What to Look for in Staff
What’s good AYS? It’s your favourite blogger Generation Gamers back at AYS with another blog! Now we all know that a vital aspect of having a Discord community is the staff you employ. I’ve been there, seeing staff be active, experienced and trustworthy, to the complete opposite for some!
In today’s blog we will be exploring some key qualities to search for when hiring staff, including some you should especially stay away from. Let’s start off with the big question; how do I know what someone brings to my server from just looking at their application? The answer is…
Detail – From someone being a bit of a perfectionist, I always go the extra mile in an application and put maybe a paragraph or two’s worth of detail. What this detail can tell you about someone is that they are willing to take their time and review their answers carefully. We also need to take a close look at how they word their sentences, particularly looking for grammatical errors and spelling spelling errors. Now grammatical and spelling errors don’t matter too much, unless it is excessive.
Prior Activity – For AYS, we have a requirement that you be on the server at least one month to join staff. For my personal server, I have a requirement that you be level 20+ in MEE6 levelling. By setting a requirement like this, you get an idea of how much a member is engaged with your server from how they use it. But it is also a good indicator for how they act within the community. As such, this would be a huge bonus to their application showing their commitment and how active they can be as a staff member.
Experience – Experience is not always a required factor in an application, but is certainly a bonus. Everyone needs to start somewhere, I started on a server with 200 members. Though one thing to look out for is when someone puts many notable servers in one application, this can be the cause of lying on an application which is why it is always best to look into these servers to ensure that they are who they say they are. Overall, I wouldn’t say you should hire based on experience, hire someone based on their ability to be trained.
Qualities – Whenever you ask someone a question in an application, there is bound to be a question such as “Why should we hire you” or “What are your Strengths and Weaknesses”. I take this question pretty seriously, if you ask a question involving weaknesses and they respond with one or two or even none, they aren’t being detailed enough! I consider at least 5 qualities to be the bare minimum for any application, that way we get to know more about the applicant and how they can be beneficial to the team.
Threats – Now not everyone may be applying for genuine reasons, some may just want to mess around or even harm your server. I know what it’s like to have my own server raided by a staff member, and if there’s one thing you should always avoid, that’s new members and accounts. Another thing you always must avoid is if they are banned in any safety servers, check servers such as VSSN to ensure they didn’t get banned anywhere else. One more critical question I ask is “Were you banned from any servers? If so, why?”. Even though not everyone may answer honestly, if they were then they are being honest, more open to change.
Overall– that’s it from me, make sure you incorporate some if not all of these tips into your future staff application acceptances. I do all of these for my own server and since, I have been getting excellent staff! That’s all for today’s blog and I will see you next time with another blog!
“The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area”
~ Bill Gates || Microsoft Founder