I’m trying to reconcile the arguments (and marketing) with the labour market reality because it looks like even if you have strong credentials and career capital you might not find a relevant role because of how ultracompetitive this landscape is, based on discussions with other EA’s and posts on the EA forum attesting how hard it is to land a job.
Every time a new role gets posted on the 80,000 Hours job board it feels like it attracts hundreds of applicants with top, even elite credentials. That doesn’t look “neglected” at the job level at all, it looks more like talent is fulfilled where it’s really necessary. In practice this is really good because it means competent people are working directly on these issues.
So, what’s missing here really? Is “neglected” mostly referring to funding and institutional capacity at the organizational level, while the actual job openings are few, so everyone is trying to get through the same narrow door? Or is it just that lots of people go after the same few EA jobs, so those roles become really hard to get, even if the cause still needs a lot more people and work overall?
If these are really “NEGLECTED AND PRESSING WORLD PROBLEMS” that are vital in the next 5-10 years, why not create more roles when you have the necessary funding if there are so many exceptional candidates willing to work? When there’s money available but staffing doesn’t grow much, it starts to feel less like “we urgently need more competent people” and more like “we already have enough staff”, similar to a normal business that simply doesn’t need more people to run.
I’ve also been thinking about incentives at the senior end as well, how do these orgs decide to pay a small number of senior staff extremely well, like for example I’ve seen figures that Eliezer Yudkowsky is compensated $600k at MIRI alone (*just used as an example, don’t have anything against him personally), instead of paying a little bit less and hiring a couple of other strong researchers, if the cause area they are advocating for is really “NEGLECTED AND PRESSING” as in we are already seeing the precipice.
Do they worry that paying a little bit less would make it harder to keep their best contributors and if full-time hires aren’t the best way to scale, why not use more contractors, fellowships, or small grants? Do they sometimes keep teams small because adding more people adds coordination, meetings and review overhead? How do they decide that paying for a small number of senior people is the best use of funds compared to expanding the staff or funding more independent contributors? When money is available what constraints make more hiring the wrong move, if the cause they work on truly is urgent?
And I’m also uneasy about what the implied advice is for people who aren’t in the top few percent of candidates. Is the real funnel basically just a small number who get paid to work on the direct stuff, and the rest are expected to be earning to give, volunteer, do pro-bono contributions, independent research or create their own roles in their spare time? That might be pragmatic, but then it should be said more plainly, because “we need more people working on these neglected issues” reads very differently than “a handful of elite roles exist and they are steadily growing but the majority will just support indirectly.”
80,000 Hours says we need more people — so why do top candidates still struggle to land roles?
I’m trying to reconcile the arguments (and marketing) with the labour market reality because it looks like even if you have strong credentials and career capital you might not find a relevant role because of how ultracompetitive this landscape is, based on discussions with other EA’s and posts on the EA forum attesting how hard it is to land a job.
Every time a new role gets posted on the 80,000 Hours job board it feels like it attracts hundreds of applicants with top, even elite credentials. That doesn’t look “neglected” at the job level at all, it looks more like talent is fulfilled where it’s really necessary. In practice this is really good because it means competent people are working directly on these issues.
So, what’s missing here really? Is “neglected” mostly referring to funding and institutional capacity at the organizational level, while the actual job openings are few, so everyone is trying to get through the same narrow door? Or is it just that lots of people go after the same few EA jobs, so those roles become really hard to get, even if the cause still needs a lot more people and work overall?
At the same time lots of these non-profits and organizations (*not all of them) also have a lot of money and are not at all underfunded, but not so many jobs are being created. For example, The Future of Life Institute received around $665 million worth of crypto from Vitalik Buterin in 2021 but only spent $17 million in 2024 based on their finance page. They did increase their job openings since 2021, but not by the capacity they have.
If these are really “NEGLECTED AND PRESSING WORLD PROBLEMS” that are vital in the next 5-10 years, why not create more roles when you have the necessary funding if there are so many exceptional candidates willing to work? When there’s money available but staffing doesn’t grow much, it starts to feel less like “we urgently need more competent people” and more like “we already have enough staff”, similar to a normal business that simply doesn’t need more people to run.
I’ve also been thinking about incentives at the senior end as well, how do these orgs decide to pay a small number of senior staff extremely well, like for example I’ve seen figures that Eliezer Yudkowsky is compensated $600k at MIRI alone (*just used as an example, don’t have anything against him personally), instead of paying a little bit less and hiring a couple of other strong researchers, if the cause area they are advocating for is really “NEGLECTED AND PRESSING” as in we are already seeing the precipice.
Do they worry that paying a little bit less would make it harder to keep their best contributors and if full-time hires aren’t the best way to scale, why not use more contractors, fellowships, or small grants? Do they sometimes keep teams small because adding more people adds coordination, meetings and review overhead? How do they decide that paying for a small number of senior people is the best use of funds compared to expanding the staff or funding more independent contributors? When money is available what constraints make more hiring the wrong move, if the cause they work on truly is urgent?
And I’m also uneasy about what the implied advice is for people who aren’t in the top few percent of candidates. Is the real funnel basically just a small number who get paid to work on the direct stuff, and the rest are expected to be earning to give, volunteer, do pro-bono contributions, independent research or create their own roles in their spare time? That might be pragmatic, but then it should be said more plainly, because “we need more people working on these neglected issues” reads very differently than “a handful of elite roles exist and they are steadily growing but the majority will just support indirectly.”