Speaking just about the publishing point, when I was trying to leverage my old network to help recruit for our past global health & development hiring rounds, it was definitely the case that developmental economists (who have a robust pre-existing non-EA academic field) viewed not being as incentivized in the org to publish academic papers as a noticeable negative.
It’s possible this is not as relevant for the longtermist roles, as a) I expect our candidate pool to on average be more EA and b) the academic fields for longtermist topics, outside of a few narrow subniches in existing disciplines, are noticeably less robust.
One plus I forgot to mention for academic applicants is that in addition to the minimal bureaucracy, we (obviously) have no mandatory teaching load. Researchers who want to “teach” can have interns or do mentorship calls with junior applicants.
I see that you and MichaelA both see low academic incentives or inclinations as a plus, rather than a cost to be paid. For me personally, this is all a moot point as I’m reasonably confident (especially now) that I can perform at the level of e.g. PhDs at top universities at doing RP-style work, whereas I think I will not be able to perform at that level in academia.
Speaking just about the publishing point, when I was trying to leverage my old network to help recruit for our past global health & development hiring rounds, it was definitely the case that developmental economists (who have a robust pre-existing non-EA academic field) viewed not being as incentivized in the org to publish academic papers as a noticeable negative.
It’s possible this is not as relevant for the longtermist roles, as a) I expect our candidate pool to on average be more EA and b) the academic fields for longtermist topics, outside of a few narrow subniches in existing disciplines, are noticeably less robust.
One plus I forgot to mention for academic applicants is that in addition to the minimal bureaucracy, we (obviously) have no mandatory teaching load. Researchers who want to “teach” can have interns or do mentorship calls with junior applicants.
I see that you and MichaelA both see low academic incentives or inclinations as a plus, rather than a cost to be paid. For me personally, this is all a moot point as I’m reasonably confident (especially now) that I can perform at the level of e.g. PhDs at top universities at doing RP-style work, whereas I think I will not be able to perform at that level in academia.