From my perspective as the 80,000 Hours job board manager, two things explain the difference in experience between hiring managers and job applicants:
Applicants often have great credentials, but still arenât exactly a fit for the roles, which often require high context (whether in EA or in AI safety) and a particular skillset.
âWe need more people working on these neglected issuesâ doesnât necessarily mean that orgs have the management capacity to absorb more people. You ask âDo they sometimes keep teams small because adding more people adds coordination, meetings and review overhead?â, and I think this underweights just how tricky coordination is. Being able to scale and integrate more talent is very difficult.
Iâll also note that there are lots of impactful roles outside of EA orgs (which are indeed very competitive). For example, we mostly donât highlight EA orgs in our top career review.
Many thanks for your intervention, really appreciate it.
To answer your two main points:
- On the âapplicants often have great credentials, but still arenât exactly a fit for the roles, which often require high context and a particular skillset.â I would say thatâs just normal hiring dynamics, if you have 300 good applicants, you donât choose the one who could be great after a couple of months of training, you choose the one who can deliver fastest with minimal supervision. When you have a strong applicant pool, you can afford to be extremely picky and âgreat credentialsâ stops being a differentiator. Thatâs not a moral critique, itâs just how normal competitive markets usually work. But it does mean that from the applicant side, âwe need more peopleâ can feel quite misleading, because what theyâre experiencing is âwe have plenty of applicants, weâre selecting for a very specific profile.â
A useful contrast is COVID-era tech hiring. When things felt GENUINELY URGENT and demand spiked, a lot of companies expanded headcount aggressively and were willing to train or take slightly âunpolishedâ fits because there was real demand. Thatâs what REAL URGENCY looks like in labour markets. Standards donât disappear, but organizations invest in onboarding and accept more variance because capacity matters more than perfect fit. So when people see âurgent, neglected problemsâ but no comparable willingness to scale via an adjustment period itâs easy to conclude the bottleneck isnât âwe need more people,â itâs âwe can be selective because we already have plenty of applicants.â
- On point number 2 regarding management/âcoordination, I agree that scaling can be hard. But if âwe need more peopleâ is true at the cause level and âwe canât absorb more peopleâ is true at the org level, then the bottleneck isnât just âtalentâ, itâs management capacity and also organizational design. Then my immediate question is why isnât more effort and funding going into things like middle management, onboarding, training etc. especially when there is funding available? In other words, if they canât hire because coordination is too costly, then increasing coordination capacity would be a high-impact intervention.
If the 80,000 Hours cause areas are truly âNEGLECTED AND URGENTâ like on a 5â10 year timeline, you would expect hiring to look more agressive like tech during COVID, more roles created, faster scaling, and more willingness to train strong people who arenât already perfect fits.
I feel like even if this is largely true, it doesnât negate the part of the OPs point of which is something like there a mismatch with communicating âthe world needs you working on AIâ and âthere donât seem to be enough jobs for half of good people that want to work on AIâ
On your second point âWe need more people working on these neglected issuesâ doesnât necessarily mean that orgs have the âmanagement capacity to absorb more peopleâ.
if thatâs true then in practical sense do we actually need more people working on these neglected issues? Or do we need more jobs first before we push for more people? Or like the OP suggested could there be more junior hires then effort building people up through the system?
And are orgs like 80,000 hours being honest enough about the job market in their communication?
âWe need more people working on these neglected issuesâ doesnât necessarily mean that orgs have the management capacity to absorb more people.
Imagine Iâm running a vegan restaurant. Iâve started serving my customers jackfruit tacos. They really like the tacos. So I run a giant advertising campaign all over the city telling people about my tacos. Come the weekend, my restaurant is flooded with customers. But after the first 50 customers, I run out of jackfruit, and the rest of the customers donât get to try the tacos. How do you think those customers would feel about my restaurant?
How would you feel, if you drove across town to try some jackfruit tacos which you learned about in an advertisement, and the restaurant was all out? Youâd probably feel a sense of disappointment, and conclude that the restaurant is not very well run. If I told you âwell the advertisement was technically right, the tacos are truly deliciousâ youâd probably be even more annoyed.
If you advertise EA as a place where talented people are needed in order to make the world a better place, and talented people arrive in EA, and they donât feel at all needed⊠they might not come back. Even if itâs true in some technical sense that more people are needed in the abstract. Same way you might not come back to my vegan restaurant, even if itâs technically true that the tacos are delicious. Replies like this miss the point, and give you a reputation for callous mismanagement. Eventually you burn through your entire potential customer base.
That doesnât necessarily mean you need to stop advertising. Just give people an accurate idea of what to expect, instead of hiding behind âit was technically correctâ. If the advertisement says âJackfruit tacos available for first 50 customersâ, you wonât be as annoyed if they are all out by the time you arrive.
Also, people have to deal with the whole application process that repeats over and over. To extend your analogy: the customers who drove across town are also being asked to describe, in slightly different words each time, why they like tacos.
This particular metaphor really resonated with me for whatever reason.
Iâm trying to career switch. I have small children in the family to care for. My current role is very demanding. I have pretty limited resources to put towards job hunting right now. I did not go to a top college. Iâm not an elite applicant, though Iâve done well for myself in my circumstances, and a lot of my failure to do better is due to prioritizing volunteer and other work.
To put it crassly, if EA orgs can fully satisfy their staffing needs using recent, EA-aligned graduates of elite colleges, there is no point in me even applying.
The way it feels (when Iâm feeling down) is that EA is not really intended for someone like me. The jobs are not there, and while I believe in and practice earning to give, you sometimes get the impression reading the boards that if you arenât a high enough earner, maybe even that isnât really worthwhile, since in an objective sense, it isnât high impact.
And thatâs fine. Maybe EA can get all it needs from those talent pools, and maybe the urgency of the moment is such that even the money I can give is not that important. Obviously, its feasible thatâs the case. But then, Iâd like to know that, you know?
But after the first 50 customers, I run out of jackfruit, and the rest of the customers donât get to try the tacos. How do you think those customers would feel about my restaurant?
Quite possibly they infer this must be the most exciting new product, feel FOMO, and arrive even earlier the next day? Restaurant behaviour is weirdâsee for example how long lines are seen as a sign of success rather than mispricing.
Hi Nicolae,
From my perspective as the 80,000 Hours job board manager, two things explain the difference in experience between hiring managers and job applicants:
Applicants often have great credentials, but still arenât exactly a fit for the roles, which often require high context (whether in EA or in AI safety) and a particular skillset.
âWe need more people working on these neglected issuesâ doesnât necessarily mean that orgs have the management capacity to absorb more people. You ask âDo they sometimes keep teams small because adding more people adds coordination, meetings and review overhead?â, and I think this underweights just how tricky coordination is. Being able to scale and integrate more talent is very difficult.
More on both of these in my recent blogpost.
Iâll also note that there are lots of impactful roles outside of EA orgs (which are indeed very competitive). For example, we mostly donât highlight EA orgs in our top career review.
Hi Conor,
Many thanks for your intervention, really appreciate it.
To answer your two main points:
- On the âapplicants often have great credentials, but still arenât exactly a fit for the roles, which often require high context and a particular skillset.â I would say thatâs just normal hiring dynamics, if you have 300 good applicants, you donât choose the one who could be great after a couple of months of training, you choose the one who can deliver fastest with minimal supervision. When you have a strong applicant pool, you can afford to be extremely picky and âgreat credentialsâ stops being a differentiator. Thatâs not a moral critique, itâs just how normal competitive markets usually work. But it does mean that from the applicant side, âwe need more peopleâ can feel quite misleading, because what theyâre experiencing is âwe have plenty of applicants, weâre selecting for a very specific profile.â
A useful contrast is COVID-era tech hiring. When things felt GENUINELY URGENT and demand spiked, a lot of companies expanded headcount aggressively and were willing to train or take slightly âunpolishedâ fits because there was real demand. Thatâs what REAL URGENCY looks like in labour markets. Standards donât disappear, but organizations invest in onboarding and accept more variance because capacity matters more than perfect fit. So when people see âurgent, neglected problemsâ but no comparable willingness to scale via an adjustment period itâs easy to conclude the bottleneck isnât âwe need more people,â itâs âwe can be selective because we already have plenty of applicants.â
- On point number 2 regarding management/âcoordination, I agree that scaling can be hard. But if âwe need more peopleâ is true at the cause level and âwe canât absorb more peopleâ is true at the org level, then the bottleneck isnât just âtalentâ, itâs management capacity and also organizational design. Then my immediate question is why isnât more effort and funding going into things like middle management, onboarding, training etc. especially when there is funding available? In other words, if they canât hire because coordination is too costly, then increasing coordination capacity would be a high-impact intervention.
If the 80,000 Hours cause areas are truly âNEGLECTED AND URGENTâ like on a 5â10 year timeline, you would expect hiring to look more agressive like tech during COVID, more roles created, faster scaling, and more willingness to train strong people who arenât already perfect fits.
Cheers
I feel like even if this is largely true, it doesnât negate the part of the OPs point of which is something like there a mismatch with communicating âthe world needs you working on AIâ and âthere donât seem to be enough jobs for half of good people that want to work on AIâ
On your second point âWe need more people working on these neglected issuesâ doesnât necessarily mean that orgs have the âmanagement capacity to absorb more peopleâ.
if thatâs true then in practical sense do we actually need more people working on these neglected issues? Or do we need more jobs first before we push for more people? Or like the OP suggested could there be more junior hires then effort building people up through the system?
And are orgs like 80,000 hours being honest enough about the job market in their communication?
Imagine Iâm running a vegan restaurant. Iâve started serving my customers jackfruit tacos. They really like the tacos. So I run a giant advertising campaign all over the city telling people about my tacos. Come the weekend, my restaurant is flooded with customers. But after the first 50 customers, I run out of jackfruit, and the rest of the customers donât get to try the tacos. How do you think those customers would feel about my restaurant?
How would you feel, if you drove across town to try some jackfruit tacos which you learned about in an advertisement, and the restaurant was all out? Youâd probably feel a sense of disappointment, and conclude that the restaurant is not very well run. If I told you âwell the advertisement was technically right, the tacos are truly deliciousâ youâd probably be even more annoyed.
If you advertise EA as a place where talented people are needed in order to make the world a better place, and talented people arrive in EA, and they donât feel at all needed⊠they might not come back. Even if itâs true in some technical sense that more people are needed in the abstract. Same way you might not come back to my vegan restaurant, even if itâs technically true that the tacos are delicious. Replies like this miss the point, and give you a reputation for callous mismanagement. Eventually you burn through your entire potential customer base.
That doesnât necessarily mean you need to stop advertising. Just give people an accurate idea of what to expect, instead of hiding behind âit was technically correctâ. If the advertisement says âJackfruit tacos available for first 50 customersâ, you wonât be as annoyed if they are all out by the time you arrive.
Also, people have to deal with the whole application process that repeats over and over. To extend your analogy: the customers who drove across town are also being asked to describe, in slightly different words each time, why they like tacos.
This particular metaphor really resonated with me for whatever reason.
Iâm trying to career switch. I have small children in the family to care for. My current role is very demanding. I have pretty limited resources to put towards job hunting right now. I did not go to a top college. Iâm not an elite applicant, though Iâve done well for myself in my circumstances, and a lot of my failure to do better is due to prioritizing volunteer and other work.
To put it crassly, if EA orgs can fully satisfy their staffing needs using recent, EA-aligned graduates of elite colleges, there is no point in me even applying.
The way it feels (when Iâm feeling down) is that EA is not really intended for someone like me. The jobs are not there, and while I believe in and practice earning to give, you sometimes get the impression reading the boards that if you arenât a high enough earner, maybe even that isnât really worthwhile, since in an objective sense, it isnât high impact.
And thatâs fine. Maybe EA can get all it needs from those talent pools, and maybe the urgency of the moment is such that even the money I can give is not that important. Obviously, its feasible thatâs the case. But then, Iâd like to know that, you know?
Quite possibly they infer this must be the most exciting new product, feel FOMO, and arrive even earlier the next day? Restaurant behaviour is weirdâsee for example how long lines are seen as a sign of success rather than mispricing.