Please don’t assume you will get a job in reducing risks from AI. It is a very small niche, and it also doesn’t give you that many transferable skills. Opt for a path that will give you most opportunities, and then choose from those opportunities wisely.
“Poor advertising” would imply that you stuck official-looking posters of your job offer in the wrong places, like inside alleyways.
But posting your job offer on a Twitter profile that looks like one of a million bot accounts is actually more the equivalent of leaving unmarked USB sticks in public restrooms and expecting people to plug them into their computers.
You’ve linked to some EA Forum comment sandwiched dead in the middle of a really long thread, which itself links only to some unverified Twitter account with only 418 followers.
This is like whispering in the wind and expecting the wind to carry your speech down a mile, then blaming people in the town a mile away for not responding to your whisper.
Why are you surprised that nobody contacted you? How is this example in any way rebutting the post?
Apparently CG was so bottlenecked on grantmakers that this is the rejection email they sent applicants for these very roles:-
Thank you very much for your interest in the GCR Grantmakers & Senior Generalists roles at Coefficient Giving, and for your continued patience as we finished reviewing the many applications we received.*We appreciated the time you took to apply, as well as the chance to learn more about you and your professional experience — your interest in our work is truly humbling.
Unfortunately, we’ve decided not to move forward with your candidacy for the roles. We received over 1,500 applications, and we were only able to advance a fraction of them.*
While we’re unable to provide individualized feedback at this stage,* I hope that this general feedback provided to all applicants who are not advancing may be helpful.
Generally, there were certain areas that helped candidates stand out, including:
Depth of GCR ecosystem engagement and motivation — candidates who stood out had meaningful prior exposure to AI safety, biosecurity, or adjacent fields and could articulate a grounded, specific rationale for why this work is important.
Quality of project proposals — the strongest proposals showed genuine strategic grantmaking instincts: identifying opportunities that were plausibly important, neglected, and tractable, with creative but well-reasoned logic.
Strong performance on the brief assignment — particularly in demonstrating calibrated reasoning under uncertainty, comfort thinking in terms of expected value and tradeoffs, and clear, information-dense written communication that reflects the analytical style central to grant investigation work at Coefficient Giving.
Thanks again for considering Coefficient Giving for your next move, and we wish you success with your job search.
(*= emphasis added )
...I think we all know what to conclude the next time we see a post about all these imaginary "bottlenecks".
"False claims of a shortage are not only wrong, they are immoral because they are dishonest and because they induce people to expend large amount of unpaid labor in the false hope that they will be rewarded for doing so."
Thank you for stating this explicitly. It's what I think every time I see a post on here from various well-known organizations claiming that they're "bottlenecked."
Thank you for sharing your story, and best of luck with your job search.
One thing I would probably like to stress to everyone is not to take any claims that the field is "bottlenecked" too seriously (fortunately looks like someone in this thread already beat me to it). It seems like a fairly common bait-and-switch being sold by many senior leaders in the space.
The same organizations that claim they're bottlenecked and need employees to help them in their high-impact work then turn around and send out cut-and-paste rejections to people applying to them, stating that they can't give personalized feedback because they received 1500 applications.
This is quite impressive and also useful. Thanks for doing this.
Please don’t assume you will get a job in reducing risks from AI. It is a very small niche, and it also doesn’t give you that many transferable skills. Opt for a path that will give you most opportunities, and then choose from those opportunities wisely.
“Poor advertising” would imply that you stuck official-looking posters of your job offer in the wrong places, like inside alleyways.
But posting your job offer on a Twitter profile that looks like one of a million bot accounts is actually more the equivalent of leaving unmarked USB sticks in public restrooms and expecting people to plug them into their computers.
You’ve linked to some EA Forum comment sandwiched dead in the middle of a really long thread, which itself links only to some unverified Twitter account with only 418 followers.
This is like whispering in the wind and expecting the wind to carry your speech down a mile, then blaming people in the town a mile away for not responding to your whisper.
Why are you surprised that nobody contacted you? How is this example in any way rebutting the post?
Update:
Apparently CG was so bottlenecked on grantmakers that this is the rejection email they sent applicants for these very roles:-
Thank you very much for your interest in the GCR Grantmakers & Senior Generalists roles at Coefficient Giving, and for your continued patience as we finished reviewing the many applications we received.* We appreciated the time you took to apply, as well as the chance to learn more about you and your professional experience — your interest in our work is truly humbling.
Unfortunately, we’ve decided not to move forward with your candidacy for the roles. We received over 1,500 applications, and we were only able to advance a fraction of them.*
While we’re unable to provide individualized feedback at this stage,* I hope that this general feedback provided to all applicants who are not advancing may be helpful.
Generally, there were certain areas that helped candidates stand out, including:
Thanks again for considering Coefficient Giving for your next move, and we wish you success with your job search.
(*= emphasis added )
...I think we all know what to conclude the next time we see a post about all these imaginary "bottlenecks".
"False claims of a shortage are not only wrong, they are immoral because they are dishonest and because they induce people to expend large amount of unpaid labor in the false hope that they will be rewarded for doing so."
Thank you for stating this explicitly. It's what I think every time I see a post on here from various well-known organizations claiming that they're "bottlenecked."
Thank you for sharing your story, and best of luck with your job search.
One thing I would probably like to stress to everyone is not to take any claims that the field is "bottlenecked" too seriously (fortunately looks like someone in this thread already beat me to it). It seems like a fairly common bait-and-switch being sold by many senior leaders in the space.
The same organizations that claim they're bottlenecked and need employees to help them in their high-impact work then turn around and send out cut-and-paste rejections to people applying to them, stating that they can't give personalized feedback because they received 1500 applications.
This was a pretty useful and enlightening post. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.