many other sites which extend the functionality offered here, but they all run using Blizzard's base data. The best thing to do here, if you're considering applying for a new guild is get on the web and learn about your class (if you don't already practice this).
There are obvious faux pas, such as a rogue in spellpower gear (lolPoisonSpec??), or a mage in attack power gear (lolWandSpec?!?!). However, there are more subtle things to look for as well, like proper gemming and enchants for your class and role. Intellect is better than raw spellpower for Holy Paladins, Spirit is useless for Shaman, etc. If you're always learning about your character, you would know these things, and you Armory profile will reflect this.
Overall Completeness and Attitude
Depending on your target guild's application process, one thing you can do to make your application stand out is use a spell checker. Sometimes this might mean copy/pasting the application into a program like Word or another word processor. Some guild sites may even have a spell check built in.
Another thing is type coherently.
hello i'm a healing pally and i like to raid i like raidin because of all the phat lootz. i like getting bosses down and hanging out with friends and i like spamming trade channel with "anal
This will probably NOT get you a spot in a successful raiding guild. Also, poignantly "sparse" answers won't get you very far either. Answering "I heal ppl" to the question "Explain your role in a raid, and what your class brings to the raid that is unique and beneficial", most of the time won't cut it.
Guild History
If you've been in 9 different guilds in the last 3 months, you're probably not someone we want in ours. Yes people change guilds, and sometimes with a fair amount of frequency. And yes, things do happen. If you feel this applies to you, explain what happened regarding your guild history in your application.
General and Raid Availability
If you're looking to join a raiding guild: hard core, casual or in-between, it's pretty important that you're going to be available for the raids. Some guilds also like you see you online helping out your other guildies with 5-man or 10-man content (depending on how those things are handled with your target guild) and/or offering your master crafting services or just plain bettering your character through achievements, reputation grinds, etc.
We all have real lives, and some of us do more with them than others outside of our WoW bubble. Indicating your availability gives the GM/Officers of the target guild the opportunity to know just how much you'll be around to participate in guild activities.
