OP here. Thanks for all of the engagement with this post and for the varying opinions. People have brought up some important points on the benefits of headhunting (increased information, better outcomes for employees, overall better job matches, etc), and I agree with a lot of what is said. After taking these into account and mulling what has been said, here’s where I stand (subject to change):
It’s clearly ok for EA orgs to hire employees who work at other friendly orgs. Refusing to do so is illegal and I’d say also unethical.
I think it’s ok if you work at an EA org and you know someone who might be a great fit for a role at your org, totally find to reach out to them and let them know.
It’s not ok to use misinformation. I’ll be clear that in the headhunting instances I witnessed from EA orgs, I did not see any misinformation, and all communication was respectful.
I think recruiters and headhunters within the community should aim to inform rather than persuade recruits, which I do not think is the norm in the headhunting world. This can be a very fine line. The headhunting I witnessed was mostly in the “information” column, yet there was some stuff on the margin. For instance, I think a headhunter should be very careful about insinuate that they job they are recruiting for is higher impact than someone’s current job. In one of the emails I saw, the recruiter did not explicitly say this, but it was implied (or at least that was my interpretation). I’m not sure if this was purposeful.
I think it would be a positive norm for friendly orgs to alert one another if they plan to headhunt, especially if reaching out to multiple people for a role. This allows the original org an opportunity to do what they can to ensure that the employee is having their needs met in the current job. This did happen in one of the instances of headhunting that IDinsight encountered, and it was appreciated.
I think foundations/donor orgs have an extra layer of responsibility, as they wield a lot of power in the ecosystem, and in most cases pay more money than their grantees. When considering headhunting the staff of non-profits, they should be extra sure to follow best practices and ensure that they don’t destabilize the orgs they are poaching from. I’m not saying they shouldn’t recruit from NGOs, but I think they should be very careful about avoiding persuasion and alerting the recruitee orgs.
I think the bar for paid headhunters is even higher. For instance, if the EA Infrastructure Fund is going to fund headhunters for the EA ecosystem, I think that these headhunters should have a strong bias toward headhunting from lower-impact jobs. (Agreed this is not so easy to figure out what is high and low impact.) If they are instead just contributing to churn among high-impact orgs, I think they have an ambiguous amount of total social impact. Could be high if it increases information, improved job matches, improves employee satisfaction. But could be low if those positive elements are outweighed by switching costs of jobs and the cost of the headhunter themselves.
I really appreciated this summary, and the thoughtfulness and epistemic care it implies. I agree with most of your takeaways here.
I think most of any remaining disagreements/bad-blood arising from “intra-impact” headhunting will come down to people’s reactions to persuasion/hard-sells. I think this is a borderline case that I don’t really know how to think about, which is distinct from (and a lot harder to adjudicate than) anything to do with misinformation.
I definitely feel like there’s a dynamic where, if there’s a culture of being careful/deferential/soft with your pitches, one person who comes in and is willing to make hard sells will extract a lot of benefits, in a way that feels a lot like defecting. This will also put pressure on everyone else to be more hard-sell-y, which probably has bad effects. OTOH, if someone really does honestly & reasonably think that a particular opportunity is exceptionally high-impact (in general, or for a particular individual), there’s something to be said for outright saying that, and being willing to pay social costs to increase the chance of realising that impact. Someone being willing to hard-sell to you can also provide additional information about personal fit (in both directions) in a way that seems plausibly valuable.
I could go on, but I’m rambling. Suffice it to say that I have complicated feelings about a strong form of “explain, don’t persuade” here. (I personally think I, and many people I know, generally sell too softly, which is probably influencing my takes here in a few different ways.)
For instance, I think a headhunter should be very careful about insinuate that they job they are recruiting for is higher impact than someone’s current job. In one of the emails I saw, the recruiter did not explicitly say this, but it was implied (or at least that was my interpretation). I’m not sure if this was purposeful.
What? This is the primary thing that I want other organizations to argue for when trying to recruit me or others away from my job. I really don’t understand why this point is here. Impact is the primary basis on which I might switch jobs, and so of course a headhunter should try to give me information and convince me that another job would be higher impact.
By “very careful”, I mean they shouldn’t make the case that their org is higher-impact than the current org unless they are damn sure. And this is an extremely difficult judgement call to make, when comparing two organizations whose mission is social impact. Given that impact is integral to an EA’s worldview, it would be a pretty incendiary accusation for a headhunter to make the case that org X is higher-impact than org Y, so someone should switch jobs. It’s one thing to make this case if hiring someone away from Exxon, but another to make the case within a community of arguably impactful organizations. I think these kinds of tactics have potential to cause major rifts within the community so should be avoided.
OP here. Thanks for all of the engagement with this post and for the varying opinions. People have brought up some important points on the benefits of headhunting (increased information, better outcomes for employees, overall better job matches, etc), and I agree with a lot of what is said. After taking these into account and mulling what has been said, here’s where I stand (subject to change):
It’s clearly ok for EA orgs to hire employees who work at other friendly orgs. Refusing to do so is illegal and I’d say also unethical.
I think it’s ok if you work at an EA org and you know someone who might be a great fit for a role at your org, totally find to reach out to them and let them know.
It’s not ok to use misinformation. I’ll be clear that in the headhunting instances I witnessed from EA orgs, I did not see any misinformation, and all communication was respectful.
I think recruiters and headhunters within the community should aim to inform rather than persuade recruits, which I do not think is the norm in the headhunting world. This can be a very fine line. The headhunting I witnessed was mostly in the “information” column, yet there was some stuff on the margin. For instance, I think a headhunter should be very careful about insinuate that they job they are recruiting for is higher impact than someone’s current job. In one of the emails I saw, the recruiter did not explicitly say this, but it was implied (or at least that was my interpretation). I’m not sure if this was purposeful.
I think it would be a positive norm for friendly orgs to alert one another if they plan to headhunt, especially if reaching out to multiple people for a role. This allows the original org an opportunity to do what they can to ensure that the employee is having their needs met in the current job. This did happen in one of the instances of headhunting that IDinsight encountered, and it was appreciated.
I think foundations/donor orgs have an extra layer of responsibility, as they wield a lot of power in the ecosystem, and in most cases pay more money than their grantees. When considering headhunting the staff of non-profits, they should be extra sure to follow best practices and ensure that they don’t destabilize the orgs they are poaching from. I’m not saying they shouldn’t recruit from NGOs, but I think they should be very careful about avoiding persuasion and alerting the recruitee orgs.
I think the bar for paid headhunters is even higher. For instance, if the EA Infrastructure Fund is going to fund headhunters for the EA ecosystem, I think that these headhunters should have a strong bias toward headhunting from lower-impact jobs. (Agreed this is not so easy to figure out what is high and low impact.) If they are instead just contributing to churn among high-impact orgs, I think they have an ambiguous amount of total social impact. Could be high if it increases information, improved job matches, improves employee satisfaction. But could be low if those positive elements are outweighed by switching costs of jobs and the cost of the headhunter themselves.
I really appreciated this summary, and the thoughtfulness and epistemic care it implies. I agree with most of your takeaways here.
I think most of any remaining disagreements/bad-blood arising from “intra-impact” headhunting will come down to people’s reactions to persuasion/hard-sells. I think this is a borderline case that I don’t really know how to think about, which is distinct from (and a lot harder to adjudicate than) anything to do with misinformation.
I definitely feel like there’s a dynamic where, if there’s a culture of being careful/deferential/soft with your pitches, one person who comes in and is willing to make hard sells will extract a lot of benefits, in a way that feels a lot like defecting. This will also put pressure on everyone else to be more hard-sell-y, which probably has bad effects. OTOH, if someone really does honestly & reasonably think that a particular opportunity is exceptionally high-impact (in general, or for a particular individual), there’s something to be said for outright saying that, and being willing to pay social costs to increase the chance of realising that impact. Someone being willing to hard-sell to you can also provide additional information about personal fit (in both directions) in a way that seems plausibly valuable.
I could go on, but I’m rambling. Suffice it to say that I have complicated feelings about a strong form of “explain, don’t persuade” here. (I personally think I, and many people I know, generally sell too softly, which is probably influencing my takes here in a few different ways.)
What? This is the primary thing that I want other organizations to argue for when trying to recruit me or others away from my job. I really don’t understand why this point is here. Impact is the primary basis on which I might switch jobs, and so of course a headhunter should try to give me information and convince me that another job would be higher impact.
By “very careful”, I mean they shouldn’t make the case that their org is higher-impact than the current org unless they are damn sure. And this is an extremely difficult judgement call to make, when comparing two organizations whose mission is social impact. Given that impact is integral to an EA’s worldview, it would be a pretty incendiary accusation for a headhunter to make the case that org X is higher-impact than org Y, so someone should switch jobs. It’s one thing to make this case if hiring someone away from Exxon, but another to make the case within a community of arguably impactful organizations. I think these kinds of tactics have potential to cause major rifts within the community so should be avoided.