IRL friends as staff is always your best bet. You can call them or text them and pester them. I wish I had IRL friends that played MC so they could help me run my server. LOL.
I love large servers however mine is smaller- 30 slots. It seems like a lot of people are looking for smaller servers because they can feel like they are doing something for the server instead of being an ant out of 1 million.
I'm not part of this group. I am 22, run a server and only recruit based on how trustworthy players are. My staff are extremely loyal to me and I pay for server hosting through donations and my own personal paychecks because I have a real job.