When I see projects that involve teaching someone a skill or set of skills (especially for something nebulous and difficult-to-summarize like “operations”), I want to hear about people who successfully learned the skill, and which aspects of their experience they believe are replicable.
Are there any people currently working in an EA operations position who you think are a good example of this? That is, people who didn’t have much in the way of innate operations talent, but managed to teach themselves one or more new skills and got hired as a result?
I did some EA ops work before starting my current role at CEA, but found that most of what I was doing had been honed over years and years of making from to-do lists, managing a variety of small projects, etc. -- I can’t point to any single short-term experience that significantly “upgraded” my ops ability, so I’m especially curious to hear from people who did have an experience like that.
Thanks for your comment. In our previous posts we explored the nature of the operations talent gap, and among other things surveyed EAs working in operations roles about what traits and skills they believed to be important in their job, and how these skills could be acquired.
From our previous post [part 2]:
″...work experience with operations, running logistics at events and workshops, and project management are mentioned as ways in which the respondents gained some of their skills. Furthermore, internships, volunteering and doing independent side projects were mentioned as concrete ways to gain certain skills, while also being less costly than taking a job somewhere.”
“Other mentions in the survey were reading articles and books on business-related topics, trying to improve the organisations you work at, and getting feedback from colleagues and experienced operations people. [...] In terms of other ways which one could acquire these skills, the respondents proposed attending workshops, and work experience in the private sector or non-EA organisations. They also mentioned taking tutorials on relevant topics, coaching from others, and online courses.”
We share your concern that short-term experience will not provide participants with a significant increase in skill level of any relevant skill. Still, we think that an intensive project with deliberate practice, supported by solid mentoring, could provide useful and enhance participants skills. At least if the target group of the camp is juniors. Also, we would add that given the third mechanism mentioned in our post, we believe that most of the value will come from finding already skilled people and help them signal their skill level and motivation reliably, rather than relying on significant up-skilling during the camp.
When I see projects that involve teaching someone a skill or set of skills (especially for something nebulous and difficult-to-summarize like “operations”), I want to hear about people who successfully learned the skill, and which aspects of their experience they believe are replicable.
Are there any people currently working in an EA operations position who you think are a good example of this? That is, people who didn’t have much in the way of innate operations talent, but managed to teach themselves one or more new skills and got hired as a result?
I did some EA ops work before starting my current role at CEA, but found that most of what I was doing had been honed over years and years of making from to-do lists, managing a variety of small projects, etc. -- I can’t point to any single short-term experience that significantly “upgraded” my ops ability, so I’m especially curious to hear from people who did have an experience like that.
Thanks for your comment. In our previous posts we explored the nature of the operations talent gap, and among other things surveyed EAs working in operations roles about what traits and skills they believed to be important in their job, and how these skills could be acquired.
From our previous post [part 2]:
We share your concern that short-term experience will not provide participants with a significant increase in skill level of any relevant skill. Still, we think that an intensive project with deliberate practice, supported by solid mentoring, could provide useful and enhance participants skills. At least if the target group of the camp is juniors. Also, we would add that given the third mechanism mentioned in our post, we believe that most of the value will come from finding already skilled people and help them signal their skill level and motivation reliably, rather than relying on significant up-skilling during the camp.