Sweetboi said:
What kind of qualities are you looking for. Someone friendly, someone who's online alot, people with developing experience - what would be the minimum requirement?
Warning, you just asked me something I'm very interested in, so you win an infodump. Congratulations!
Aside from potential and willingness to learn, I am not concerned about pre-existing skills much, even if those are a nice plus. We tend to teach people who we hire to at least a basic degree, so if they show enough promise, are working consistently enough, and have a good attitude they'll be good hires. Namedropping Reli here (sorry Reli), he didn't know that much when he started but he showed a positive attitude and willingness to learn, and now he's doing almost all of the events. ;D Now we do have 2-3 people very qualified for more technical design (in school for programming, database management, etc) but most of us are not. I was some 15 year old kid as CG (technically MOD) with no guidance when I started.
I guess the most basic things are...does a person have skills that staff currently needs, does that person have a personality that would not hinder/cause conflicts within the team, is that person reliable and follow through with what they say they will do, is that person proactive, how informed is that person, etc. I'm fairly strict about this. If a person is unreliable, too easily riled up, I can tell they are only motivated to get a tag, or they share a completely different vision for the game's future from our team (to the point that it would conflict), I pass. This probably seems pretty basic but you'd be surprised how many people lack too many of these qualities for me to consider.
I think I can tell an example that happened years ago and so doesn't apply to anyone here currently...there was a polite, conversational player who was knowledgeable about PWO and adapted their suggestions well to staff limitations (which is always a huge plus), but outside of the initial discussion didn't want to follow through with the tedious grunt-work or research required to get that idea rolling. While they were a good influence within the community due to their positivity and ability to rationalize, there wasn't a reason to hire them if they weren't going to follow through; they made a
good player, but they would still only make a
good player as a staff member. Same for if a person isn't proactive, because with our limited manpower I can't go around (for lack of better term) "babysitting" people.
I also can't just accept all the project ideas and just pile them onto myself or somebody else within staff, because we all have a bunch of stuff to do as-is...no matter how good or reasonable the blueprint/idea is. Also...so many people ask me "how do I become staff." Then, when I tell them where/how to apply, they say they will and then never do it. Why would I hire somebody who is too lazy to even post a forum message or even PM somebody I suggested they talk to?
When I hire people like that, they don't hurt anything but tend to not contribute much, which on paper looks like we "break even." But remember we spend hours training people so overall we lose weeks to a month of time we couldn't have put into updates. Hence why I am so analytical about people on an individual level, and why I have specific standards.
If somebody is pushing way too hard for the position (to the point of butting in without consideration or constantly tooting their own horn), it makes me wonder if they wanted the opportunity of staff to do more good or if they just like having a tag. Not that wanting a position is bad; I wanted CG, I wanted Admin to an extent, it just depends
why a person wants a position, and the way we know why they want it depends on how they treat other people. It's not hard to filter this out tbh. When I hire people who are just putting on a face, they get bored and drop off the face of the earth, abuse their power, or they aimed for a staff to try and "change us from the inside" to match their own vision from the game with little respect for everyone else on the team and little understanding of why we chose the path we have.