Out of the rejection pool, are there any avoidable failure modes that come to mind—i.e. mistakes made by otherwise qualified applicants which caused rejection? For example, in a previous EA-org application I found out that I ought to have included more detail regarding potential roadblocks to my proposed research project. This seemed like a valuable point in retrospect, but somewhat unexpected given my experience with research proposals outside of EA.
EDIT: (Thanks to Rose for for answering this question individually and agreeing to let me share her answer here) Failure modes include: Describing the value of proposed research ideas too narrowly instead of discussing long-term value. Apparent over-confidence in the description of ideas, i.e. neglecting potential road-bumps and uncertainty.
Out of the rejection pool, are there any avoidable failure modes that come to mind—i.e. mistakes made by otherwise qualified applicants which caused rejection? For example, in a previous EA-org application I found out that I ought to have included more detail regarding potential roadblocks to my proposed research project. This seemed like a valuable point in retrospect, but somewhat unexpected given my experience with research proposals outside of EA.
EDIT: (Thanks to Rose for for answering this question individually and agreeing to let me share her answer here) Failure modes include: Describing the value of proposed research ideas too narrowly instead of discussing long-term value. Apparent over-confidence in the description of ideas, i.e. neglecting potential road-bumps and uncertainty.