A meta point: A lot of the discussion here has focused on reducing the time spent applying. I think a more fundamental and important problem, based on the replies here and my own experiences, is that many, many EAs feel that either they’re working at a top EA org or they’re not contributing much. Since only a fraction of EAs can currently work at a top EA org due to supply vastly exceeding demand, even if the time spent applying goes down a lot, many EAs will end up feeling negatively about themselves and/or EA when they get rejected. See e.g. this post by Scott Alexander on the message he feels he gets from the community. A couple of excerpts below:
It just really sucks to constantly have one lobe of my brain thinking “You have to do [direct work/research], everybody is so desperate for your help and you’ll be letting them down if you don’t”, and the other lobe thinking “If you try to do the thing, you’ll be in an uphill competition against 2,000 other people who want to do it, which ends either in time wasted for no reason, or in you having an immense obligation to perform at 110% all the time to justify why you were chosen over a thousand almost-equally-good candidates”.
So instead I earn-to-give, and am constantly hit with messages (see above caveat! messages may not be real!) of “Why are you doing this? Nobody’s funding-constrained! Money isn’t real! Only talent constraints matter!” while knowing that if I tried to help with talent constraints, I would get “Sorry, we have 2,000 applicants per position, you’re imposing a huge cost on us by even making us evaluate you”.
I agree that if it’s true that “many EAs feel that either they’re working at a top EA org or they’re not contributing much,” then that is much worse than anything about application time cost and urgently needs to be fixed. I’ve never felt that way about EA org work vs. alternatives, so I may have just missed that this is a message many people are getting.
E.g. Scott’s post also says:
Should also acknowledge the possibility that “talent-constrained” means the world needs more clean meat researchers, malaria vaccine scientists, and AI programmers, and not just generic high-qualification people applying to EA organizations. This wasn’t how I understood the term but it would make sense.
…and my reply is “Yes, talent-constrained also means those other things, and it’s a big problem if that was unclear to a noticeable fraction of the community.”
FWIW I suspect there’s also something a bit more subtle going on than overly narrow misunderstandings of “talent-constrained,” e.g. something like Max Daniel’s hypothesis.
A meta point: A lot of the discussion here has focused on reducing the time spent applying. I think a more fundamental and important problem, based on the replies here and my own experiences, is that many, many EAs feel that either they’re working at a top EA org or they’re not contributing much. Since only a fraction of EAs can currently work at a top EA org due to supply vastly exceeding demand, even if the time spent applying goes down a lot, many EAs will end up feeling negatively about themselves and/or EA when they get rejected. See e.g. this post by Scott Alexander on the message he feels he gets from the community. A couple of excerpts below:
I agree that if it’s true that “many EAs feel that either they’re working at a top EA org or they’re not contributing much,” then that is much worse than anything about application time cost and urgently needs to be fixed. I’ve never felt that way about EA org work vs. alternatives, so I may have just missed that this is a message many people are getting.
E.g. Scott’s post also says:
…and my reply is “Yes, talent-constrained also means those other things, and it’s a big problem if that was unclear to a noticeable fraction of the community.”
FWIW I suspect there’s also something a bit more subtle going on than overly narrow misunderstandings of “talent-constrained,” e.g. something like Max Daniel’s hypothesis.