(This is more of a tangent than an answer, but might help provide some context for my other responses here and elsewhere in this AMA. Feel free to ignore it, though!)
I learned about EA in late 2018, and didnāt have much relevant expertise, experience, or credentials. Iād done a research-focused Honours year and published a paper, but that was in an area of psychology thatās not especially relevant to the sort of work that, after learning about EA, I figured I should aim towards. (More on my psych background here.) I was also in the midst of the 2 year Teach For Australia program, which involves teaching at a high school, and also wasnāt relevant to my new EA-aligned plans.
Starting then and continuing through to mid 2020 ish, I made an active effort to āget up to speedā on EA ideas, as described here.
In 2019, I applied for ~30 EA-aligned roles, mostly research-ish roles at EA orgs (though also some non-research roles or roles at non-EA orgs). I ultimately got two offers, one for an operations role at an EA org and one for a research role. I think I had relevant skills but didnāt have clear signals of this (e.g., more relevant work experience or academic credentials), so I was often rejected at the CV screening stage but often did ok if I was allowed through to work tests and interviews. And both of the offers I got were preceded by work tests.
Then in 2020, I wrote a lot of posts on the EA Forum and a decent number on LessWrong, partly for my research job and partly āindependentlyā. I also applied for ~11 roles this year (mostly research roles, and I think all at EA orgs), and ultimately received 4 offers (all research roles at EA orgs). So that success rate was much higher, which seems to fit my theory that last year I had relevant skills but lacked clear signals of this.
So Iāve now got a total of ~1.5 years FTE of research experience, ~0.5 of which (in 2017) was academic psychology research and ~1 of which (this year) was split across 3 EA orgs. Thatās obviously not enough time to be an expert, and I still have a great deal to learn on a whole host of dimensions.
Also, I only started with Rethink roughly a month ago.
This is a tangent to your tangent, but are you still based in Australia? If so, how do you find Rethinkās remote by default set up with the time difference?
For context, I considered applying for the same role, but ultimately didnāt because at the time I was stuck working from Australia with all my colleagues in GMT+0 timezone (thanks covid), and the combination of daytime isolation/ālate night meetings were making me pretty miserable. Is Rethink better at managing these issues?
Just want to say that Rethink Priorities is committed to being able to successfully integrate remote Australians and weād be excited to have more APAC applicants in our future hiring rounds!
Good question. And sorry to hear you had that miserable situationāhope things are better for you now!
First, I should note that Iām in Western Australia, so things would presumably be somewhat different for people in the Eastern states. Also, of course, different peopleās needs, work styles, etc. differ.
Iāve been meeting with US people in my mornings, which is working well because I wake up around 7am and start working around 8, while the people Iām meeting with are more night-owl-ish. And Iāve been meeting with people in the UK/āEurope in my evenings (around 5-9pm), which Iām also fine with.
Though it is tricky to get all 3 sets of time zones in the same meeting. Usually one of us has to be up early or late. But so far those sort of group meetings have just been something like once a fortnight, so itās been tolerable.
And other than meetings, time zones arenāt seeming to really matter for my job; most of my work and most of my communication with colleagues (via slack, google doc comments, email, etc) doesnāt require being up at the same time as someone else. (I imagine that, in general, this is true for many research roles and less true for e.g. operations roles.)
Though again, Iāve only been at Rethink for a month so far. And Iām planning to move to Oxford in March. If I was in Australia permanently, perhaps time zone issues for team meetings would become more annoying.
Btw, I also worked for Convergence Analysis (based in UK/āEurope) from March to ~August from Australia. That was even easier, because there were never three quite different time zones to deal with (no US employees).
My own story & a disclaimer
(This is more of a tangent than an answer, but might help provide some context for my other responses here and elsewhere in this AMA. Feel free to ignore it, though!)
I learned about EA in late 2018, and didnāt have much relevant expertise, experience, or credentials. Iād done a research-focused Honours year and published a paper, but that was in an area of psychology thatās not especially relevant to the sort of work that, after learning about EA, I figured I should aim towards. (More on my psych background here.) I was also in the midst of the 2 year Teach For Australia program, which involves teaching at a high school, and also wasnāt relevant to my new EA-aligned plans.
Starting then and continuing through to mid 2020 ish, I made an active effort to āget up to speedā on EA ideas, as described here.
In 2019, I applied for ~30 EA-aligned roles, mostly research-ish roles at EA orgs (though also some non-research roles or roles at non-EA orgs). I ultimately got two offers, one for an operations role at an EA org and one for a research role. I think I had relevant skills but didnāt have clear signals of this (e.g., more relevant work experience or academic credentials), so I was often rejected at the CV screening stage but often did ok if I was allowed through to work tests and interviews. And both of the offers I got were preceded by work tests.
Then in 2020, I wrote a lot of posts on the EA Forum and a decent number on LessWrong, partly for my research job and partly āindependentlyā. I also applied for ~11 roles this year (mostly research roles, and I think all at EA orgs), and ultimately received 4 offers (all research roles at EA orgs). So that success rate was much higher, which seems to fit my theory that last year I had relevant skills but lacked clear signals of this.
So Iāve now got a total of ~1.5 years FTE of research experience, ~0.5 of which (in 2017) was academic psychology research and ~1 of which (this year) was split across 3 EA orgs. Thatās obviously not enough time to be an expert, and I still have a great deal to learn on a whole host of dimensions.
Also, I only started with Rethink roughly a month ago.
Hey Michael,
This is a tangent to your tangent, but are you still based in Australia? If so, how do you find Rethinkās remote by default set up with the time difference?
For context, I considered applying for the same role, but ultimately didnāt because at the time I was stuck working from Australia with all my colleagues in GMT+0 timezone (thanks covid), and the combination of daytime isolation/ālate night meetings were making me pretty miserable. Is Rethink better at managing these issues?
Cheers!
Just want to say that Rethink Priorities is committed to being able to successfully integrate remote Australians and weād be excited to have more APAC applicants in our future hiring rounds!
Hey Harriet,
Good question. And sorry to hear you had that miserable situationāhope things are better for you now!
First, I should note that Iām in Western Australia, so things would presumably be somewhat different for people in the Eastern states. Also, of course, different peopleās needs, work styles, etc. differ.
Iāve been meeting with US people in my mornings, which is working well because I wake up around 7am and start working around 8, while the people Iām meeting with are more night-owl-ish. And Iāve been meeting with people in the UK/āEurope in my evenings (around 5-9pm), which Iām also fine with.
Though it is tricky to get all 3 sets of time zones in the same meeting. Usually one of us has to be up early or late. But so far those sort of group meetings have just been something like once a fortnight, so itās been tolerable.
And other than meetings, time zones arenāt seeming to really matter for my job; most of my work and most of my communication with colleagues (via slack, google doc comments, email, etc) doesnāt require being up at the same time as someone else. (I imagine that, in general, this is true for many research roles and less true for e.g. operations roles.)
Though again, Iāve only been at Rethink for a month so far. And Iām planning to move to Oxford in March. If I was in Australia permanently, perhaps time zone issues for team meetings would become more annoying.
Btw, I also worked for Convergence Analysis (based in UK/āEurope) from March to ~August from Australia. That was even easier, because there were never three quite different time zones to deal with (no US employees).
Thanks for the detailed answerāthis actually sounds pretty doable!