Itâs a little aside from your point, but good feedback is not only useful for emotionally managing the rejectionâitâs also incredibly valuable information! Consider especially that someone who is applying for a job at your organization may well apply for jobs at other organizations. Telling them what is good or bad with their application will help them improve that process, and make them more likely to find something that is the right fit for them. It could be vital in helping them understand what they need to do to position themselves to be more useful to the community, or at least it could save the time and effort of them applying for more jobs that have the same requirements you did, that they didnât meetâand save the time and effort of the hiring team there rejecting them.
A unique characteristic of EA hiring is that itâs often good for your goals to help candidates who didnât succeed at your process succeed at something else nearby. I often think we donât realize how significantly this shifts our incentives in cases like these.
In our current hiring round for EA Germany, Iâm offering all 26 applicants âpersonal feedback on request if time allowsâ, and I think itâs probably worth my time at least trying to answer as many feedback requests as I can.
Iâd encourage other EA recruiters to do the same, especially for those candidates that already did work tests. If you ask someone to spend 2h on an unpaid work test, it seems fair to make at least 5min time for feedback.
(Sidenote: Fwiw, I think people should also seriously consider actually paying honoraria for work tests, rather than leaving them unpaid. At least for longtermist and meta EA projects, I expect that if funders would fund staff costs theyâd also fund the costs for paying applicants for their time spent on applications. At least, I can say for sure that thatâd be my default stance as an EAIF guest manager.)
Itâs a little aside from your point, but good feedback is not only useful for emotionally managing the rejectionâitâs also incredibly valuable information! Consider especially that someone who is applying for a job at your organization may well apply for jobs at other organizations. Telling them what is good or bad with their application will help them improve that process, and make them more likely to find something that is the right fit for them. It could be vital in helping them understand what they need to do to position themselves to be more useful to the community, or at least it could save the time and effort of them applying for more jobs that have the same requirements you did, that they didnât meetâand save the time and effort of the hiring team there rejecting them.
A unique characteristic of EA hiring is that itâs often good for your goals to help candidates who didnât succeed at your process succeed at something else nearby. I often think we donât realize how significantly this shifts our incentives in cases like these.
Agree!
In our current hiring round for EA Germany, Iâm offering all 26 applicants âpersonal feedback on request if time allowsâ, and I think itâs probably worth my time at least trying to answer as many feedback requests as I can.
Iâd encourage other EA recruiters to do the same, especially for those candidates that already did work tests. If you ask someone to spend 2h on an unpaid work test, it seems fair to make at least 5min time for feedback.
(Sidenote: Fwiw, I think people should also seriously consider actually paying honoraria for work tests, rather than leaving them unpaid. At least for longtermist and meta EA projects, I expect that if funders would fund staff costs theyâd also fund the costs for paying applicants for their time spent on applications. At least, I can say for sure that thatâd be my default stance as an EAIF guest manager.)