This is a great article. It is really unfortunate when a good candidate puts a lot of work into an application and it is rejected for a reason that doesn’t reflect their ability to do the job.
That said, we all need to accept that we live in a bizarre world in which we say we want engaged, motivated, qualified people working on impactful areas, but then, when they choose to do so, it can be extremely difficult for those engaged, motivated people to actually find impactful roles.
It seems like many EA roles get 100′s of applications (literally). And because hirers are open-minded, they encourage everyone to apply, even if they’re not sure they’re a good fit.
One result of this is that a vast amount of the energy and commitment of EA’s is invested into the task of searching for work (on one side) or in evaluating and selecting applicants on the other side.
It just feels unfortunate, in the sense that if this energy could be invested in something impactful, it would be better. Ultimately a great CV and cover-letter doesn’t help any humans or animals.
I don’t have a solution. Obviously there are just not so many roles out there, and we can’t just create roles without funding and organisations and managers and so on. And we don’t want to discourage people from applying for roles they think they could do well.
This has been a pet peeve of mine since my pre-EA days. I wrote about it from the perspective of a recruiter on Quora, and more than 1000 people upvoted my answer. So it’s definitely not an EA-specific problem.
In fact, I would go further and say that EA organisations do a lot of things far better than most organisations:
They often put a lot of emphasis on work-tests, which are far better than interviews at assessing a person’s fit for a role—and which are also a great learning experience even for the people who don’t get hired.
Many recruiters do give feedback. Useful, tangible feedback. Often this only happens after the initial screening.
Some recruiters even go out of their way to help applicants find an impactful role, because, unlike corporations, we’re all rooting for each other to succeed.
But even still, it would be great if there were a better way to get more people into roles (even if initially low-paid roles, with the potential for upgrading) in which they learn and get experience they can put on their CV’s, rather than have them desperately trying to find a role.
I kind of imagine that in some EA-hub locations, this is what happens. That lots of people know each other and can recommend roles for each other. I see something like this in the Brussels EU bubble, where once you’re part of the community, it seems like there are always roles opening up for people who need to or want to move. So maybe what I’m writing refers more to people living away from EA hubs, who would like to switch to more impactful roles, but struggle to find one. Unfortunately, if we don’t find a way to include these people, the potential growth of EA will be limited.
For now, all I can do is strongly encourage any recruiter to provide any critical feedback they can. Maybe not to everyone, but if there is someone who is clearly doing something wrong (several typos on their CV for example), please tell them. I’ve reviewed a lot of CV’s and job applications, and I can say that I’ve never had a negative reaction when I sent someone a quick note to explain how they could improve their chances to get other roles (always phrased this way to avoid suggesting that was the reason they weren’t hired by us).
I am also very curiously and closely following the new Moral Circles created by Rutger Bregman in the Netherlands to try to convince highly experienced professionals to move to more impactful roles, to see if they have a good solution to this. There seems to be a lot of people hearing his message, I want to see how they manage the challenge of making sure that all the very capable people who want to do something more impactful actually find a role where they can do so.
This is a great article. It is really unfortunate when a good candidate puts a lot of work into an application and it is rejected for a reason that doesn’t reflect their ability to do the job.
That said, we all need to accept that we live in a bizarre world in which we say we want engaged, motivated, qualified people working on impactful areas, but then, when they choose to do so, it can be extremely difficult for those engaged, motivated people to actually find impactful roles.
It seems like many EA roles get 100′s of applications (literally). And because hirers are open-minded, they encourage everyone to apply, even if they’re not sure they’re a good fit.
One result of this is that a vast amount of the energy and commitment of EA’s is invested into the task of searching for work (on one side) or in evaluating and selecting applicants on the other side.
It just feels unfortunate, in the sense that if this energy could be invested in something impactful, it would be better. Ultimately a great CV and cover-letter doesn’t help any humans or animals.
I don’t have a solution. Obviously there are just not so many roles out there, and we can’t just create roles without funding and organisations and managers and so on. And we don’t want to discourage people from applying for roles they think they could do well.
This has been a pet peeve of mine since my pre-EA days. I wrote about it from the perspective of a recruiter on Quora, and more than 1000 people upvoted my answer. So it’s definitely not an EA-specific problem.
In fact, I would go further and say that EA organisations do a lot of things far better than most organisations:
They often put a lot of emphasis on work-tests, which are far better than interviews at assessing a person’s fit for a role—and which are also a great learning experience even for the people who don’t get hired.
Many recruiters do give feedback. Useful, tangible feedback. Often this only happens after the initial screening.
Some recruiters even go out of their way to help applicants find an impactful role, because, unlike corporations, we’re all rooting for each other to succeed.
But even still, it would be great if there were a better way to get more people into roles (even if initially low-paid roles, with the potential for upgrading) in which they learn and get experience they can put on their CV’s, rather than have them desperately trying to find a role.
I kind of imagine that in some EA-hub locations, this is what happens. That lots of people know each other and can recommend roles for each other. I see something like this in the Brussels EU bubble, where once you’re part of the community, it seems like there are always roles opening up for people who need to or want to move. So maybe what I’m writing refers more to people living away from EA hubs, who would like to switch to more impactful roles, but struggle to find one. Unfortunately, if we don’t find a way to include these people, the potential growth of EA will be limited.
For now, all I can do is strongly encourage any recruiter to provide any critical feedback they can. Maybe not to everyone, but if there is someone who is clearly doing something wrong (several typos on their CV for example), please tell them. I’ve reviewed a lot of CV’s and job applications, and I can say that I’ve never had a negative reaction when I sent someone a quick note to explain how they could improve their chances to get other roles (always phrased this way to avoid suggesting that was the reason they weren’t hired by us).
I am also very curiously and closely following the new Moral Circles created by Rutger Bregman in the Netherlands to try to convince highly experienced professionals to move to more impactful roles, to see if they have a good solution to this. There seems to be a lot of people hearing his message, I want to see how they manage the challenge of making sure that all the very capable people who want to do something more impactful actually find a role where they can do so.