I disagree that āorganizations cannot get away with this in most of the for-profit sectorā, at least when it comes to the kinds of for-profit jobs people in EA are likely to apply for.
I applied to ~10 different EA roles in 2018 (depending on how you count):
The longest process, from Open Phil, involved roughly the same number of rounds, and the same amount of time, as the most time-intensive job I applied to out of college (at a hedge fund). They paid me for my time; the hedge fund didnāt.
CEA was a round shorter than that, and involved maybe 6 total hours of work before my work trial (at which point I had a very good chance of being hiredāalso, I was paid at a reasonable rate during the trial).
Of the other positions where I reached the final round or got an offer, none took more time than the job I accepted out of college (at a software company); most were along the lines of āone work test, a short interview, and a longer interview or set of interviews on-siteā. This seems to me like the standard in several high-skilled industries.
Out of roughly 20 jobs and internships I applied for in college (and reached an interview round for), none of them took less time than the median EA position for which I received an interview, usually because I spent several hours on a custom cover letter and other first-round materials before even getting an interview. As far as I know, most EA orgs donāt require cover letters, which seems really good.
Meanwhile, the hiring process for medical and legal positions, as far as Iāve heard from people I know in those industries, is often longer and less transparent than the EA process.
Is there an area of the for-profit sector that you think does especially well in keeping the hiring process brief and/āor transparent for applicants, while still finding good people?
My husband is a software developer. He normally does a screening phone interview, a technical test (1-4 hours) and an in-person interview (which may involve other technical questions/ātests). The whole process would take 4-8 hours.
I used to be a teacher. I normally did a job application and a teaching demonstration/āinterview. The whole process normally took 4-8 hours.
I canāt tell you if these processes were better or worse than EA org processes; I can only tell you that I now see 4-8 hours as a normal amount of time to spend applying and interviewing for a professional job.
When I applied to Google I did a phone interview and a full day of in-person interviews, plus a 1-hour conference call about how to do well in the second round. Lots of people devote significant time brushing up their coding interview skills as well; I only didnāt because things like Project Euler had brushed up those skills for me.
The job I took out of college included the tasks you mentioned, plus an overnight trip to the company for a series of interviews, which (if you log travel time as half of interview time) came out to something like 12 hours on top of the other tasks, or 16-20 hours total.
For an example from a different industry, the Vox Future Perfect work test was unpaid (unlike most EA work trials Iāve seen) and took me ~7 hours (I had a good amount of prior journalism experience and was familiar with the style they wanted). I donāt remember them giving any kind of guidance on how much time to spend, and I wouldnāt be surprised if other applicants spent much more.
As far as I know, this is pretty common for entry-level writing positions at publications (senior positions may rely more on reading work youāve already done).
I disagree that āorganizations cannot get away with this in most of the for-profit sectorā, at least when it comes to the kinds of for-profit jobs people in EA are likely to apply for.
I applied to ~10 different EA roles in 2018 (depending on how you count):
The longest process, from Open Phil, involved roughly the same number of rounds, and the same amount of time, as the most time-intensive job I applied to out of college (at a hedge fund). They paid me for my time; the hedge fund didnāt.
CEA was a round shorter than that, and involved maybe 6 total hours of work before my work trial (at which point I had a very good chance of being hiredāalso, I was paid at a reasonable rate during the trial).
Of the other positions where I reached the final round or got an offer, none took more time than the job I accepted out of college (at a software company); most were along the lines of āone work test, a short interview, and a longer interview or set of interviews on-siteā. This seems to me like the standard in several high-skilled industries.
Out of roughly 20 jobs and internships I applied for in college (and reached an interview round for), none of them took less time than the median EA position for which I received an interview, usually because I spent several hours on a custom cover letter and other first-round materials before even getting an interview. As far as I know, most EA orgs donāt require cover letters, which seems really good.
Meanwhile, the hiring process for medical and legal positions, as far as Iāve heard from people I know in those industries, is often longer and less transparent than the EA process.
Is there an area of the for-profit sector that you think does especially well in keeping the hiring process brief and/āor transparent for applicants, while still finding good people?
My husband is a software developer. He normally does a screening phone interview, a technical test (1-4 hours) and an in-person interview (which may involve other technical questions/ātests). The whole process would take 4-8 hours.
I used to be a teacher. I normally did a job application and a teaching demonstration/āinterview. The whole process normally took 4-8 hours.
I canāt tell you if these processes were better or worse than EA org processes; I can only tell you that I now see 4-8 hours as a normal amount of time to spend applying and interviewing for a professional job.
When I applied to Google I did a phone interview and a full day of in-person interviews, plus a 1-hour conference call about how to do well in the second round. Lots of people devote significant time brushing up their coding interview skills as well; I only didnāt because things like Project Euler had brushed up those skills for me.
The job I took out of college included the tasks you mentioned, plus an overnight trip to the company for a series of interviews, which (if you log travel time as half of interview time) came out to something like 12 hours on top of the other tasks, or 16-20 hours total.
For an example from a different industry, the Vox Future Perfect work test was unpaid (unlike most EA work trials Iāve seen) and took me ~7 hours (I had a good amount of prior journalism experience and was familiar with the style they wanted). I donāt remember them giving any kind of guidance on how much time to spend, and I wouldnāt be surprised if other applicants spent much more.
As far as I know, this is pretty common for entry-level writing positions at publications (senior positions may rely more on reading work youāve already done).