Basically I want these funding and mentoring opportunities to be apologetic about their very existence being near-unavoidably misleading.
Super agree! I wanna say something like “please respect the time of people who are doing everything in their power to have a maximally positive impact in the world”. Bottom line: It’s unethical to waste a fellow altruist’s time.
I’d really like to see orgs change how they describe positions to candidates. E.g. being way more transparent about how many applicants they’ve had in the past, what are the deciding factors in their selection, and whether it’s actually even remotely possible that they would consider someone without a relevant visa/residency, or someone who doesn’t meet the exact preferred qualifications listed.[1]
I’m saying this while keeping in mind that it’s hard to predict the quality and quantity of applicants, but my broad intuition still is that common sense alone should nudge towards this direction.
An example of a win-win would be for orgs to use extremely brief screening forms at the first application stage, ones that would actually take a person <15 minutes to fill out, and didn’t leave any room for overcompensation.[2]
“Even if you don’t meet all the requirements, we still strongly encourage you to apply” does not give a clear enough idea of the probability or circumstances under which this would be possible. I find it a bit unethical at this stage to be signaling fake inclusivity when the truth is more like “yeah, on paper, you don’t need to have experience, but in practice, there’s a <1% chance we’ll select you if you don’t”.
Super agree! I wanna say something like “please respect the time of people who are doing everything in their power to have a maximally positive impact in the world”. Bottom line: It’s unethical to waste a fellow altruist’s time.
I’d really like to see orgs change how they describe positions to candidates. E.g. being way more transparent about how many applicants they’ve had in the past, what are the deciding factors in their selection, and whether it’s actually even remotely possible that they would consider someone without a relevant visa/residency, or someone who doesn’t meet the exact preferred qualifications listed.[1]
I’m saying this while keeping in mind that it’s hard to predict the quality and quantity of applicants, but my broad intuition still is that common sense alone should nudge towards this direction.
An example of a win-win would be for orgs to use extremely brief screening forms at the first application stage, ones that would actually take a person <15 minutes to fill out, and didn’t leave any room for overcompensation.[2]
“Even if you don’t meet all the requirements, we still strongly encourage you to apply” does not give a clear enough idea of the probability or circumstances under which this would be possible. I find it a bit unethical at this stage to be signaling fake inclusivity when the truth is more like “yeah, on paper, you don’t need to have experience, but in practice, there’s a <1% chance we’ll select you if you don’t”.
Like don’t ask for a CV—that way you prevent people from wasting their time tailoring one for the position.