It seems like you’re assuming that it would be better if EA organisations could make their jobs less desirable, in order to put off applicants so that the jobs would be less competitive. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Making the jobs less desirable is likely to either put off applicants at random, or even disproportionately put off the most experienced applicants who are most picky about jobs. That would seem reasonable to do if EA orgs were getting plenty of applicants above the bar to hire, and didn’t think there would be much difference in job performance amongst them. But that doesn’t seem to be the situation these organisations are reporting. Given that, we’d expect that reducing applicants by making the jobs less desirable would harm the beneficiaries of the organisations.
I don’t think I’m assuming that. See this part of the original post:
Because these goods are non-monetary, it’d be difficult for EA organizations to reduce their quantity even if they wanted to (and for the most part, they probably don’t want to, as degrading such would also degrade large parts of what makes EA worthwhile).
I don’t think it would necessarily be good for EA organizations to make their jobs less desirable. I feel agnostic about that question.
My main conclusion here is that EA jobs are going to continue to be in high demand so long as they continue to provision scarce, non-monetary goods. See this part of the post:
This leads me to think that demand for jobs at professional EA organizations will continue to be very high for the foreseeable future, and especially so for meta-level EA organizations.
And I’m agnostic about whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I think that it felt worthwhile making this point because an obvious response to your conclusion that “demand for jobs at professional EA organizations will continue to be very high” is to not worry if demand for these jobs drops. Or one could go further, and think that it would be good if demand dropped, given that there are costs to being an unsuccessful applicant. I appreciate that you’re agnostic on whether people should have that response, but I personally think it would be bad—in part due to the reasoning in my previous comment.
[I work at 80,000 Hours]
It seems like you’re assuming that it would be better if EA organisations could make their jobs less desirable, in order to put off applicants so that the jobs would be less competitive. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Making the jobs less desirable is likely to either put off applicants at random, or even disproportionately put off the most experienced applicants who are most picky about jobs. That would seem reasonable to do if EA orgs were getting plenty of applicants above the bar to hire, and didn’t think there would be much difference in job performance amongst them. But that doesn’t seem to be the situation these organisations are reporting. Given that, we’d expect that reducing applicants by making the jobs less desirable would harm the beneficiaries of the organisations.
I don’t think I’m assuming that. See this part of the original post:
I don’t think it would necessarily be good for EA organizations to make their jobs less desirable. I feel agnostic about that question.
My main conclusion here is that EA jobs are going to continue to be in high demand so long as they continue to provision scarce, non-monetary goods. See this part of the post:
And I’m agnostic about whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“I don’t think I’m assuming that.”
That’s fair—my bad.
I think that it felt worthwhile making this point because an obvious response to your conclusion that “demand for jobs at professional EA organizations will continue to be very high” is to not worry if demand for these jobs drops. Or one could go further, and think that it would be good if demand dropped, given that there are costs to being an unsuccessful applicant. I appreciate that you’re agnostic on whether people should have that response, but I personally think it would be bad—in part due to the reasoning in my previous comment.