The Centre for Effective Altruism is hiring to fill five roles in research, operations and outreach

[Robert_Wiblin]

The Centre for Effective Altruism, the group behind 80,000 Hours, Giving What We Can, the Global Priorities Project, Effective Altruism Outreach, and to a lesser extent The Life You Can Save and Animal Charity Evaluators, is looking to grow its team with a number of new roles:

• Giving What We Can: Director of Research

• Giving What We Can: Communications Manager

• 80,000 Hours: Head of Research

• Central CEA: Chief Operating Officer

• Global Priorities Project: Research Fellow (accepting expressions of interest at this point)

• We are also looking for ‘graduate volunteers’ for Giving What We Can in 2015, particularly over the summer

We are so keen to find great people that if you introduce us to someone new who we end up hiring, we will pay you $1,000 for the favour! If you know anyone awesome who would be a good fit for us please let me know: robert [dot] wiblin [at] centreforeffectivealtruism [dot] org. They can also book a short meeting with me directly.

We may be able to sponsor outstanding applicants from the USA.

Applications close Friday 5th December 2014.

Why is CEA an excellent place to work?

First and foremost, “making the world a better place” is our bottom line and central aim. We work on the projects we do because we think they’re the best way for us to make a contribution. But there’s more.

What are we looking for?

The specifics of what we are looking for depend on the role and details can be found in the job descriptions. In general, we’re looking for people who have many of the following traits:

• Self-motivated, hard-working, and independent;

• Able to deal with pressure and unfamiliar problems;

• Have a strong desire for personal development;

• Able to quickly master complex, abstract ideas, and solve problems;

• Able to communicate clearly and persuasively in writing and in person;

• Comfortable working in a team and quick to get on with new people;

• Able to lead a team and manage a complex project;

• Keen to work with a young team in a startup environment;

• Deeply interested in making the world a better place in an effective way, using evidence and research;

• A good understanding of the aims of the Centre for Effective Altruism and its constituent organisations.

I hope to work at CEA in the future. What should I do now?

Of course this will depend on the role, but generally good ideas include:

• Study hard, including gaining useful knowledge and skills outside of the classroom.

• Degrees we have found provide useful training include: philosophy, statistics, economics, mathematics and physics. However, we are hoping to hire people from a more diverse range of academic and practical backgrounds in the future. In particular, we hope to find new members of the team who have worked in operations, or creative industries.

• Write regularly and consider starting a blog.

• Manage student and workplace clubs or societies.

• Work on exciting projects in your spare time.

• Found a start-up business or non-profit, or join someone else early in the life of a new project.

• Gain impressive professional experience in established organisations, such as those working in consulting, government, politics, advocacy, law, think-tanks, movement building, journalism, etc.

• Get experience promoting effective altruist ideas online, or to people you already know.

• Use 80,000 Hours’ research to do a detailed analysis of your own future career plans.

[John_Maxwell]

If anyone is undecided about applying for this kind of position vs earning to give, I found the following quote from Ben Kuhn interesting:

All the EA organizations that I’ve talked to have mentioned difficulty in finding people. This is despite the fact that I know many people in the movement who seem like they would be quite good candidates. I’m wondering if this is because the earning-to-give meme has propagated so strongly that everyone decides they would rather earn money and fund someone else working there, and then they don’t apply, leading to a shortage of qualified applicants. At any rate, few enough people have the required skills and attitudes to work at e.g. GiveWell, Giving What We Can or 80,000 Hours that it seems pretty non-replaceable.