I was speaking to a fellow CM yesterday and he was talking about hiring inexperienced moderators to the staff team and training them to their style rather than re-training an experienced moderator that probably has their own way. That got me thinking, because I always hired experienced people and let them kind of do their own thing within our staff rules.
Do you hire inexperienced staff and train them, or do you hire experienced mods and leave them to do their own thing?
As I am in the horror niche, I don't tend to get many members at all who have experience moderating a community. I want to hire people who are actually interested in my niche, so tend to hire based on that rather than experience. I then train the staff myself to give them knowledge about all the tools and such.
I don't really base it off of experience, I just base it off of details and if they suggestions from anyone etc. I will train my staff if they need training.
I actually don't really mind which one. More experienced staff will be able to bring something new to the table which will hopefully create a better moderation team. Less experienced staff can be trained to your ideal moderation style. I normally try to hire staff members who are actually interested and love the forum as a member as they are more likely to be active and contribute to the forum. I think this is a more important factor than their experience.
Honestly most people I've made mods are usually people I know. I know the ones I made recently had just happened to apply, and they happened to be friends too.
I rather go after the ones who have had the experience of moderating, over those who have little to no previous experience. Though, if the person was competent, and is able to learn quickly, and willing to take any advice one gives to them, then I would prefer going after them, than anyone else.
I'd rather have experienced staff, personally, mainly due to the fact that I'd rather have staff work independently (to an extent, and under a set of guidelines), instead of a bunch of inexperienced staff members who I have to babysit (so to say). Although, if my staff was already pretty experienced, I wouldn't mind hiring a few inexperienced staff members, because the experienced staff members could mentor the inexperienced staff members.
I think having a member every once in a while be trained to be a Moderator is fine, but I would never want to be in the position where I have to train a whole team at once. That would be too much to handle and I'd rather just find experienced members for my Mod team.
A good Moderator should be very interested in the topic/genre that the forum is about, but they should also be able to demonstrate experience with making tough decisions and moderating the forums. Inexperienced Mods can rill only fill one of those requirements. It might be tougher to find an Experienced Mod within a small community for a obscure niche, but it's definitely possible.
In my opinion one can make up their lack of experience with their level of enthusiasm. I would much rather have someone who is willing to give 100% effort and willing to learn than someone who will only help out when it is at their convenience.
I'd like to give those who have little or no experience a chance to learn new skills. They can do still pretty well, and taking on board, the procedures and rules may be overwhelming at first, but we all gotta start somewhere, right?. It's a great starting point for those who have a passion for making a community a better place. 😀
I hire either or. As long as they seem like they would be great with the community and they pass the trial period, I don't mind. Everyone has to start somewhere. 😉
It all depends on their application. I prefer members who have experience. But sometimes even those with experience do not try on their application, it just makes them seem like they don't care.
I like to hire people who have been around forums at least for a while, maybe they don't have actual moderator experience, but that's easy to figure out for the most part. People who have some sort of idea what's going on is preferred. But I think you can have that and not experience at the same time. 😛
This is always a hard thing to decide when starting up a forum. Mainly, I reach out to people I know pretty well and, generally, those people are experienced with forum staff duties. Sometimes, I'll grab someone knew and teach them the ropes if their active in the community and showing potential.
For me it actually depends on the nature of job. When there is high possibility of risk and there is not too much time to train the new staff, then I will hire experienced staff. Otherwise I will prefer non- experience staff, everyone is inexperienced in starting. If we don't provide chance to fresher then how will we get skilled one.
Being a good mod is my that hard to learn, but I think you have to have the right personality to become a truly good moderator. The skills you need are:
1. Logical thinking. This is particularly inportant for catching ban evaders, sock puppets, and the more clever trolls that show up from time to time.
2. Professionalism. A moderator needs to be able to write good reminders, and keep their cool. They don't have to act professionally all the time or anything, but in an official context (when writing warnings and such), they need to be professional.
3. Descision Making. A good moderator should be able to make snap descisions when they need to.
Experience can help a lot with that, but if you can think logically and be professional, I think you can catch on pretty quick. There are some tools that will be missing from your toolbox if you aren't experienced, but those will come with time if you have the right attitude and personality.
That said: new sights don't require expert moderators, just people to be active and friendly, even in mod positions.
I don't really pay attention to experience more so than I pay attention to activity and contributions.
I could hire Member-A who have been a moderator before but they might become the moderator who only moderates but never really contributes to the community. Or I could hire Member-B who has never been a moderator but is very active on the forum and posts almost every day. Member-B to me, will be more of an asset than Member-A.
I can create staff guides to show new moderators how to use staff controls, that is easy but I cannot simple put into the mind of a moderator that they should be really active so I target members who already do that for me. 🙂
Everybody needs to start somewhere. I still remember when I first learned to be moderator, the team was really nice. So many times I like to give chances to newcomers; not necessarily anyone random, but of course someone who can at least write good post and have good attitude. Experience can be learned, and it's wonderful to be able to provide such experience to beginners. I understand sometimes experience is necessary, though, depending on the responsibilities of the position.
