is there currently a need for more operations people in EA orgs?
I’ve heard differing opinions on this from different organizations, and I think this is in large part because different organizations have different standards for operations hires.
For example, an organization that thinks that having an EA-aligned hire is important and is looking for someone with significant nonprofit/operations experience will have a more difficult time filling a role than an organization that’s just looking for someone with certain soft skills (e.g. problem solving, learning quickly, etc.). I think EA organizations tend to lean towards being more relaxed about their requirements, especially for junior roles, which is why it isn’t as hard for them to find operations hires.
That said, I think that having less strict hiring standards can lead to less-than-optimal hires, so even if there isn’t as much need per se for operations people, you can still have a big impact here if you’re an especially good fit. I’ve heard of some complaints about high turnover in operations roles (senior roles can be very stressful since you’re juggling quite a big, while junior roles can be boring since you’ll end up doing a good deal of admin work), so if you’re reasonably confident that you have the personality to stick with operations for a long time, you can have more impact by acquiring more skills and preventing your organization from having to do another costly hire a few years down the road. Similarly, people who have special skills (e.g. technical knowledge for automation, bookkeeping, HR, knack for organization, etc.) could have a higher counterfactual impact in an operations role.
So tl;dr, yeah, we probably technically don’t need more operations people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an impact working in operations.
I’ve heard differing opinions on this from different organizations, and I think this is in large part because different organizations have different standards for operations hires.
For example, an organization that thinks that having an EA-aligned hire is important and is looking for someone with significant nonprofit/operations experience will have a more difficult time filling a role than an organization that’s just looking for someone with certain soft skills (e.g. problem solving, learning quickly, etc.). I think EA organizations tend to lean towards being more relaxed about their requirements, especially for junior roles, which is why it isn’t as hard for them to find operations hires.
That said, I think that having less strict hiring standards can lead to less-than-optimal hires, so even if there isn’t as much need per se for operations people, you can still have a big impact here if you’re an especially good fit. I’ve heard of some complaints about high turnover in operations roles (senior roles can be very stressful since you’re juggling quite a big, while junior roles can be boring since you’ll end up doing a good deal of admin work), so if you’re reasonably confident that you have the personality to stick with operations for a long time, you can have more impact by acquiring more skills and preventing your organization from having to do another costly hire a few years down the road. Similarly, people who have special skills (e.g. technical knowledge for automation, bookkeeping, HR, knack for organization, etc.) could have a higher counterfactual impact in an operations role.
So tl;dr, yeah, we probably technically don’t need more operations people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an impact working in operations.