Massively

Oh please! This isn't exactly an unusual method of hiring.

I know the company I work for frequently advertises available positions on the internal boards, but also with job agencies and in newspapers. Sometimes the person who gets the job will end up coming from within the company, sometimes they wont. But doing it this way means the guys in charge of recruitment have a bigger pool to pick from, which in turn gives them the best possible chance of hiring the ideal candidate.

The fact Rubi got hired above everyone else is probably just a reflection of how good her writing and analytical skills are. Congrats and good luck in your new role Rubi!

I'm just pointing out that every new writer that's come on board since I started reading Massively, has been someone who has been heavily namedropped or even on the podcast, or Shawn being on theirs. Hell she's an old guildie, how obvious do you wanna make it?

As far as I can tell, this woman plays a single MMO (which is barely one), has a crappy computer, and very little experience of either writing or in the industry/space.

Massively becomes less interesting to read and slower on posting news as each day passes by (compared to WoW.com or Joystiq for example), and it just feels like Shawn is ensuring more of the same by wasting AOL's money on contributors and columnists that are all the exact same demographic and are barely distinctive in their own writing style.

Like I said, my advice is either to take a risk and hire someone outside of friends you want to get on board the cash cow, or simply stop making open calls. There is no way on earth that she was the most qualified and experienced candidate.

My application was put in as a whim, the announcement on Massively Speaking was honestly a confirmation of what I already knew, that you:

a) Only employ people you have a relationship with outside of the site.

b) Only employ people like you.

Neither of those points are meant angrily or in an insulting manner, so please don't take them as such, but content quality is as much of an issue as quantity of posts on Massively right now, you essentially have a Staff made up of casual gamers, playing a multitude of games at very low level, that mostly fit into a similar age and background bracket. There are a couple of exceptions, I think James Egan is fantastic, but for the most part this is how I feel as a reader.

My background of being a hardcore MMO gamer, experiencing the very top of endgame in several high profile MMO's, could have offered a unique viewpoint and a bit of variety to the site. I'm not bitter that I personally wasn't chosen, I'm just disappointed in Massively for not picking someone either like me, or from another unique viewpoint (RP, Foreign Games, Industry Insight), and simply adding more of the same, over and over.

I understand that working at Massively isn't highly paid, that it is hard work, and that it can turn something that you love (MMO's) into an arduous task, but if you're having trouble motivating your troops, who should be counting their lucky stars that they get paid to do this, and be dedicated to no end with improving the site, I don't know how adding 2 more of them will help.

I admire you (Shawn) for trying to up the profile of Massively, and make it more prominent in the games media industry, but more and more, to anyone with a modicum of experience within this sector, it just looks incredibly unprofessional and misinformed.

You're welcome to entirely ignore what I've said and put it down to me being angry I didn't get the job, but it was my second attempt and my last, due to the internal hiring practices, so I really have nothing to gain by making this stuff up.

Your call.