I agree with your first comment, and am sad to see it downvoted. As I mentioned in my comment above, I think for a lot of people, at least a lot of people who do think they’d be interested in EA jobs or grants, it really makes sense to apply to both EA and non-EA things. And it makes sense to apply to lots of things, even though / because any given application probably has a low chance of success. (And when success happens, that’s usually a really big positive for both the applicant and the org/grantmaker, such that it can make up for the cost of many applications.)
I do think it’s possible for people to spend too long applying to things, but I think it’s probably more common to make too few applications and so end up either with no offers or with a less good offer than one could’ve gotten. And I certainly think it’s possible for people to focus too much on EA orgs/grants and not apply enough to non-EA ones, but I think often (not always) the real problem there is that they’re not applying to enough non-EA stuff, rather than that they’re applying to too much EA things.
All that said, I disagree with “Rejection should not be taken as evidence that your talent or current level of experience is insufficient”, taken literally. Rejection should be taken as (very) weak evidence of. Consider: If you were accepted, this would be evidence that you are a good fit for the role. And you started out thinking there was some chance you’d be accepted. So a rejection has to be some evidence that you aren’t a fit. (See also.)
I think people often update too strongly on that weak evidence, and it’s good to caution against that. But the evidence can still matter—e.g., if you’ve now had 5-10 rejections for one type of role and got an offer for another type, your decision about whether to accept the latter role or keep looking should take into account the now weak/moderate evidence you’re not a great fit for the former.
Heh, I was wondering if I’d get called out on that. You’re totally right, everything that happens in the world constitutes evidence of something!
What I should have said is that humans are prone to fundamental attribution error and it is bad to privilege the hypothesis that it’s evidence of real skill/experience/resume signalling/degree etc, because then you risk working on the wrong things. Rejections are evidence, but they’re mostly evidence of a low baseline acceptance rate, and only slightly evidence of other things.
I can imagine someone concluding things like “I’d better get a PhD in the subject so I can signal as qualified and then try again” in a scenario where maybe the thing that would’ve shifted their chances is rewording a cover letter, spending a single day researching some examples of well-designed CEAs before the work task, or applying on a different year.
I agree with your first comment, and am sad to see it downvoted. As I mentioned in my comment above, I think for a lot of people, at least a lot of people who do think they’d be interested in EA jobs or grants, it really makes sense to apply to both EA and non-EA things. And it makes sense to apply to lots of things, even though / because any given application probably has a low chance of success. (And when success happens, that’s usually a really big positive for both the applicant and the org/grantmaker, such that it can make up for the cost of many applications.)
I do think it’s possible for people to spend too long applying to things, but I think it’s probably more common to make too few applications and so end up either with no offers or with a less good offer than one could’ve gotten. And I certainly think it’s possible for people to focus too much on EA orgs/grants and not apply enough to non-EA ones, but I think often (not always) the real problem there is that they’re not applying to enough non-EA stuff, rather than that they’re applying to too much EA things.
All that said, I disagree with “Rejection should not be taken as evidence that your talent or current level of experience is insufficient”, taken literally. Rejection should be taken as (very) weak evidence of. Consider: If you were accepted, this would be evidence that you are a good fit for the role. And you started out thinking there was some chance you’d be accepted. So a rejection has to be some evidence that you aren’t a fit. (See also.)
I think people often update too strongly on that weak evidence, and it’s good to caution against that. But the evidence can still matter—e.g., if you’ve now had 5-10 rejections for one type of role and got an offer for another type, your decision about whether to accept the latter role or keep looking should take into account the now weak/moderate evidence you’re not a great fit for the former.
Heh, I was wondering if I’d get called out on that. You’re totally right, everything that happens in the world constitutes evidence of something!
What I should have said is that humans are prone to fundamental attribution error and it is bad to privilege the hypothesis that it’s evidence of real skill/experience/resume signalling/degree etc, because then you risk working on the wrong things. Rejections are evidence, but they’re mostly evidence of a low baseline acceptance rate, and only slightly evidence of other things.
I can imagine someone concluding things like “I’d better get a PhD in the subject so I can signal as qualified and then try again” in a scenario where maybe the thing that would’ve shifted their chances is rewording a cover letter, spending a single day researching some examples of well-designed CEAs before the work task, or applying on a different year.