Recruiter @Open Philanthropy
Previously, I handled Marketing and Communications at Effective Thesis. I have a background in Information Science engineering, though I have over 6 years of experience handling Marketing and Communications for startups and educational institutes, where I was responsible for setting an outreach strategy for talented students to apply for Masters and PhD programs.
Thanks for asking, Sen, and congratulations on making it to the last leg of your PhD! As someone who hasn’t gone the academic route, I’m probably not the best person to advise on postdoc applications or academic career paths, especially when it comes to things like publishing expectations or letters of recommendation. I do think connecting with a career adviser or mentor in academia could be really helpful (I see you’ve asked this in the AMA with career advisors, so you’re ahead of me here).
You might also have better luck posting in academic-focused spaces (like the Effective Thesis network, perhaps), where folks have been through similar challenges and could offer more specific advice.
Thanks for asking, Elana! I think your question likely has two parts: application feedback, and feedback on RFP’s; I’ll answer the former first: I completely understand that it can feel frustrating and repetitive to submit similar materials without receiving feedback. However, I think it’s still worthwhile to apply to different roles and processes, especially if each of these has distinct requirements and application questions, and your answers may evolve meaningfully across them.
To your latter point: In practice, our hiring process is quite separate from Open Phil’s grantmaking and RFP processes, so we wouldn’t typically be involved in the review of EOIs or project ideas like the one you submitted.
That said, I appreciate your interest in finding ways to engage more constructively. If you’re looking to get feedback on your resume or EOI materials, a few potential options might include:
Connecting with others from programs like GovAI, TASP, IAPS etc. who are further along in the AI governance space. My assumption is they’d be happy to share what’s worked for them.
Exploring advising options from orgs like 80,000 Hours or Probably Good. You might want to check their AMA as well!
Participating in smaller group career events or office hours that sometimes happen around EA conferences or city groups: these tend to offer more opportunity for back-and-forth than more formal channels.
I know that doesn’t solve the broader challenge of getting direct feedback, but I hope it gives you a few leads that feel a bit more human and responsive.
Great question, justsaying! I’ll answer Q1 as concretely as I can and skip Q2, as I don’t think your question is too abstract. I don’t think there’s an expectation for candidates to have a high probability of accepting a role at early stages, above a simple yes to basic questions like “is this role interesting? Would I like working at OP? Do I think I can have an impact there?”
One of the reasons we build in work tests, interviews and an admittedly intensive process around hiring is for candidates to have sufficient context and understanding of the role, team, and org they’d be joining, so I’d be equally happy with someone applying with a <10% chance of accepting but then updating that throughout the process, as I would with someone applying with a >90% probability of accepting off the bat. Of course, there’s a caveat that it’s not ideal to have all applicants come in with an extremely low probability of accepting a role, but I’d also be okay with that if they’re open to changing their mind if they are, in fact, a good fit!
At later stages, I’d hope they’re at least 50% likely to accept, and that we haven’t wasted their time.
I don’t have precise figures on declined offers to hand; it’s relatively uncommon but certainly does happen! We encourage candidates to be transparent with us about how excited they are about the role, what they would say if we made them an offer, etc. Hiring is time-consuming and important, and it definitely helps us to know in advance whether someone is unlikely to accept. The more surprising it is if/when a candidate declines our offer, the more likely it is to cause delays to our process.
Hi Micah, fellow (ex) marketer here! I largely agree with what Evan says, and I made a similar switch a few years ago. The resources you mentioned are great ones, some others that really helped me were:
Successif’s program (specifically for careers in AI Safety)
Joining HIP’s Talent Directory (like you mentioned + their Accelerator program)
Attending EA conferences whenever possible
Generally, lots of 1:1 conversations (I think these were disproportionately more helpful than I first predicted)
Local/smaller groups—e.g., city groups, EA for Christians, etc., may also be helpful for discussions and connections.
Thanks for asking, Geoffrey – I think this is a helpful and important question. My own personal heuristic after switching jobs as a mid-career professional ~2 years ago was something like: if I spend ~100h and get no signal or make any progress, I should either pivot or give up. Now, I think that number could be meaningfully lower or higher for different people and would depend on internal factors like a) time/capacity to search for a job, b) finances (if searching without a steady stream of income in place), and c) intrinsic motivation, and external factors like the “EA job market”.
Granted, when I first started, I broadly took Michael Aird’s advice to not think and just apply, but I burnt out halfway through and ended up volunteering at several orgs instead, along with strategizing the roles I applied to a bit more.
It took me 5 months, >20 applications, and ~100 hours of research, prep, interviews and tests to land the right role, or any role, which happened to be the highest impact for me. I did not apply for any role I wouldn’t be excited by, and assumed others would feel the same way, so competition was high. Throughout the job search, though, the key thing that kept the needle moving for me was that through rejections, I was making progress, and the most helpful bit was receiving rejections at later stages. The later in the process I received a rejection, the more information I received about my fit for the role and general performance, though granted, some of that signal was noisy and much of it was self-interpreted.
I think the ways one could tailor applying to roles better is through tiering their search by:
Seniority of the role
Organization (how impressive and aligned/relevant their work is to you/your experience)
This both helped shape my perspective on whether I was applying to the right org and the right level.
If, through this process, the answer to the below questions is a resounding no, I’d consider rethinking my approach, pivoting, or an upskilling phase:
Have I received any positive signals from processes I’ve been a part of?
Do I have a competitive advantage over any of the roles I want?
Would another 100-200 hours meaningfully shift the odds?
Are there any roles that seem to fit my skills (but I think I just didn’t perform well)?
I think this 80k podcast: Serendipity, weird bets, & cold emails that actually work, is a treasure trove of helpful and varied advice for people generally thinking about their career. I also find it useful to read about founders’ incredibly difficult decisions to shut down their charity (e.g., this incredibly thorough post shutting down MHI). I hope this helps!
(Not answering for any organization in particular, this is non-extensive and would depend heavily on the role) From my experience, some qualities may stand out when evaluating candidates coming from academia for roles in applied research:
Relevance of work/field of research: Have they worked on problems that are directly relevant to the role? Even if the topic isn’t a perfect match, the underlying skills, e.g. such as data analysis, modeling, literature synthesis, etc., can often transfer well.
Intellectual humility: I think this is underrated, but also difficult to “list” in your CV, for example. Either way, I think it’s generally a good trait to have when looking for academics (and others).
Translating complexity: it’s impressive when someone from academia can explain their research and general surrounding topics clearly, transparently, and accessibly across audiences (to both experts and non-experts). This feels like a good proxy for sensible reasoning and epistemic humility. While peer-reviewed publications help, so does public writing like a blog, Substack, or thoughtful Twitter/X threads.
Broad/cross-domain experience: significantly role-dependent, but in positions that require generalist thinking or frequent context switching, someone who can operate across different domains stands out. This could look like interdisciplinary collaborations, switching topics or methods over time, or participating in cross-functional projects.