Resource for Recruiters and Hiring Managers: Stellarworx is a non-EA database of skilled job seekers without traditional degrees
EAs orgs are looking for top talent.
EA Recruiters I talk with often acknowledge that university credentials are a useful proxy for employability, but obviously not the only available path for skilled, altruistic people. Recruiters would prefer to be able to easily identify strong candidates who have not gone to college as well, but this is harder to do.
FYI:
I just came across a database* and a network outside EA which might serve as a useful model or node for finding such people.
Opportunities@Work is a US non-profit working to help people overcome credentialist barriers to employment. They estimate that the US labor force includes 70M underemployed “STARs”— people who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes such as community college, on the job training, partial college, self-teaching etc.
Employers can search for specific skills among candidates, post jobs, and be matched with candidates via a matching algorithm.
I don’t expect this database to have many EAs in it (yet!). However, it could be worth a look when you have a role that doesn’t require pre-existing EA knowledge and when you’re specifically looking to diversify a candidate pool. (STAR candidates are disproportionately rural, veterans, and/or people of color).
Someone may also want to replicate this database idea for EA talent in the future.
*Disclaimer:
I haven’t tested this database yet. It seems a bit new and potentially buggy, hence my posting in Shortform.
I think GiveWell and OP's early commitment to transparency were admirable, if unusual and time-consuming. Not all groups will go as in-depth, of course, but I think it's usually good when EA leaders and emerging leaders are brave enough to practice their reasoning skills in the real world of their projects, and to show their thinking as it develops.
I love the talksfast approach for this content.
I feel like you’re delivering as close to Forum-level density as you can in a short TikTok, which is very satisfying to my brain.
Hats off!
A few thoughts on the benefits of a frugal community:
norms of frugality can help people avoid some of the consumeristic rat race of broader society. I don’t want EAs caught up in “keeping up with the Jones’s.” I want EAs keeping up with good ideas and good actions.
I think we want a community where someone who uses careful reasoning to take an impactful role for $60K/yr feels just as welcome in EA as someone who uses careful reasoning to take an impactful role for $160k/yr.
I’m uncomfortable with this too, but more comfortable than I used to be.
Privileged people have a lot of power/leverage in the world. That leverage can be squandered, used for selfish means, or used for good.
If we think EAs have uniquely good ideas for identifying and solving neglected, pressing global problems, I want people with lots of leverage to learn from EA. The counterfactual is they use their leverage to do less altruistic or less effective things. I am willing to put money toward avoiding that.
I just came across this non-EA org on Reddit, for non-college-grads with skillz. May be of interest to this crowd: https://opportunityatwork.org/our-mission/
I enjoyed reading these examples; thanks for writing them up.
Resource for Recruiters and Hiring Managers: Stellarworx is a non-EA database of skilled job seekers without traditional degrees
EAs orgs are looking for top talent. EA Recruiters I talk with often acknowledge that university credentials are a useful proxy for employability, but obviously not the only available path for skilled, altruistic people. Recruiters would prefer to be able to easily identify strong candidates who have not gone to college as well, but this is harder to do.
FYI: I just came across a database* and a network outside EA which might serve as a useful model or node for finding such people.
Opportunities@Work is a US non-profit working to help people overcome credentialist barriers to employment. They estimate that the US labor force includes 70M underemployed “STARs”— people who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes such as community college, on the job training, partial college, self-teaching etc.
They offer a talent matching database*: https://stellarworx.org
Employers can search for specific skills among candidates, post jobs, and be matched with candidates via a matching algorithm.
I don’t expect this database to have many EAs in it (yet!). However, it could be worth a look when you have a role that doesn’t require pre-existing EA knowledge and when you’re specifically looking to diversify a candidate pool. (STAR candidates are disproportionately rural, veterans, and/or people of color).
Someone may also want to replicate this database idea for EA talent in the future.
*Disclaimer: I haven’t tested this database yet. It seems a bit new and potentially buggy, hence my posting in Shortform.
+1
I think GiveWell and OP's early commitment to transparency were admirable, if unusual and time-consuming. Not all groups will go as in-depth, of course, but I think it's usually good when EA leaders and emerging leaders are brave enough to practice their reasoning skills in the real world of their projects, and to show their thinking as it develops.
I love the talksfast approach for this content. I feel like you’re delivering as close to Forum-level density as you can in a short TikTok, which is very satisfying to my brain. Hats off!
Well, I see Matt is writing about this now! https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-case-for-terminator-analogies?mc_cid=592b38485e&mc_eid=9fb990b6bf
Does the Forum have an auto-save feature for drafts?
Could it?
I made the foolish mistake of drafting a post recently, within the Forum. My computer died and I lost the draft :(
Thanks for this! Did the author respond to your outreach?
A lot of good points here.
A few thoughts on the benefits of a frugal community:
I’m uncomfortable with this too, but more comfortable than I used to be.
Privileged people have a lot of power/leverage in the world. That leverage can be squandered, used for selfish means, or used for good.
If we think EAs have uniquely good ideas for identifying and solving neglected, pressing global problems, I want people with lots of leverage to learn from EA. The counterfactual is they use their leverage to do less altruistic or less effective things. I am willing to put money toward avoiding that.