Thanks for posting this, Aaron! I’m also applying to the role, and your thoughts are extremely well-put and on the mark.
20-50 people are going to apply for this role, of which at least 20 would do an awesome job.
I think we have two disagreements here.
My thought is that over 50 people are going to apply (my expectation is 65+); perhaps this doesn’t matter too much (quite a few disappointed people regardless), and I don’t think either of us has particularly good evidence for this.
I’m uncertain as to whether 40% (assuming your prediction of 50 applications) would do an “awesome” job. ‘Awesome’ needs to be defined further here, but, without going into the weeds, I think that a recently graduated person having a fleshed-out entrepreneurial aptitude + charisma + a deep understanding of EA is extremely rare (see Alex HT’s post).
More on the 2nd thought: I’d reckon (high uncertainty) that CEA may struggle to find more than ~12 people like this. This does not imply that there are not far more than 12 qualified people for the job. Primary reasons I think this: a) the short application timeline; b) my uncertainty about the degree of headhunting that’s gone on; and c) the fact that a lot of the best community builders I know (this is a limited dataset, however) already have jobs lined up. All of this depends on who is graduating this year and who is applying, of course.
Hey Ed, thanks for your response. I have no disagreement on 1 because I have no clue what the upper end of people applying is – simply that it’s much higher than the number who will be accepted and the number of people (I think) will do a good job.
2. I think we do disagree here. I think these qualities are relatively common in the CBers and group organizers I know (small sample). I agree that short app timeline will decrease the number of great applicants applying, also unsure about b, c seems like the biggest factor to me.
Probably the crux here is what proportion of applicants have the skills you mention, and my guess is ⅓ to ⅔, but this is based on the people I know which may be higher than in reality.
Awesome—thanks for the response. Yes, I agree with the crux (this also may come from different conceptions of the skills themselves). I’ll message you!
Thanks for posting this, Aaron! I’m also applying to the role, and your thoughts are extremely well-put and on the mark.
I think we have two disagreements here.
My thought is that over 50 people are going to apply (my expectation is 65+); perhaps this doesn’t matter too much (quite a few disappointed people regardless), and I don’t think either of us has particularly good evidence for this.
I’m uncertain as to whether 40% (assuming your prediction of 50 applications) would do an “awesome” job. ‘Awesome’ needs to be defined further here, but, without going into the weeds, I think that a recently graduated person having a fleshed-out entrepreneurial aptitude + charisma + a deep understanding of EA is extremely rare (see Alex HT’s post).
More on the 2nd thought: I’d reckon (high uncertainty) that CEA may struggle to find more than ~12 people like this. This does not imply that there are not far more than 12 qualified people for the job. Primary reasons I think this: a) the short application timeline; b) my uncertainty about the degree of headhunting that’s gone on; and c) the fact that a lot of the best community builders I know (this is a limited dataset, however) already have jobs lined up. All of this depends on who is graduating this year and who is applying, of course.
Hey Ed, thanks for your response. I have no disagreement on 1 because I have no clue what the upper end of people applying is – simply that it’s much higher than the number who will be accepted and the number of people (I think) will do a good job.
2. I think we do disagree here. I think these qualities are relatively common in the CBers and group organizers I know (small sample). I agree that short app timeline will decrease the number of great applicants applying, also unsure about b, c seems like the biggest factor to me.
Probably the crux here is what proportion of applicants have the skills you mention, and my guess is ⅓ to ⅔, but this is based on the people I know which may be higher than in reality.
Awesome—thanks for the response. Yes, I agree with the crux (this also may come from different conceptions of the skills themselves). I’ll message you!