“Is EA still ‘talent-constrained’?” by SiobhanBall

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:

1. 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?

2. 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.

3. 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 [...]

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First published:
July 14th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ufjgCrtxhrEwxkdCH/is-ea-still-talent-constrained

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.