Hi Peter, I see that you’re hiring right now (slicks hair back, clears throat). Thanks for engaging!
Addressing your points in order:
I agree that all conceivable jobs is indeed a broad category. By contrast, the vast majority of EA jobs are soft-skills based and, in my personal experience, rather straightforward. They follow standard business functions such as marketing, fundraising/growth, etc. I think most applicants can do the job well enough that it makes full hiring rounds hard to justify from an effectiveness standpoint. I don’t think it takes a very special someone, a needle in the haystack, to do a mid-senior comms role with decent competence. If I were hiring for such a role, I might get 10-15 leads from the HIP directory who are actively searching, interview a handful of those and then extend an offer. I don’t think the majority of roles require more than that or that the benefit of doing more than that can be balanced against the cost.
EA isn’t one big employer, true. However, it and the orgs under its banner are based on a set of principles of which cost effectiveness is foundational. Central EA orgs also play a part in influencing the internal policies of such orgs, including hiring. I suppose the hiring utopia/most cost-effective outcome would be to get good, committed people in high impact roles and have them stay at their orgs for decades so that you never need to hire again. In pursuit of that cost effective ideal, hirers should put more weight on proven commitment to the movement.
Hopefully yes, but it seems like it’s not benefitting her at all. You’re right, it doesn’t prove automatic fit—but again, I don’t think many roles are in need of a special matrix of fit-forming factors. Why not go to the opposite end and spend even more on hiring rounds in pursuit of ever-better fit? Has anyone benchmarked output quality vs. search length?
I said professional networks, not personal. I’m not advocating for pure nepotism. But if there’s a person you know of who’s, for example, considered to be very competent by people you trust the judgement of, made an effort to put themselves in the right places (HIP Directory, EAG Global, etc), in possession of relevant experience, and so on and on… why go out of your way to run a full hiring round? Is it cost effective to do so?
Hi Peter, I see that you’re hiring right now (slicks hair back, clears throat). Thanks for engaging!
Addressing your points in order:
I agree that all conceivable jobs is indeed a broad category. By contrast, the vast majority of EA jobs are soft-skills based and, in my personal experience, rather straightforward. They follow standard business functions such as marketing, fundraising/growth, etc. I think most applicants can do the job well enough that it makes full hiring rounds hard to justify from an effectiveness standpoint. I don’t think it takes a very special someone, a needle in the haystack, to do a mid-senior comms role with decent competence. If I were hiring for such a role, I might get 10-15 leads from the HIP directory who are actively searching, interview a handful of those and then extend an offer. I don’t think the majority of roles require more than that or that the benefit of doing more than that can be balanced against the cost.
EA isn’t one big employer, true. However, it and the orgs under its banner are based on a set of principles of which cost effectiveness is foundational. Central EA orgs also play a part in influencing the internal policies of such orgs, including hiring. I suppose the hiring utopia/most cost-effective outcome would be to get good, committed people in high impact roles and have them stay at their orgs for decades so that you never need to hire again. In pursuit of that cost effective ideal, hirers should put more weight on proven commitment to the movement.
Hopefully yes, but it seems like it’s not benefitting her at all. You’re right, it doesn’t prove automatic fit—but again, I don’t think many roles are in need of a special matrix of fit-forming factors. Why not go to the opposite end and spend even more on hiring rounds in pursuit of ever-better fit? Has anyone benchmarked output quality vs. search length?
I said professional networks, not personal. I’m not advocating for pure nepotism. But if there’s a person you know of who’s, for example, considered to be very competent by people you trust the judgement of, made an effort to put themselves in the right places (HIP Directory, EAG Global, etc), in possession of relevant experience, and so on and on… why go out of your way to run a full hiring round? Is it cost effective to do so?
Thanks for sharing the article!