Reflections on some experiences in EA

All of these thoughts and suggestions are based on my entirely subjective experiences (as a young early-career African woman based in Africa) engaging with the community since 2021. I decided to share these thoughts because I hope they might help someone in a similar situation.

Work tests

I love work tests. I truly enjoy them and would like to give kudos to EA organizations that include and pay for work tests in their hiring processes! Applying for jobs and fellowships can be very stressful for me. I always second-guess my competence and struggle to answer common prompts like ‘Why do you want this job?’, ‘What are you proud of?’, and ‘What are your long-term career plans?’  Although I know the answers, writing them professionally without sounding insincere is difficult, especially for roles I am keen on. Since I started doing work tests, my dread around these questions has diminished. I suspect that this is because work tests feel like a mutual process where I get to evaluate how much I like the role and its duties while the recruiter assesses whether I meet their needs. In contrast, traditional applications feel like a popularity contest where I must be as likeable as possible to the recruiter.

In the past 10 months, I have completed about 4-5 work tests for different roles in different EA organizations. Work tests help me learn, and I love to learn. It doesn’t matter what the topic is; I find the learning aspect fulfilling. Through different work tests, I have learned more about geography and neighborhoods, creating weighting models, ascribing probabilities to outcomes, and other topics I only knew about cursorily. 

Work tests build my confidence in my competence and deservingness for the roles I apply to. I typically struggle with imposter syndrome, which is amplified in spaces where I am a minority because of my personal characteristics. (This is a common feeling among minorities in predominantly white and male spaces, even when there haven’t been overtly exclusionary or demeaning experiences.) Work tests have been a cheap way to test my competence and thus build confidence. 

Work tests allow me to enjoy the process because my success in getting the role is not hinged on just one application form and one interview. In traditional setups, I either feel like great, I answered the questions well, and proceeded to the next stage without knowing if I could do or enjoy the work, or I feel like I am a horrible and incompetent person who should have done everything very differently (haha). Work tests are often between the initial screening form and the final interview stages, which allows me to use them as learning opportunities and reflect on whether I would truly enjoy the role.  I get so immersed in the tasks that the fixation on finding the one right way, which often plagues other application processes, disappears. 

Paid work tests give me a sense of security. Completing applications and preparing for interviews can be time-intensive and costly. When applying for roles while working on other projects, I need to deprioritize other projects to ensure I am adequately rested mentally and physically for the application process, it helps to know there's some compensation for it. Receiving payment also gives me a sense of being valued by the recruiting organization which further bolsters my enthusiasm for the work. Plus, the extra money comes in handy!

My advice: don’t be afraid of work tests (I was quite anxious, the first time I had to do one too). Work tests are the closest I have ever come to feeling a sense of control when making applications, and there is no way to lose with them. You will always learn something, no matter the outcome! While I haven’t been fully successful in any roles I applied for with work tests, I came close and now have a more robust sense of my strengths as a potential employee, which is a big win for me!

For organizations that include work tests, my suggestion (which I recognize may be impracticable) is to consider grouping unsuccessful candidates according to their weak points and sharing general yet applicable feedback to individuals instead of blanket rejection letters. You may also consider offering to give personalized feedback to exceptionally promising yet unsuccessful candidates. This could also be more equitable, as it could also help unsuccessful candidates with no means/channels of ever receiving feedback through informal channels.

Losing and regaining my compassion

The really cool thing about EA, and what drew me to it, was the emphasis on improving the world through interventions with a robust track record or high expected value. I am a deeply feeling person, and discovering scope insensitivity moved me to work towards debiasing as part of my approach to making the world a better place. I am incredibly grateful to the community for guiding me towards more rational thinking and nurturing a scout mindset. The benefits to all other aspects of my life are invaluable.

Being new to EA, I made a critical mistake because I began  ‘..walking around thinking, I’m having a really big impact in the world because I am aimed at (X cause which meets the ITN framework/ longtermist goals)’ and completely dropped my fuzzies. Seeing immense suffering and wanting to fix it was the main reason that I was drawn to EA. Before learning about effective altruism, I volunteered at local children’s homes, gave change to street beggars, and donated to charities and initiatives which struck a chord with me —anything I could do to make a bad situation better.

When I discovered that some acts of charity are net negative or not impactful at all, I decisively shifted my focus to the big picture and embraced a neutral stance to make me more level headed in choosing interventions and causes. I simply stopped performing any of these acts. The more I intellectualized my approach to changing the world, the more individualistic my perception of altruism became. I stopped thinking about people as living, feeling, incommensurable persons whose lives I sought to improve to promote their human experience. I could walk past a beggar and no longer flinch because I was going to someday solve a big enough problem that would by far overshadow feeding that one individual one meal. I realized how easy it is to instrumentalize altruism-coded activities for personal goals and still feel righteous just because you are working on an altruistic cause without truly caring about the human beings or non-humananimals you’re supposedly working to help.

I maintain a deep appreciation for numbers-oriented altruists. I think they are very important in priority setting and getting intended results, reminding people like me that making an impact isn't just about feeling like you've made one and that when we do less than we could just because we still get that tingly feeling, something is amiss in our approach to altruism. But as someone who values being an emotional being, my commitment to altruism is significantly hinged on my love for people and the world. The minute I lost touch with the loving, emotional aspect, I lost the very thing that brought me to EA. Rebuilding that compassion has been difficult, but reorienting myself has been incredibly reinvigorating. 

My advice: do not lose touch with what motivated you to become a part of this community in the first place. You can be deeply moved by the suffering in the world and act effectively.

Power dynamics

I am sure that there are many good reasons for the decentralized structure and culture in EA. However, this structure can create pockets of power for individuals heading organizations or activities supported by EA donors. To younger or less experienced EAs, these individuals may seem like they wield all the power, creating a potentially dangerous space and culture for vulnerable people (I expect different kinds of people will fit this category in different contexts). I mention this because even as EA expands outside the global north because, in my opinion, these dynamics can still come alive in these new contexts. This is even more concerning where a significant number of new members are undergraduate students or early-career professionals (18-25 year olds) who are likely to be new to such settings professionally and socially.

My advice: trust yourself. If a situation feels unsafe or uncomfortable, it’s alright to check with others who you can trust and speak up if possible. 

Building non-EA work experience

Getting involved with EA as an undergraduate significantly influenced my academic and post-graduation choices. My enthusiasm for EA as both a practical and intellectual project guided my focus on building career capital and creating networks within the EA ecosystem. This has been a mixed experience. On the positive side, discovering EA early in my career made me more intentional and results-oriented in my approach to making an impact. However, I became overly focused on EA causes and organizations, which drastically and unnecessarily narrowed my pool of potential employers and roles. Compared to non-EA organizations, EA organizations are very few, and even fewer if you live and work in Africa. The roles in these organizations are also very competitive. Worse still, living in a country with high unemployment rates and focusing on a niche and un/underexplored cause area put me in quite a scary position when I started actively looking for employment and realized that my previous experience was not as attractive to more traditional employers. In general, I think that this is very valuable advice for uni students and fresh graduates to consider when creating their career plans and paths. 

My advice: transferable skills are great because they are relevant to multiple actors and contexts. EA organizations are great, but do not hold a monopoly over impactful work. Plus, you are more likely to be impactful if you have a broader view of the world!

A special shoutout to Impact Academy 

All said, it’s important that I mention that my experience as a 2023/24 Impact Academy fellow was one of the most overwhelmingly positive experiences for me within the EA community for several reasons 

1. My expectations for the fellowship program in terms of the learning and networking experience were exceedingly met. I felt psychologically safe enough to voice my concerns about some aspects of EA and the challenges of creating lasting change in global south contexts. This is mostly because I felt that many of the other participants would understand (not necessarily agree with) my perspective without needing to vigorously defend it
2. Holding a passport from an African country is not for the weak! The visa application process can be nightmarish, and I have missed out on enough opportunities within EA spaces solely because of this. The team's dedicated guidance through the visa application process surpassed my expectations, greatly alleviating the mental burden that accompanies great opportunities that require traveling outside my country. 
3. The team not only provided knowledgeable and engaging project mentors but also granted fellows access to personal coaches. I was deeply moved by this gesture, showing their commitment to our all-rounded growth. The coaching sessions were invaluable and came at the most opportune time. This made the experience a deeply fulfilling one for me!