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.
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.