General Would you hire staff with low post count?

[MrDawn]

Like the topic title says, Would you hire staff with low post count?

While I know some people state that post count means nothing, I feel like it does (to a point).

In the past I've worked with staff members who have very little posts who end up disappearing on the job. I have never been fond of people who get a staff position and then they go on a no show basis .Which happens a lot with members with very low post count. it doesn't look good when they have a post count of 1 or 30 or 300. I personally would like to see more out of them before they're given a staff position. As far as staff goes, activity says a lot to me.

I feel like they need to contribute more and demonstrate activity over a span of months and partaking in the forum before they are given any staff privileges. A lot of members just want it to feel validated. Any time the forum owner lets us in on who should be added to the team, I normally set my sights on a member who has contributed a lot to the community, isn't violating rules, and is very active. I figure that won't change once they are on staff. Would you say that is reasonable?

 

[Cedric]

If I know the person, yes.

But if they're unknown to me, I'd like some sense of knowing before I actually have them on my staff team.

 

[Tracy]

As @Cedric said... if you know the quality of the person, what does the number of post/activity matter? Generally you will know them well enough to be able to tell if they are a fit for your staff or not.
For Joe/Jane Blow off the street that simply joined, they are going to need to show that they have an interest in the site itself. And that is generally from generating QUALITY content. No, it does not have to be (as in my sites case) posting in the forum. If they are generating article contents, reviews, valid link directory entries then that shows interest in the site itself. And that interest will need to be long term, well more than a month or two.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Only if I trusted the person and hired them because I knew I could trust them. Other than that I will not promote a user if they have a low post count.

 

[Dilip]

Being a spammer is not a quality I look for most of the time. Silence is golden.

I do value how long the person was a member, how well I know him/her, how was the attitude inside and outside the communit etc. Above all, I dislike people who get angry easily. Even worse, come back and say sorry after a day.

 

[Darth Cognus]

Post count is one of various tools to see if someone's up to snuff. It's not the count as much as what's in the post, naturally you do want an idea if the posting is constructive, reasonable, and reflects the attributes you would like in staff. If there's rare/infrequent posts or you can't review a history you kind of have your answer that they're probably not active enough or haven't been around enough.

There's a different aspect, while you can absolutely get the impression of someone based on what they've done in other communities, the userbase should have a background to see for themselves. Adding randos with little involvement into the management structure is a bad sign for me, both seeing it happen and because I've given people roles based on their demonstrated skills elsewhere only to find that just didn't fit for the community I was trying to boost.

As activity goes I think there's merit to a balance between quite active but possibly more spontaneous users, balanced by people who have full time work, commitments etc that mean they don't necessarily show up everyday but can provide a necessary mediating hand in a pinch. As long as this doesn't slip into chronic inactivity or a structure dominated by sluggish participation, I think it's a healthy mix.

 

[Cory]

If I know the person, yes.

But if they're unknown to me, I'd like some sense of knowing before I actually have them on my staff team.

That's my thoughts exactly. I would want an unknown user to be well-acquainted with the community, show that they have a lot of experience with the community, and prove that they can be trustworthy. This can often be more approved through post count because their community activities bring out the type of person they are.

 

[Shortie]

If I know the person and have worked with them in the past and I know they are reliable and trustworthy, I am not against hiring them on a forum with a low post count.

If the person is not known to me then hiring them with a low post count is not something I would do.

 

[Tiger]

If you can't judge them by post count, what else would you use to evaluate them?

 

[Ravenfreak]

If you can't judge them by post count, what else would you use to evaluate them?

Other than post count, it could be how they generally behave either on your community or another community. If they are constantly rude and getting in trouble by staff, then they wouldn't make a good staff member IMO.

 

[Nomad]

When I am giving a staff position to someone already a user on my site, post count is one of the factors that matter but I will also look into other things like quality of the posts, thread to post ratio, rule following, etc.