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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: When in doubt, apply, published by vaidehi agarwalla on January 23, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I'm not very happy with the title of this post, but figured it was better to post than hold off another few days I hope this post: Provides useful tips on how to handle the process of applying, especially to EA jobs and grants, so that it is more rewarding, less stressful and helps you find a that is a good personal fit for you. I hope this post can help you avoid becoming bycatch, Encourages you to apply to more jobs and grants (not just EA ones), and apply more widely. “EA jobs” refers to jobs posted by organisations that are explicitly EA-aligned, similarly for “EA grantmakers”. A few quick caveats Giving advice is hard. I write this post from my personal experience and observations and have shared it with multiple people working at EA organisations for review. I’ve added additional notes on sections I’m more uncertain about. I also hope the following caveats can help you determine if this advice applies to you. I encourage you to explore the relevant tags, ask questions and make sure this advice is relevant to your cause area or domain. I assume you’ve spent time reflecting on your options and determined that applying to new opportunities in the EA space is the right step for you at this time. If you haven’t, this is far from the only option. You can explore EA ideas and opportunities more slowly while doing non-EA things - for example, by getting involved in your local community, testing out projects, skilling up or attending events. I think this is probably the right step for most people, especially people newer to the EA movement. Don't apply to (EA) jobs you don't have a genuine interest in, or that you don’t think there's at least a small chance (>25%) you'd actually take it If you followed 2), don't worry about wasting an organisation's time or money evaluating your application. If they proceed with your application, trust that they have done the cost-benefit calculations already and decided it's worth it. If you make it to the final stages, and think it’s still very unlikely you'd accept, it can be moderately costly for an organisation to make an offer as it can add delays to hiring runner-up applicants. That doesn’t mean you should pull out. Instead, explain your current options and thinking to the organisation and ask questions to help you make sure you're making the right decision.[1] It's good to think critically.For example, you could ask about your counterfactual impact in this role (e.g.“What would you do if I declined the offer?”). I Sometimes, the organisation may not have a second candidate in mind and not end up hiring for the role at all. This would be important information to factor into your decision. Job applications... are a cheap test to evaluate personal fit Compared to normal jobs, EA job applications often have multiple rounds of work tests which can be excellent opportunities to test your personal fit for a role. For example, if you apply for a grantmaking organisation the work test might be to evaluate a sample grant. It's a great way to get a more realistic view of what the work is like. Some EA-aligned organisations will also give you feedback on your work tests (more so in later stages), which can also be useful for improving your skills. can teach you things You can learn about the kind of work an organisation does on the ground, the kinds of skills they value, and even develop those skills as you do more and more tests.[2] I have found test tasks that require me to practice specific skills such as reasoning transparency or summarising information clearly and concisely especially valuable. Practising these skills in a situation with meaningful stakes but which I didn’t find too stressful also helped me internalise these skills...