Here's an incomplete list of EA organisations and whether they provide feedback after test tasks. For example, if EA org asks you to write a short policy brief or redesign their front page as part of their hiring process, will they give you any feedback beyond pass/fail?
I started putting this list together because some of my friends were frustrated with the lack of feedback they've gotten on work tests, so I wanted to be able to advise them where it's worth them applying and where they should be prepared not to hear back. it is really, really hard to get hired by an EA organisation and providing feedback to candidates about why they didn't get hired is one way to mitigate the cost of rejection. Based on a couple of informal Twitter polls, it also looks like more candidates prefer feedback than financial compensation for work trials, especially if the feedback is quite specific.
Ought provides detailed, personalised feedback for each candidate. One candidate said, "Basically at every stage they discussed what they thought I did well at and what concerns they had, partially for my benefit, and partially to see if I could give them other data to correct for any misimpressions."
One person who trialled at 80,000 Hours reported feedback throughout the process.
EA Funds (which I believe is part of the Centre for Effective Altruism) provided some general feedback to candidates.
Rethink Priorities give some limited personalized feedback for people who make it to the interview stage or beyoond. Their hiring process involves a 1hr work test on the application that all ~300 take. ~100 of them advance to a second 2hr work task. ~30 of them advance to a 1hr interview. And then ~15 advance to a 7hr final test task. Then we hire ~5.
The Good Food Institute provide feedback on request.
The Fish Welfare Initiative provided detailed feedback on request.
The Centre on Long-term Risk is reported to provide some general feedback on request.
Some people reported that Open Philanthropy did not provide any feedback on work tests, but one person reported receiving some verbal feedback and another reported receiving 1-2 short paragraphs after requesting feedback.
Giving What We Can gives the option for applicants who reach the work trial stage to receive unedited, anonymously graded reviewer feedback.
One successful applicant to the Future of Humanity Institute didn't recall receiving any feedback, but an unsuccessful applicant who reached the interview stage of the Research Scholars program was offered a 40-minute call with detailed feedback.
Longview Philanthropy gives feedback on request after work tests.
Please comment below if you know of the hiring practices of other organisations!
I applied to OpenPhil in early 2019, but was rejected after multiple trial tasks. I asked for feedback and got a short feedback statement in response (1-2 short paragraphs). While I was a little frustrated at the minimal feedback, the work trials were very well-compensated, and I didn't ultimately feel like I was being hard-done-by by not getting detailed feedback.
In the end, if the trial task is paid at a reasonable rate, I don't think it is or should be a requirement for organisations to offer detailed feedback to candidates. "We buy your time for a trial task" seems like a fair deal to me, and in-depth feedback should be considered a nice extra. If costly feedback obligations caused orgs to make changes to their hiring process (e.g. trialling fewer candidates, putting less emphasis on trial tasks, or paying candidates less for their time) I expect I would usually think those changes weren't worth it.
When I ran two recruiting rounds for Open Philanthropy in ~2018, IIRC our policy was to offer feedback to those who requested it and made it past a certain late stage of the process, but not to everyone, because we had >1000 applicants and couldn't afford the time to write custom feedback for anywhere near that many people. Not sure what our current practice is.
Thanks Luke!
In 2020, I got to the interview stage of FHI's research scholar selection and did not get in. They offered me a feedback call. I took up their offer and spoke with Max Daniel for ~40 min. He not only gave me insightful feedback about my performance in the process—to the best of his knowledge—but also gave me some career advice, which ended up taking up most of the 40 min. I'm not sure if this was done with everyone who got to the stage I did, but it left me with a great feeling (for a rejection) and boosted my motivation.
Thanks for sharing, I'll update the post. I'm glad you had such a positive experience!
I got to the same stage (and also didn't get in) and had the same experience as you. I was definitely a bit sad about not getting in, but I did appreciate the call and feedback
Animal Advocacy Careers: with each of our hiring rounds so far (three), when we send emails to people who were invited to submit test tasks or interviews but who we're not moving forward with their applications, we say that we can provide personalised feedback if they'd like.
A surprisingly low proportion of people seem to ask for it. (Maybe half?)
When we send out these emails, we also try to give a quick sense of the common strengths of our top candidates, plus the number of people who applied or made it to the stage they made it to, in case that context helps.
Thanks for doing this work. I think for hiring being important, we don't talk about the actual process enough. Great article!
N=1, but when I applied to Longview Philanthropy, I received some feedback upon request after my work trial.
Thanks Julian!
Applied for OPP strategy role during Sumer 2021 and received no feedback in first and second test task round. Wasn't disapointed, because it was well-compensated.
On a different note however: this is one of the largest advantages I see coming from an EA recruitment agency that would be able to give feedback to EA candidates. It feels like quite a miss I didn't get it, since I have to do very similar work for my own organisation Training For Good. Maybe there is something really obvious I can improve on, but due to the lack of feedback I don't know what.
As someone who just went through a bunch of these, this list sounds like it could be really useful!
Giving What We Can recently did some hiring, and we gave the option for applicants who reached the work trial stage to receive unedited, anonymously graded reviewer feedback. We also look to work with people who scored well in the work trials on a contract basis.
For Longview, we provide feedback after work tasks on request.
Thanks Sim, I'll update!
Appreciate it, thanks!