Hey, thanks for the suggestion Riley, and everyone who has written replies. It seems like this thread has gotten some traction, so I’ll do my best with going through what you all have said.
Ok, so this is a rather big one. Although plenty of staff members have said that you should be yourself instead of trying to make yourself look like the best, most mature and most typical staff member. Unfortunately, aspiring applicants don’t really take this into consideration, yet a handful of applicants do just that and it has got them accepted.
I think the recruitment team is sending out wrong signals here: being a wannabe can get you staff.
I can definitely understand your concerns - the thing is that these are
minimum requirements for a reason. This is so we can weed out the people who are wanting to become a helper who has no knowledge of the server and the rules itself. We're trying to clamp down on the whole helper cycle process, from recruitment to mentoring to the requirements themselves, we're pushing for a greater amount of helpers, but a greater amount not passing the trial. The helper recruitment process is pretty scrutinous; looking at the basic requirements stated in the thread takes up a small amount if they exceed it, but we examine how they act on the server, Discord, other servers, and discuss with the entire moderation team to ensure that we're choosing nothing but quality into the team. Hypothetically, they
could get staff, but it would be difficult.
Subforum for applications
The idea has been around for a while, but even the translation team gets to manage applications via a subforum so why doesn’t the helper recruitment team?
Pros:
- Applicants will now instantly know when they’ve been denied due to a [DENIED] prefix in the application thread title instead of having to wait a month
- In addition to the previous point, applications can be moved to subforums (“Denied”, “Considered”, “Accepted”, “Pending”)
- People can’t apply in the name of others to troll. Don’t think this is super common but I’m sure it has happened
- Feedback can be given to this thread straight away - and a possible conversation can follow
- It’s easier to keep track of which applicants do meet the minimum requirements and which do not, by clicking their profile and checking it directly that way
- Easier and more convenient to make edits to the application thread. I literally have not a single clue as to how I should make edits to a sent google form. I know there’s an explanation but it’s just so inconvenient
- It’s on the forums and people aren’t directed to other sites. It’s Google, I’m well aware but why not have everything on one main website?
Cons:
I'd definitely love to see something like this added personally. But as the helper recruitment team would need to filter through loads of responses a day, it would be time-consuming. The current Google form method we use is pretty efficient as we colour code people who we're considering; orange means they have enough to pass the basic requirements, and red meaning they do not. As a general rule of thumb,
if you do not have enough messages, reports or activity as stated in the application thread, you are most likely rejected. I do see the concerns about how the Google docs method works though (cc.
@Nikoshka @komododragon 2002 ), so I'll try and look into how we can logistically make them a bit more personal, we'd need to discuss logistics amongst the admin and recruitment team
. :3
As there is a small percentage of people who do pass the requirements, we'd spend a lot of time copy and pasting messages to those who clearly do not pass the requirements. Something we're aiming to change is message people who are active and close to an interview, but need a final push to get over the final hurdle. We're trying to keep people in the community but not scare them away if they do not make the staff team. :]
Reach out to players instead. Invite them for an interview or ask if they would be interested in a position on the team. People that could make great helpers don’t always have the courage or self-confidence to apply for the position.
I could name countless people that I know in the community that I feel like would be fit for helper, but do not want to apply for personal reasons or about them not having faith in the server. I can't fault them for that, nor can I change their opinion, so I don't think it would be appropriate to reach out to them without them applying as if they do accept, they may not be motivated to do the work required. So I'd personally wait until they apply themselves, so we know they're prepared to put the work in.
I especially want to comment on the subforum thing because I've been annoyed by this for a long time. In the Google forms you can only say if you have experience yes or no. You can't explain anything about it. Were you staff on a handful of smaller servers or were you staff on a few really big servers? Imo that's important information.
We tell them to expand on this in the interview. It doesn't necessarily put you at an advantage, but knowing the core values about what a moderator does really helps so we don't have to teach you them. They learn this if they become a helper anyways. :3
I completely agree, besides the current applications are just not too personal and you can't really explain a lot about yourself. Sure, there is the "Anything else we should know?" but sometimes you don't even know what to write, and I think more personal questions should be asked to the players, to see what kind of personality they have and how they would react to certain situations as a helper.
And obviously I also agree with the part of making the answers to the applications extense and elaborated; if you're denied you want to know why and it's extremely confusing and irritating to not know why you've been denied, you can ask but there's a limit on what they can tell you and it's pretty much annoying.
When I personally applied, there was a lot of questions that required written responses and it stressed me out a lot. I took almost 2 weeks writing and refining an almost perfect response, which I think is good that we changed. If someone were to type "I'm a very likeable person and I'm kind to everyone" but looking at their forums posts and see they call people names, have multiple warning points, we can tell that they're being ingenuine. We can assess their personality, so we don't need a fabricated, sugar-coated version of it on their application.
We're shifting focus towards the interview stage to assess their personality. It's more of a casual conversation about the server and themselves, so it's not like a formal interview, but we assess their personality and ensure what they're saying is genuine from there instead of writing a response for 2 weeks like me, hahah.
I appreciate everyone's responses and I'll be glad to answer any more questions! <3
