Post by Cleophie on Aug 12, 2007 15:50:11 GMT -5
This is something that's been brought up a few times in LS chat, so I think we should have some serious discussion about it.
I think we need to reshape our application process to be more friendly towards applicants.
The first problem I see is our method of application submission. PMing your application to a sackholder relies on that one sackholder checking the forums, finding your app, having the time to post it to the sackholder section, and then respond to you in-game with an acknowledgment that your app was received and posted. There's a lot that can go wrong there, for example if said sack is on vacation away from a computer or can't catch the person online to keep them up to date.
The solution to this, in my opinion, is to open up the applications forum for applicants to post their own application. It's possible to set the forum so that anyone can create a topic, but only staff can reply, which would be the best solution, in my opinion. One concern may be that this makes it harder for people to post applications without leaving their current LS, but that's frequently a problem when we get around to processing their application anyways, so I don't see the inability to do that as a tremendous problem.
The second problem I see is that our apps take a long time, and frequently the applicant is "out of the loop". To fix this, I think we need to do two things. The first is set firmer deadlines for stages of the application process, and post them in the application guidelines thread. The second is somewhat more controversial, I propose changing sponsorship/referral to an optional "accelerant" to the application process. If someone has a sponsor, we're able to get more personal experience with the member and come to a decision quicker. With that in mind, I suggest that applications be posted each Sunday or Wednesday before the run*, with a voting period of two weeks for non-referred members and one week for referred members.
* - If necessary to give us (sacks) more time to discuss an app, it may be a good idea to wait until the next run before posting applications received on, for example, late Saturday night or Wednesday morning.
Finally, I think that we should have some indication of relative demand for jobs in our application forum. It doesn't need to be exact, but potential applicants should have some idea whether their application will just be refused due to overcrowding without having to post an app and go through the 2-week app process. A simple "These jobs are closed", "These jobs are open", "These jobs are low demand" post would probably suffice.
Forgive me if this seems like a lot of changes for someone so new to a leadership position to propose, but I'd like to hear what the rest of you think so we can take some kind of action on the subject.
I think we need to reshape our application process to be more friendly towards applicants.
The first problem I see is our method of application submission. PMing your application to a sackholder relies on that one sackholder checking the forums, finding your app, having the time to post it to the sackholder section, and then respond to you in-game with an acknowledgment that your app was received and posted. There's a lot that can go wrong there, for example if said sack is on vacation away from a computer or can't catch the person online to keep them up to date.
The solution to this, in my opinion, is to open up the applications forum for applicants to post their own application. It's possible to set the forum so that anyone can create a topic, but only staff can reply, which would be the best solution, in my opinion. One concern may be that this makes it harder for people to post applications without leaving their current LS, but that's frequently a problem when we get around to processing their application anyways, so I don't see the inability to do that as a tremendous problem.
The second problem I see is that our apps take a long time, and frequently the applicant is "out of the loop". To fix this, I think we need to do two things. The first is set firmer deadlines for stages of the application process, and post them in the application guidelines thread. The second is somewhat more controversial, I propose changing sponsorship/referral to an optional "accelerant" to the application process. If someone has a sponsor, we're able to get more personal experience with the member and come to a decision quicker. With that in mind, I suggest that applications be posted each Sunday or Wednesday before the run*, with a voting period of two weeks for non-referred members and one week for referred members.
* - If necessary to give us (sacks) more time to discuss an app, it may be a good idea to wait until the next run before posting applications received on, for example, late Saturday night or Wednesday morning.
Finally, I think that we should have some indication of relative demand for jobs in our application forum. It doesn't need to be exact, but potential applicants should have some idea whether their application will just be refused due to overcrowding without having to post an app and go through the 2-week app process. A simple "These jobs are closed", "These jobs are open", "These jobs are low demand" post would probably suffice.
Forgive me if this seems like a lot of changes for someone so new to a leadership position to propose, but I'd like to hear what the rest of you think so we can take some kind of action on the subject.
