Since January I’ve applied to ~25 EA-aligned roles. Every listing attracted hundreds of candidates (one passed 1,200). It seems we already have a very deep bench of motivated, values-aligned people, yet orgs still run long, resource-heavy hiring rounds.
That raises three things:
Cost-effectiveness:
Are months-long searches and bespoke work-tests still worth the staff time and applicant burnout when shortlist-first approaches might fill 80% of roles faster with decent candidates? Sure, there can be differences in talent, but the question ought to be… how tangible is this difference and does it justify the cost of hiring?
Coordination:
Why aren’t orgs leaning harder on shared talent pools (e.g. HIP’s database) to bypass public rounds? HIP is currently running an open search.
Messaging:
From the outside, repeated calls to ‘consider an impactful EA career’ could start to look pyramid-schemey if the movement can’t absorb the talent it attracts. A friend with a mortgage and a kid commented that EA feels ‘pie-in-the-sky’; admirable but un-workable for anyone who can’t self-fund a long, uncertain job hunt wrapped up as ‘exploring the right fit’. If the movement keeps overselling demand while undersupplying jobs, there’s a risk of reputational damage beyond our bubble.
Maybe I’m missing data showing genuine bottlenecks in certain subfields; happy to be corrected. But from my vantage point, supply seems to have far, far outrun demand.
I also think it would be worth considering how to provide some sort of job security/benefit for proven commitment within the movement, instead of only focusing on how to get new people ‘in’. Once someone has beaten the substantial odds and passed the rigorous testing to get in to the movement, they shouldn’t have to start from scratch. I know one lady who worked at a top EA org for eight years; she’s now struggling to find her next position within the movement, competing with new applicants! That seems like a waste of career capital.
I think it’s time to revisit the notion that the movement is ‘talent-constrained’ or that you should ‘apply even if you don’t meet the criteria’. By contrast, if I ever find myself hiring, I might be tempted to say ‘if you’re not confident in your fit, save yourself the trouble; our inbox will be full by lunch.’ #transparency
Moreover, I would avoid the expensive undertaking of a full hiring round until my professional networks had been exhausted. After all, if you’re in my network to begin with, you probably did something meritorious to get there.
Is EA still ‘talent-constrained’?
Since January I’ve applied to ~25 EA-aligned roles. Every listing attracted hundreds of candidates (one passed 1,200). It seems we already have a very deep bench of motivated, values-aligned people, yet orgs still run long, resource-heavy hiring rounds.
That raises three things:
Cost-effectiveness:
Are months-long searches and bespoke work-tests still worth the staff time and applicant burnout when shortlist-first approaches might fill 80% of roles faster with decent candidates? Sure, there can be differences in talent, but the question ought to be… how tangible is this difference and does it justify the cost of hiring?
Coordination:
Why aren’t orgs leaning harder on shared talent pools (e.g. HIP’s database) to bypass public rounds? HIP is currently running an open search.
Messaging:
From the outside, repeated calls to ‘consider an impactful EA career’ could start to look pyramid-schemey if the movement can’t absorb the talent it attracts. A friend with a mortgage and a kid commented that EA feels ‘pie-in-the-sky’; admirable but un-workable for anyone who can’t self-fund a long, uncertain job hunt wrapped up as ‘exploring the right fit’. If the movement keeps overselling demand while undersupplying jobs, there’s a risk of reputational damage beyond our bubble.
Maybe I’m missing data showing genuine bottlenecks in certain subfields; happy to be corrected. But from my vantage point, supply seems to have far, far outrun demand.
I also think it would be worth considering how to provide some sort of job security/benefit for proven commitment within the movement, instead of only focusing on how to get new people ‘in’. Once someone has beaten the substantial odds and passed the rigorous testing to get in to the movement, they shouldn’t have to start from scratch. I know one lady who worked at a top EA org for eight years; she’s now struggling to find her next position within the movement, competing with new applicants! That seems like a waste of career capital.
I think it’s time to revisit the notion that the movement is ‘talent-constrained’ or that you should ‘apply even if you don’t meet the criteria’. By contrast, if I ever find myself hiring, I might be tempted to say ‘if you’re not confident in your fit, save yourself the trouble; our inbox will be full by lunch.’ #transparency
Moreover, I would avoid the expensive undertaking of a full hiring round until my professional networks had been exhausted. After all, if you’re in my network to begin with, you probably did something meritorious to get there.
Just one datapoint from the trenches!