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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Is it still hard to get a job in EA? Insights from CEA’s recruitment data, published by Aadil Kara on April 29, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. How hard is it to get a job in an EA-aligned organisation? CEA can contribute to this conversation by sharing some insights from our recruitment data. In this post we look at the recruitment process for 12 vacancies, which were recruited for between January 2021 and April 2022. Summary The 12 roles were recruited for in two categories: CEA Core roles, which represent the main rounds, and Expressions of Interest (EOIs), which we were open to hiring but not actively focused on. Total number of applications: CEA Core roles received an average of 54 applications each; EOIs received an average of 53 applications each. Proportion of applicants invited to the first stage: On average 48% of applicants to CEA Core roles moved forward to the first stage of the evaluation process. 21% of EOIs were advanced to the first stage. Proportion of candidates who were ultimately hired: For CEA Core roles, we ultimately hired 4.7% of candidates who reached the first stage, and 9.5% of candidates who reached the second stage. There were no successful hires for the EOIs. Expected time spent on the recruitment process: Of candidates who advanced beyond the initial screen, the time spent on recruitment activities was (excluding the initial application): for CEA Core roles: 1.9 hours (estimated range: 0.8 to 4.6) for EOIs: 1.3 hours (estimated range: 0.7 to 3.6) Comparing recruitment at CEA to non-EA organisations: We compared our Product Manager hiring round to industry benchmark data. We found that the probability of an applicant receiving an offer was similar to industry averages. Background and data used The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) nearly doubled its headcount in 2021 and continues to make a substantial number of hires each quarter. Most roles have a multi-stage recruitment process. First, applications undergo an initial screening. Subsequently there may be trial tasks, interviews, and work trials, finally culminating in an offer of employment. The CEA website gives more information about the hiring process. Since January 2021, CEA has maintained an internal system to manage recruitment. The analysis in this post concerns data extracted from the system in April 2022, which records information for 34 roles. From this analysis we have excluded about two-thirds of the roles for which information is recorded: 5 roles within the Operations team, which spun out from CEA Core in 2021 8 roles where teams separately tracked the hiring process 3 roles where recruitment was merged into other roles 1 role where, due to the nature of the role, applicants were each recruited in different ways 10 roles where applications are still open or recruitment is ongoing The remaining 12 positions are listed in this footnote and broadly fit into one of two categories: CEA Core roles represent the main full recruitment rounds. CEA usually conducts lots of outreach for these roles, and proactively encourages people to apply. Expressions of Interest (EOIs) represent roles which we are interested in eventually hiring for, but are not actively focused on at present. The website signposts that these roles have a higher bar for progression, and that CEA carries out much less outreach for them, but aims to make applying as easy as possible. In the analysis below, it is worth noting the following: Candidates exited the application process for a variety of reasons, and no distinction is made between those reasons; e.g. some were rejected while others chose to withdraw voluntarily (although the number of voluntary withdrawals is relatively small). Some applicants were fast-tracked through the process and skipped some stages; in these cases the analysis still counts...