On my forum everyone is basically involved. Myself and my forum partner recruit, read applications, talk to applicants, etc. If there is a team member in our moderator team leader position then that above job goes to them. Before making a decision we post the applications for all other staff members to look at and comment on. It's a good way to get extra insight and look at someone from different perspectives.
Usually, it's the current staff team or just the current admins. I try and lay out / gather pros and cons of promoting everyone. It's definitely a team decision either way, since they'd be joining the staff team, after all, so it'd make sense for the team to already be accepting of them.
On my forum it's been done by community vote before, like the applicant with the most votes gets promoted, but that was a while ago. While I do see the pros of doing it this way, I much prefer behind the scenes and staff team decision making.
I feel responsible if anything goes wrong and as a result, I always do the hiring. Any member of staff can provide a reference and recommendation which I take into consideration but I always have the final say. At least then any bad decision is on me which avoids the blame game and so on.
We don't take applications. We promote members based on behaviour, posting ability, and activity... and that is a staff decision. If we need a new mod, we open a thread in the mod forum and ask people to put forward nominations and their reasons why that person should be considered.
We make sure that all mods are comfortable with someone before asking the person if they'd like the position. If anyone has a legit reason for not wanting to work with someone, they won't get modded.
We only take applications for the content side of staff, due to that being the most difficult to recruit. For Moderators/Admins, it's fairly easy to find new people when necessary.
I usually have a dedicated hiring manager on the forum, whether it's an admin, myself, or another team member. 😀 Then it goes to myself for approval on some positions, but for the most part, it's all them.
For example, right now I could really use some help with promoting and other things on my site such as reviews and overall main page content (gaming & tech news mostly) So I may be hiring in the very near future for my website. 🙂
I've always felt that the owner should take primary control over hiring new staff, with the current staff team offering non-dominant suggestions and thoughts. The site is the owner's baby, they should make sure that it stays in good shape. Poor staffing can negatively impact a forum, and creating risk through failure to be responsible in your choices is not a great idea.
On the forum I'm an owner of, me and mo co-admin are responsible for hiring. When we had a larger staff team, I would ask them their thoughts sometimes but otherwise it was just me and my co-admin. 🙂
