It’s certainly true that fields bottlenecked on mentors could make use of more mentors, right now. If you’re already skilled in the area, you can therefore have very high impact by joining/staying in the field.
However, when young people are considering whether they should join in order to become mentors, as you suggest, they should consider whether the field will be bottlenecked on mentors at the time when they would become one, in 10 years time or so. Since there are lots of junior applicants right now, the seniority bottleneck will presumably be smaller, then.
Moreover, insofar as the present lack of mentors is the main bottleneck preventing junior applicants from eventually becoming senior, adding an extra person to the pool of applicants (yourself) will create fewer counterfactual future mentors than if you were in a field that was less mentorship-constrained. (This doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing, though. You adding yourself to the pool will still increase its value.)
It also implies that it can be extra valuable to move into the field if you’re able to learn relevant skills without making use of present mentors (e.g. by being in a good and relevant PhD-program, or by doing focused studying that few others are doing).
in the absence of other empirical information, I think it’s a safe assumption that present bottlenecks correlate with future bottlenecks, though your first point is well taken.
I’m not quite following your second argument. It seems to say that the same level of applicant pool growth produces fewer mentors in mentorship-bottlenecked fields than in less mentorship-bottlenecked fields, but I don’t understand why. Enlighten me?
Your third point is also correct. Stated generally, finding ways to increase the availability of the primary bottlenecked resource, or accomplish the same goal while using less of it, is how we can get the most leverage.
It seems to say that the same level of applicant pool growth produces fewer mentors in mentorship-bottlenecked fields than in less mentorship-bottlenecked fields, but I don’t understand why.
If a field is bottlenecked on mentors, it has too few mentors per applicants, or put differently, more applicants than the mentors can accept. Assuming that each applicant needs some fixed amount of time with a mentor before becoming senior themselves, increasing the size of the applicant-pool doesn’t increase the number of future senior people, because the present mentors won’t be able to accept more people just because the applicant-pool is bigger.
Caveats:
More people in the applicant-pool may lead to future senior people being better (because the best people in a larger pool are probably better).
It’s not actually true that a fixed amount of mentor-input makes someone senior. With a larger applicantpool, you might be able to select for people who requires less mentor-input, or who has a larger probability of staying in the field, which will translate to more future senior people (but still significantly less than in applicant-bottlenecked fields).
My third point above: some people might be able to circumvent applying to the mentor-constrained positions altogether, and still become senior.
In my OP, I just meant that if the applicant gets in, they can teach. Too many applicants doesn’t necessarily indicate that the field is oversubscribed, it just means that there’s a mentorship bottleneck. One possible reason is that senior people in the field simply enjoy direct work more than teaching and choose not to focus on it. Insofar as that’s the case, candidates are especially suitable if they’re willing to focus more on providing mentorship if they get in and a bottleneck remains by the time they become senior.
Thanks for the feedback, it helps me understand that my original post may not have been as clear as I thought.
It’s certainly true that fields bottlenecked on mentors could make use of more mentors, right now. If you’re already skilled in the area, you can therefore have very high impact by joining/staying in the field.
However, when young people are considering whether they should join in order to become mentors, as you suggest, they should consider whether the field will be bottlenecked on mentors at the time when they would become one, in 10 years time or so. Since there are lots of junior applicants right now, the seniority bottleneck will presumably be smaller, then.
Moreover, insofar as the present lack of mentors is the main bottleneck preventing junior applicants from eventually becoming senior, adding an extra person to the pool of applicants (yourself) will create fewer counterfactual future mentors than if you were in a field that was less mentorship-constrained. (This doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing, though. You adding yourself to the pool will still increase its value.)
It also implies that it can be extra valuable to move into the field if you’re able to learn relevant skills without making use of present mentors (e.g. by being in a good and relevant PhD-program, or by doing focused studying that few others are doing).
in the absence of other empirical information, I think it’s a safe assumption that present bottlenecks correlate with future bottlenecks, though your first point is well taken.
I’m not quite following your second argument. It seems to say that the same level of applicant pool growth produces fewer mentors in mentorship-bottlenecked fields than in less mentorship-bottlenecked fields, but I don’t understand why. Enlighten me?
Your third point is also correct. Stated generally, finding ways to increase the availability of the primary bottlenecked resource, or accomplish the same goal while using less of it, is how we can get the most leverage.
If a field is bottlenecked on mentors, it has too few mentors per applicants, or put differently, more applicants than the mentors can accept. Assuming that each applicant needs some fixed amount of time with a mentor before becoming senior themselves, increasing the size of the applicant-pool doesn’t increase the number of future senior people, because the present mentors won’t be able to accept more people just because the applicant-pool is bigger.
Caveats:
More people in the applicant-pool may lead to future senior people being better (because the best people in a larger pool are probably better).
It’s not actually true that a fixed amount of mentor-input makes someone senior. With a larger applicantpool, you might be able to select for people who requires less mentor-input, or who has a larger probability of staying in the field, which will translate to more future senior people (but still significantly less than in applicant-bottlenecked fields).
My third point above: some people might be able to circumvent applying to the mentor-constrained positions altogether, and still become senior.
In my OP, I just meant that if the applicant gets in, they can teach. Too many applicants doesn’t necessarily indicate that the field is oversubscribed, it just means that there’s a mentorship bottleneck. One possible reason is that senior people in the field simply enjoy direct work more than teaching and choose not to focus on it. Insofar as that’s the case, candidates are especially suitable if they’re willing to focus more on providing mentorship if they get in and a bottleneck remains by the time they become senior.
Thanks for the feedback, it helps me understand that my original post may not have been as clear as I thought.