I thought it might be valuable to give my quick opinions on the measures you suggest, excluding the last two, and on the tradeoffs I think they would have. I’ve highlighted in bold and cursive the ones that I don’t see any particular downsides about.
Weakly negative. My intuitions disagree here. It’s hard to say why, perhaps because I’d expect math ability to correlate with many things that EAs care about. Maybe this is because I am more used to working with very quantitatve start-up-like organizations where roles aren’t particularly well defined.
I thought this was a good point, and I hadn’t thought about how this could contribute to founder effects. That said, references can be very informative, and because of this I think this would be hard to change in practice.
Weakly to strongly negative. Hires will have a lasting impact on an organization, and the tradeoff here is that you would know your employee worse before hiring.
See also: EA Anywhere (linked in your Virtual EAGx link)
One tradeoff here is that organizers for these events could perhaps be doing something more valuable. So this probably depends on demand. But I do expect demand to be high.
Strongly against. There are a few posts on this in the EA forum, but I think that they are broadly wrong. As a group spends more time thinking about a topic, they will want to use short ways to clearly pinpoint common concepts and nuances, and I don’t view outreach as the primary consideration here.
It’s possible that most EAs disagree with me here, but I just think they’re wrong.
Weakly in favor. I don’t really get why managers aren’t doing this, but this might mean that they have private information (e.g., maybe it’s hard to find good fund managers, or the best would only be able to do it part time?)
Weakly positive to weakly negative. I think this is worth it, but your “the results show” links to one particular attempt, and Spanish has a really large population and longstanding team that groups in other languages may not have access to.
One tradeoff here is that there are benefits to having a common language.
Weakly to strongly against as written. The problem here is that I’m pretty sure that this wouldn’t be worth it from many organizations’ perspectives. A model where organizations like FHI, SERI, CERI, etc. run their own fellowships, rather than all organizations, seems better.
No strong opinion. As with mentorship more generally, the tradeoff here is that mentorship takes senior people’s time. But I thought that Magnify Mentorship’s strategy of starting out catering to under-represented groups and then pivoting to provide their services more generally was a neat way to ensure different founder effects (not sure if intentional).
Hey Nuno, thanks so much for reading and providing your thoughts on my suggestions in such depth—I enjoyed reading them and I really appreciate it! It brings a lot of value to the post as it provides multiple ways of thinking about these suggestions.
I think that your point about trade-offs for these things is very valid. The reason I wrote this post was that I felt that projects like these almost never make it to the top of the weighted factor models and other decision-making tools because their long-term value can be potentially underestimated, and that’s why I propose that we do more research.
Hey Guy, thanks for reading and for your comment. RP indeed have a lot of these practices (to my best knowledge). At the moment they are one of the exceptions though. I think that it’s great that we have orgs who implement this and I’m looking forward to seeing some research and case studies on this.
I thought this was good, thanks for writing it.
I thought it might be valuable to give my quick opinions on the measures you suggest, excluding the last two, and on the tradeoffs I think they would have. I’ve highlighted in bold and cursive the ones that I don’t see any particular downsides about.
Test on job skills, not “intellect”
Weakly negative. My intuitions disagree here. It’s hard to say why, perhaps because I’d expect math ability to correlate with many things that EAs care about. Maybe this is because I am more used to working with very quantitatve start-up-like organizations where roles aren’t particularly well defined.
Blind-assess job applications
Weakly positive. Seems easy enough to implement, why not. I think a few organizations like Rethink Priorities are already doing this.
Use references as a last step box tick rather than an assessment criteria
I thought this was a good point, and I hadn’t thought about how this could contribute to founder effects. That said, references can be very informative, and because of this I think this would be hard to change in practice.
Make hiring processes shorter
Weakly to strongly negative. Hires will have a lasting impact on an organization, and the tradeoff here is that you would know your employee worse before hiring.
Have more online EAGs and other online events, or ways to participate online for in-person conferences
Weakly to strongly in favor.
See also: EA Anywhere (linked in your Virtual EAGx link)
One tradeoff here is that organizers for these events could perhaps be doing something more valuable. So this probably depends on demand. But I do expect demand to be high.
Organise in-person EA events with more notice so that people have time to apply for visas
Neutral to slightly in favor. It’s unclear to me whether the added complexity for organizers is in fact worth it.
Do more outreach to people outside the EA community with resources, opportunities, jobs, etc.
Weakly in favor; EA has more money now, makes less sense not to do this.
Provide travelling scholarships to conferences and meet-ups more proactively and quicker
Weakly to strongly in favor; EA has more money now, makes less sense not to do this.
Use as little EA jargon as possible
Strongly against. There are a few posts on this in the EA forum, but I think that they are broadly wrong. As a group spends more time thinking about a topic, they will want to use short ways to clearly pinpoint common concepts and nuances, and I don’t view outreach as the primary consideration here.
It’s possible that most EAs disagree with me here, but I just think they’re wrong.
Consider hiring people as contractors and employees, not volunteers
Weakly in favor; EA has more money now, makes less sense not to do this.
Consider hiring “outside of the box”
Unclear, depends on the implementation
Consider paying for test tasks, interviews, and prep time
Strongly in favor, as before, EA has more money now.
Make sure that your org is paying a living wage
Strongly in favor, as before, EA has more money now.
Disclose salary and working status as early as possible in the application (preferably in the job description)
Strongly in favor, as before, EA has more money now.
Rethink Priority salaries can be seen here.
Consider hiring people as employees (not contractors) if they are really your employees
Neutral to weakly in favor. This makes hiring more expensive.
Organise more EA events in other countries
Weakly to strongly in favor. As EA has more capacity this seems more worth it.
Fund managers: consider providing mini-grants faster and all-year-round
Weakly in favor. I don’t really get why managers aren’t doing this, but this might mean that they have private information (e.g., maybe it’s hard to find good fund managers, or the best would only be able to do it part time?)
Help people down the EA Funnel
Unclear, depends on implementation
Welcome a variety of professionals to EA
Unclear, perhaps weakly negative. Depends on implementation.
Make more EA content in other languages
Weakly positive to weakly negative. I think this is worth it, but your “the results show” links to one particular attempt, and Spanish has a really large population and longstanding team that groups in other languages may not have access to.
One tradeoff here is that there are benefits to having a common language.
Run more EA work placement programs
No a strong opinion either way.
Do more research on diversity in EA
Weakly positive to weakly negative, depends on implementation.
Maybe start a new EA org focusing on diversity in EA
Weakly negative. I think that if you are going to start an organization, there are better opportunities.
Orgs should consider providing a wide range of paid opportunitie
Weakly to strongly against as written. The problem here is that I’m pretty sure that this wouldn’t be worth it from many organizations’ perspectives. A model where organizations like FHI, SERI, CERI, etc. run their own fellowships, rather than all organizations, seems better.
We need to consider paying people to volunteer (and find funders who will support this)
Weakly to strongly against, as in the previous section
If you can’t run a full hiring process, consider hiring from a unified recruitment round
No strong opinion, depends on the organization.
More mentorship for underrepresented groups of people
No strong opinion. As with mentorship more generally, the tradeoff here is that mentorship takes senior people’s time. But I thought that Magnify Mentorship’s strategy of starting out catering to under-represented groups and then pivoting to provide their services more generally was a neat way to ensure different founder effects (not sure if intentional).
Hey Nuno, thanks so much for reading and providing your thoughts on my suggestions in such depth—I enjoyed reading them and I really appreciate it! It brings a lot of value to the post as it provides multiple ways of thinking about these suggestions.
I think that your point about trade-offs for these things is very valid. The reason I wrote this post was that I felt that projects like these almost never make it to the top of the weighted factor models and other decision-making tools because their long-term value can be potentially underestimated, and that’s why I propose that we do more research.
I think RP are already implementing many of the ideas on the list, actually. E.g. paying for time-consuming parts of the hiring process.
Hey Guy, thanks for reading and for your comment. RP indeed have a lot of these practices (to my best knowledge). At the moment they are one of the exceptions though. I think that it’s great that we have orgs who implement this and I’m looking forward to seeing some research and case studies on this.