I once heard the advice that if you are a donor who finds an opportunity that is worth EA money, you should just donate to it, even if you think that you could find a better opportunity after more research. Because if everyone only looks for the very best available opportunity, everyone will have to spend much more time evaluating many projects, or evaluations will be less deep.
The same advice could be adapted to hiring in some cases. If you find an ops person who is good enough to do ops for some EA org, you should consider hiring them, even if you think you could find a better candidate after more search. Because otherwise orgs will have to spend more time evaluating candidates, and candidates will have to spend more time applying.
In other words, having a lower threshold for hiring could be cooperative with other EA orgs in some game-theoretical scenario. Of course, if we go too far in this direction, we will no longer have a good grasp on where the threshold for being hired is, and best people might not get hired. And there are other complications. But EA orgs could go a little bit in this direction.
Also, if there is a shortage of ops people within EA, and you find a person that is good for you org but wouldn’t apply to other orgs, you should be more willing to hire them, because you would increase the pool of EA ops people.
I once heard the advice that if you are a donor who finds an opportunity that is worth EA money, you should just donate to it, even if you think that you could find a better opportunity after more research. Because if everyone only looks for the very best available opportunity, everyone will have to spend much more time evaluating many projects, or evaluations will be less deep.
The same advice could be adapted to hiring in some cases. If you find an ops person who is good enough to do ops for some EA org, you should consider hiring them, even if you think you could find a better candidate after more search. Because otherwise orgs will have to spend more time evaluating candidates, and candidates will have to spend more time applying.
In other words, having a lower threshold for hiring could be cooperative with other EA orgs in some game-theoretical scenario. Of course, if we go too far in this direction, we will no longer have a good grasp on where the threshold for being hired is, and best people might not get hired. And there are other complications. But EA orgs could go a little bit in this direction.
Also, if there is a shortage of ops people within EA, and you find a person that is good for you org but wouldn’t apply to other orgs, you should be more willing to hire them, because you would increase the pool of EA ops people.