As an empirical matter, are there many EAs, especially in junior positions, who don’t consider non-EA jobs seriously?
The only people I can think of who aren’t considering non-EA jobs at all while doing a job search are a subset of a) people quite established/senior in EA orgs and thus may believe that they have transferable skills/connections to other EA orgs, and b) a small number of relatively well-off (either from family or past jobs) people excited to attempt a transition.
And in the case of both a) and b), even in those groups there are plenty of people who seriously consider (and frequently take up) jobs outside of our small movement.
In my case it was the opposite—I spent several years considering only non-EA jobs as I had formed the (as it turns out mistaken) impression that I would not be a serious candidate for any roles at EA orgs.
FWIW, I think I did not consider non-EA jobs nearly enough right after my master’s in 2016. However, my situation was somewhat idiosyncratic, and I’m not sure it could happen today in this form.
I ended up choosing between one offer from an EA org and one offer from a mid-sized German consulting firm. I chose the EA org. I think it’s kind of insane that I hadn’t even applied to, or strongly considered, more alternatives, and I think it’s highly unclear if I made the right choice.
I do think on average people don’t apply to enough jobs relative to the clear benefits of having more options. I’m not sure why this is, and also don’t have a sense of whether utility will increase if we tell people to apply to more EA or EA-adjacent jobs vs more jobs outside the movement. Naively I’d have guessed the former to be honest.
That’s a good point. I don’t have any data on this (not sure if this is something addressed in any of the EA surveys?) but my understanding is that you’re totally right that most EAs are in non-EA jobs.
What I was trying to get at in my post was less the thought that more EAs should take jobs in non-EA spaces, but more the notion that discussions of career choice should take those choices more seriously. My title—More EAs should consider non-EA jobs—could be expanded to be “More EAs should consider non-EA jobs as a valid way of doing the most good.” But there was definitely some ambiguity there.
I think it’s valuable to distinguish between folks who take non-EA jobs out of EA-related considerations (i.e. “I’m taking this job because I think it will allow me to do the most good”) vs. those who take them for unrelated considerations (such as interest, availability, location, etc.). I would guess that both approaches are at play for many people. I don’t think that conversations of career choice talk enough about the former; I think they tend to foreground career paths in EA orgs and don’t talk much about the potential value of bringing EA into non-EA spaces.
I didn’t originally, but then did when I could not get an offer for an EA job.
I do think in many cases EA org jobs will be better in terms of impact (or more specifically: high impact non-EA org jobs are hard to find) so I do not necessarily consider this approach wrong. Once you fail to get an EA job, you will eventually be forced to consider getting a non-EA job.
I agree that if you choose at random from EA org and non-EA org jobs, you are more likely to have more impact at an EA org job. And I agree that there is work involved in finding a high impact non-EA job.
However, I don’t think the work involved in finding a high impact non-EA org job is hard because there are so few such opportunities out there, but because finding them requires more imagination/creativity than just going for a job at an EA org does. Maybe you could start a new AI safety team at Facebook or Amazon by joining, building the internal capital, and then proposing it. Maybe you can’t because reasons. Either way, you learn by trying. And this learning is not wasted. Either you pave the way for others in the community, highlighting a new area where impact can be made. Or, if it turns out it’s hard for reasons, then you’ve learnt why, and can pass that on to others who might try.
Needless to say this impact finding strategy scales better than one where everyone is exclusively focused on EA org jobs (although you need some of that too). On a movement scale, I’d make a bet that we’re too far in the direction of thinking that EA orgs is a better path to impact and have significantly under-explored ways of making impact in non-EA orgs, and there are social reasons why we’d naturally bias in that direction. Alternatively, like Sarah said elsewhere, it’s just less visible.
I just realised I haven’t asked—why are high impact non-EA org jobs are hard to find, in your view?
As an empirical matter, are there many EAs, especially in junior positions, who don’t consider non-EA jobs seriously?
The only people I can think of who aren’t considering non-EA jobs at all while doing a job search are a subset of a) people quite established/senior in EA orgs and thus may believe that they have transferable skills/connections to other EA orgs, and b) a small number of relatively well-off (either from family or past jobs) people excited to attempt a transition.
And in the case of both a) and b), even in those groups there are plenty of people who seriously consider (and frequently take up) jobs outside of our small movement.
In my case it was the opposite—I spent several years considering only non-EA jobs as I had formed the (as it turns out mistaken) impression that I would not be a serious candidate for any roles at EA orgs.
FWIW, I think I did not consider non-EA jobs nearly enough right after my master’s in 2016. However, my situation was somewhat idiosyncratic, and I’m not sure it could happen today in this form.
I ended up choosing between one offer from an EA org and one offer from a mid-sized German consulting firm. I chose the EA org. I think it’s kind of insane that I hadn’t even applied to, or strongly considered, more alternatives, and I think it’s highly unclear if I made the right choice.
I do think on average people don’t apply to enough jobs relative to the clear benefits of having more options. I’m not sure why this is, and also don’t have a sense of whether utility will increase if we tell people to apply to more EA or EA-adjacent jobs vs more jobs outside the movement. Naively I’d have guessed the former to be honest.
That’s a good point. I don’t have any data on this (not sure if this is something addressed in any of the EA surveys?) but my understanding is that you’re totally right that most EAs are in non-EA jobs.
What I was trying to get at in my post was less the thought that more EAs should take jobs in non-EA spaces, but more the notion that discussions of career choice should take those choices more seriously. My title—More EAs should consider non-EA jobs—could be expanded to be “More EAs should consider non-EA jobs as a valid way of doing the most good.” But there was definitely some ambiguity there.
I think it’s valuable to distinguish between folks who take non-EA jobs out of EA-related considerations (i.e. “I’m taking this job because I think it will allow me to do the most good”) vs. those who take them for unrelated considerations (such as interest, availability, location, etc.). I would guess that both approaches are at play for many people. I don’t think that conversations of career choice talk enough about the former; I think they tend to foreground career paths in EA orgs and don’t talk much about the potential value of bringing EA into non-EA spaces.
I didn’t originally, but then did when I could not get an offer for an EA job.
I do think in many cases EA org jobs will be better in terms of impact (or more specifically: high impact non-EA org jobs are hard to find) so I do not necessarily consider this approach wrong. Once you fail to get an EA job, you will eventually be forced to consider getting a non-EA job.
I agree that if you choose at random from EA org and non-EA org jobs, you are more likely to have more impact at an EA org job. And I agree that there is work involved in finding a high impact non-EA job.
However, I don’t think the work involved in finding a high impact non-EA org job is hard because there are so few such opportunities out there, but because finding them requires more imagination/creativity than just going for a job at an EA org does. Maybe you could start a new AI safety team at Facebook or Amazon by joining, building the internal capital, and then proposing it. Maybe you can’t because reasons. Either way, you learn by trying. And this learning is not wasted. Either you pave the way for others in the community, highlighting a new area where impact can be made. Or, if it turns out it’s hard for reasons, then you’ve learnt why, and can pass that on to others who might try.
Needless to say this impact finding strategy scales better than one where everyone is exclusively focused on EA org jobs (although you need some of that too). On a movement scale, I’d make a bet that we’re too far in the direction of thinking that EA orgs is a better path to impact and have significantly under-explored ways of making impact in non-EA orgs, and there are social reasons why we’d naturally bias in that direction. Alternatively, like Sarah said elsewhere, it’s just less visible.
I just realised I haven’t asked—why are high impact non-EA org jobs are hard to find, in your view?