Scanlation Recruitment and Tryouts That Find Good Members

Recruiting for a scanlation group comes down to three things: a post that tells people exactly what you need, a short tryout that shows whether they can do it, and a first week that turns a new member into someone who ships. Most groups put effort into the first, improvise the second and skip the third, which is why so many new members disappear before their second chapter.

Before you post: know what you are hiring for

Answer these for yourself first:

• Which role, specifically? "Editor" means cleaner in one group and typesetter in another. Use the role names your workflow actually has. The roles and permissions guide breaks them down.
• Which series? People join for a series as often as for a group.
• How much work? Chapters per week, and roughly how long one chapter takes in that role.
• What is the bottleneck? If chapters wait at typesetting, recruit a typesetter, not a third translator.

What a recruitment post should contain

A good post answers the questions an applicant would otherwise have to ask:

1. Who you are, in one or two sentences.
2. The role and the series, with a sample page so people can see the art style and difficulty.
3. The commitment: chapters per week and a realistic time per chapter.
4. Requirements: language pair and level for translators; software for editors; whether experience is required or you will train.
5. What you provide: fonts, style guide, glossary, feedback, credits.
6. How the tryout works: what it is, how long it should take, the deadline.
7. How to apply and when they will hear back.

Copy-paste template

RECRUITING: [Role] for [Series name]

Who we are
[Group name] translates [manga/manhwa/webtoon] from [source language]
into [target language]. We release about [N] chapter(s) a week.

What we need
- Role: [Translator / Proofreader / Cleaner / Typesetter / QC]
- Series: [Series name] (sample page attached)
- Workload: about [N] chapter(s) a week, roughly [X] hours each

Requirements
- [Language pair and level, or software you need to use]
- [Experience required / beginners welcome, we train]
- Reliable communication: you tell us early if you cannot make a deadline

What you get
- Our style guide, glossary and series fonts
- Feedback on your first chapters
- Your name in the credits of every chapter you work on

Tryout
- [Short description, e.g. "clean 3 pages"]
- Should take about [X] minutes to [Y] hours
- Due within [N] days of receiving it

How to apply
Message [contact] with: the role, your experience (if any),
your time zone and how many hours a week you can give.
We reply to every applicant within [N] days.

Keep the post short enough to read on a phone. If people need more, link a longer page.

Tryouts by role

A tryout should be short, representative of the real work, and the same for every applicant in that role, so you can compare. Use pages from a chapter you have already released, or a dedicated test set. Do not use a tryout to get unreleased work done for free; applicants notice, and it attracts the wrong people.

Translator

• Material: 3–5 pages with ordinary dialogue plus at least one hard part: a pun, an honorific choice, slang, an SFX that matters, or a cultural reference.
• Deliverable: a script in your group's format (page, bubble number, text), with notes on any choice they were unsure of.
• Look for: accuracy, natural target-language dialogue, consistent character voice, and how they handle the hard part. The notes often tell you more than the translation.

Proofreader

• Material: a translated script with planted problems: typos, a grammar error, an awkward literal line, an inconsistent name, a line that is too long for its bubble, and one actual mistranslation if they read the source language.
• Deliverable: a corrected script with changes marked.
• Look for: how many planted issues they find, whether they keep the translator's meaning, and whether they leave good lines alone.

Cleaner

• Material: 3 pages: one with plain bubbles, one with text over artwork, one with screentone or a colour gradient.
• Deliverable: the layered working file, not just a flat image.
• Look for: no leftover text at 200%, intact bubble borders, believable redraws, screentone that still looks like dots, and a sensible layer setup. The cleaning guide describes what good looks like.

Typesetter

• Material: 3 cleaned pages, the matching script, and your series fonts. Include a bubble where the text is slightly too long, and one SFX.
• Deliverable: the layered working file with editable text.
• Look for: line breaks that follow the bubble shape, consistent sizes, correct font roles, sensible margins, and what they do with the too-long line. Asking for a shorter line is a good answer. See how to typeset manga and webtoons.

Quality checker

• Material: a finished chapter (or 5–8 pages) with planted errors: a typo, a missing bubble, a leftover piece of original text, a wrong font, an inconsistent name, a page out of order.
• Deliverable: a list of issues with page and location.
• Look for: how many they find, whether they report them clearly enough to act on, and whether they separate errors from personal preferences. See quality check.

How to grade: a simple rubric

Score each area 1–3, so different reviewers reach similar decisions.

Area	1: Not yet	2: Workable	3: Strong
Accuracy / correctness	Frequent errors that change meaning or leave visible flaws	Minor errors that review would catch	Few or none
Consistency	Varies page to page	Mostly consistent	Consistent with the brief and style guide
Following the brief	Ignored format or instructions	Small deviations	Followed exactly
Judgement on hard parts	Missed or guessed silently	Handled, could be better	Handled well and explained choices
Communication	No notes, missed deadline without word	Delivered, few notes	Clear notes, asked good questions

A practical decision rule:

• Mostly 3s: accept.
• Mostly 2s, no 1 in accuracy: accept with a mentor for the first chapters, or offer a trainee spot.
• Any 1 in accuracy, or several 1s: decline politely with one or two concrete pointers.

Weight communication heavily. A member with slightly weaker skills who tells you early about problems is worth more than a strong one who vanishes for a week.

Always give feedback

Every applicant who completed a tryout should hear back, with at least one specific comment. It costs you five minutes, and people who were declined with useful feedback often come back later, better.

Onboarding in week one

The first week decides whether a new member stays. A simple plan:

Day 1: access and orientation

• Add them to the right channels and give them access to the series files.
• Share the style guide, glossary and, for typesetters, the series font set from your shared store.
• Tell them who to ask questions. One named person, not "anyone in the chat".

Days 2–3: a real but low-pressure task

• Give them part of a real chapter with a relaxed deadline, or a full chapter paired with an experienced member doing the same step in parallel.
• Make it clear that questions are expected.

Days 4–5: feedback

• Review their work together. Point out two or three things to improve, and what they did well.
• Do not silently fix their work. If you fix it without telling them, they will repeat the same mistakes.

End of week: first credit

• If their work went into a release, credit them in that chapter. Seeing their name on a published chapter is the moment many volunteers decide to stay.

Motivation and credits in volunteer groups

Nobody is paid, so the things that keep people are simple and easy to neglect:

• Credits, every time. Name everyone who worked on a chapter, in the role they did. Never leave someone out because they "only" did a few pages.
• Visible progress. People like seeing that the chapter moved because of them. A shared status, rather than a chat thread, makes contribution visible.
• Realistic deadlines. Deadlines that assume volunteers have no exams, jobs or families burn people out. Plan with slack; tracking chapter deadlines covers how.
• Room to grow. Cleaners who want to learn typesetting, proofreaders who want to translate: let them try on low-risk pages.
• A clean exit. Make it easy and guilt-free to step back from a series. People who are allowed to leave politely tend to return; people who feel trapped ghost.

Common recruiting mistakes

• Vague role names. "Looking for editors" gets cleaners, typesetters and proofreaders all applying.
• Tryouts that take a whole evening. Good applicants with limited time drop out first. Aim for one to two hours at most.
• Using tryouts for unpaid production work. Use released pages or a dedicated test set.
• No grading standard. Two reviewers, two different verdicts. Use the rubric.
• Ghosting applicants. Reply to everyone, especially those you decline.
• Recruiting for the wrong bottleneck. A third translator does not help if chapters pile up at typesetting.
• No onboarding. New members get files and silence, then disappear.
• Recruiting only in a crisis. If you post only when someone leaves, every new member arrives in the middle of a backlog.

Recruitment checklist

• Role and series named precisely, with a sample page
• Commitment stated in chapters per week and hours per chapter
• Tryout fixed per role, using released pages or a test set
• Tryout takes no more than one to two hours
• Rubric shared with everyone who grades
• Every applicant gets a reply with feedback
• Week-one plan ready: access, guide, mentor, first task, review
• New member credited on their first release

Where this fits

Recruitment is easier when the work itself is visible: an applicant can see what each role does, and a new member can see whose turn it is without asking. FansubPanel gives each member a role with matching permissions and shows each chapter's steps in one place, so onboarding is mostly "here is your step, here are the files". The roles and permissions guide explains how to split the work, and how to start a scanlation group covers the earlier question of how many people you need at all.