Ok, be prepared i've got two ideas.
1. Before you can post an apply for staff, you would have to post a topic saying your name and qualification, so for me it would be "Mercyless Pk's Qualification" All you need to do in the qualification is to have at least 1 staff and 5 regular members post on it saying that you would be a good staff member or deserving of staff, this also helps you with what the community thinks of this players.
2. After passing the Qualification you can then post an application for staff. You're application has 5 days to be looked at and then it will be moved to a sub-section of that part of the forums called "Application Accepted" or "Application Denied".
The actual qualification post will need to include all of this before you can make an application
*Credit to Security Cop for this*
1, Must have a forum picture.
2, Must be playing for at least two weeks.
3, Your spelling in-game and on forums is important.
4, Helping the new players and everyone else, noticed by the staff
5, Put colour into your application.
Post, Comment, Leave your ideas? I think this will help from getting it too cluttered by having 4 actual sections, Qualification, Pending results, Accepted, and Denied. And will give us the community's feel about the player.