I just don’t have the time. I’m often at absolute capacity with college assignments, clubs, work, etc.
Especially if many orgs decided to have longer work trials, I might be unable to apply to many or may end up submitting subpar work tests because of this.
Also, I’ll point out that oftentimes EA orgs have *initial applications* that take 2-4 hours. This seems like clearly too much. I think a quick first round that verifies the following would be best:
The applicant is legally able to work for us.
The applicant satisfies our minimum experience/knowledge cutoff (looking at the resume and asking one question about their degree of engagement with, e.g., AI safety).
The applicant seems value-aligned or understands our mission (one question about why they want to apply or work in X area).
Longer questions about career plans, work-trial-y questions, reasoning and IQ-test-y questions, research proposals, and everything else should belong in later stages, when you’ve already filtered out people that just really did not belong in the application process.
This is an aspect that I don’t think of as often, but I do think it is very important. Some people have several hours free and can set aside three uninterrupted hours to focus on a single task. But not everyone can. I’m especially thinking of people who have children and work commitments. So in a sense it is unintentionally exclusionary.
To a certain extent, probably every hiring rounds is unintentionally exclusionary to varying extents, but I think that requiring candidates to spend three hours of uninterrupted time is a type of unintentionally exclusionary that can be relatively easily avoided. It is filtering out candidates based on something that is unrelated to how well/poorly they would perform on the job.
At a minimum, candidates should be invited to seek a waiver of any “complete in one sitting” requirement on an early-round work task for good cause, without any adverse consequences whether the waiver is granted or not. Speaking as an employed individual with a preschooler, three hours of uninterrupted time is a a big ask for an early-round job application process!
From my own experience as an applicant for EA organizations, I’d estimate that maybe 50% to 60% of the work sample tests or the tasks that I’ve been assigned have either requested or required that I complete it in one sitting.
And I do think that there is a lot of benefit in limiting the time candidates can spend on it, otherwise we might end up assessing Candidate A’s ten hours of work and Candidate B’s three hours of work. We want to make sure it is a fair evaluation of what each of them can do when we control for as many variables as possible.
Thank you for your advice! I will say that my part-time job was research, which is crucial if I want to get research positions or into PhD programs in the near future. The clubs I lead are also very relevant to the jobs I’m applying to, and I think they may be quite impactful (so I’m willing to do them even if they harm my own odds).
Regardless of my specific situation, I think EA orgs should conduct hiring under the assumption that a significant portion of their applicants don’t have the time for multiple multi-hour work tests in early stages of the application process (where most will be weeded out).
I just don’t have the time. I’m often at absolute capacity with college assignments, clubs, work, etc.
Especially if many orgs decided to have longer work trials, I might be unable to apply to many or may end up submitting subpar work tests because of this.
Also, I’ll point out that oftentimes EA orgs have *initial applications* that take 2-4 hours. This seems like clearly too much. I think a quick first round that verifies the following would be best:
The applicant is legally able to work for us.
The applicant satisfies our minimum experience/knowledge cutoff (looking at the resume and asking one question about their degree of engagement with, e.g., AI safety).
The applicant seems value-aligned or understands our mission (one question about why they want to apply or work in X area).
Longer questions about career plans, work-trial-y questions, reasoning and IQ-test-y questions, research proposals, and everything else should belong in later stages, when you’ve already filtered out people that just really did not belong in the application process.
This is an aspect that I don’t think of as often, but I do think it is very important. Some people have several hours free and can set aside three uninterrupted hours to focus on a single task. But not everyone can. I’m especially thinking of people who have children and work commitments. So in a sense it is unintentionally exclusionary.
To a certain extent, probably every hiring rounds is unintentionally exclusionary to varying extents, but I think that requiring candidates to spend three hours of uninterrupted time is a type of unintentionally exclusionary that can be relatively easily avoided. It is filtering out candidates based on something that is unrelated to how well/poorly they would perform on the job.
At a minimum, candidates should be invited to seek a waiver of any “complete in one sitting” requirement on an early-round work task for good cause, without any adverse consequences whether the waiver is granted or not. Speaking as an employed individual with a preschooler, three hours of uninterrupted time is a a big ask for an early-round job application process!
I find it’s very rare to have to do the work test in 1 sitting, and I at least usually do better if I can split it up a bit
From my own experience as an applicant for EA organizations, I’d estimate that maybe 50% to 60% of the work sample tests or the tasks that I’ve been assigned have either requested or required that I complete it in one sitting.
And I do think that there is a lot of benefit in limiting the time candidates can spend on it, otherwise we might end up assessing Candidate A’s ten hours of work and Candidate B’s three hours of work. We want to make sure it is a fair evaluation of what each of them can do when we control for as many variables as possible.
The work tests that don’t require a single sitting still do have a max number of hours
It sounds like you would benefit from greater prioritisation and focus. (Eg see: https://calnewport.com/dangerous-ideas-college-extracurriculars-are-meaningless/).
Thank you for your advice! I will say that my part-time job was research, which is crucial if I want to get research positions or into PhD programs in the near future. The clubs I lead are also very relevant to the jobs I’m applying to, and I think they may be quite impactful (so I’m willing to do them even if they harm my own odds).
Regardless of my specific situation, I think EA orgs should conduct hiring under the assumption that a significant portion of their applicants don’t have the time for multiple multi-hour work tests in early stages of the application process (where most will be weeded out).