[+ Ryan]

Hiring Your Staff In Four Easy Steps
Written By: Ryan

Having a highly skilled staff is step one to a great forum. Without them, you'll find yourself alone, administrating a forum! And believe me, it takes help. Quality help.

Step 1: What is this person like?

First and foremost, you are looking for a staff member with charisma, smarts, knowledge, and most importantly, care for your forum. Never hire a staff member who seems to be angry, cruel, and power hungry, or you could have a dictator on your hands once you give him or her staff powers.

And you obviously can't hire someone who is too light and will never enforce the rules and make your forum a better place to be. Just do a little research of their posts to see what kind of person they are. Details on this step can be found in my first Article, found here.

Step 2: Do they know how to handle being Staff?

Now this is big. Your new staffee should at least have some prior knowledge of your forum software, or at least of some forum software. Otherwise, they won't be much help, unless they are quick learners. If your staff can't adequately use their powers, then they can't be very helpful. Right?

Make sure your staff knows how to a) Warn/Suspend/Discipline Users b) Lock Topics, Delete Topics / Posts c) Pin Topics d) Misc. Forum Essentials. They must know these four topics of moderation, or it defeats the purpose of hiring them.

Step 3: Are they trustworthy? Have long have they been frequenting your forum? Will they be active on your forum?

Well, this can sometimes vary. But first off, can you trust the person you're hiring. Believe or not, Staff members can stab you in the back after they receive their powers. Our goal here is to prevent that from happening.

One factor in determining whether or not you can trust the member you are thinking of hiring on staff is whether or not that person has been frequenting your forum for a while. A person coming to a forum for a long time would normally care more about the good fortune of it than a new member. I realize that is somewhat biased, but more often than not, it's the truth.

Another determining factor is: Are they active on your forum? So you just hired your new staffee, and now he decides to take a month long vacation. Make sure the person you're putting on the team doesn't take frequent "breaks." The best staffer to hire is one who is consistently active, and not prone to periods of inactivity. Remember, a staff member not on your forum is just a member not on your forum. Those mod actions could be used elsewhere.

Step 4: Ask yourself, "Will this person make my forum better?"

Now that you've decided whether or not your staff will be trustworthy, active, and know how to use his/her powers, all you've got to ponder on is if that person will make your forum a more pleasant, fun place to post. Most likely, if the first three steps are fulfilled, then the person will indefinitely make your forum better. But there is always that X Factor. And that X Factor is popularity with other members. People are more than likely going to listen to someone that they know and respect, than someone unfamilar to them. Keep that in kind.

Well, that's about all you need to know to get yourself started. Good luck with choosing a strong staff unit.

[Hector]

Playing the trust game with this one eh? Not many people like me but I'm always on staff where ever I go...o.o

Nice article man, this is was well written. It's like a mini application guide line!

[+ Ryan]

Thanks, d00d. But yeah, trust is very important with staff. I mean, It's much easier to hire someone on staff that you know and trust.