Episode Details

“Slot hiring vs bar hiring” by brentonmayer

Published 1 month, 2 weeks ago

Description

This is from Same Page, a blog about EA-org-style management I write with Max Dalton of Forethought.

Defining slot vs. bar hiring

I’m fairly confident this distinction has been kicking around the effective altruism movement for at least eight years. I didn’t invent it, and I’m not sure who did. Claude and I couldn’t find a public write-up of the idea, so I’ve made one.

In slot hiring, an organisation decides it has a particular position to fill (or maybe two positions, or more). It runs a hiring round, picks the best candidate it finds, and makes an offer. If that person declines, it makes the offer to the next-best, and so on.

Most of the world operates in slot hiring, so it's the model most people have internalised for how organisations work.

In bar hiring, an organisation defines a threshold of fit and hires anyone above it. The strength of the candidate pool determines how many offers are made.

Thoughts on how to think about slot vs. bar hiring

An organisation wants to hire up to the point where further recruitment stops being the most valuable use of its resources.

The choice between bar and slot hiring mostly [...]

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Outline:

(00:16) Defining slot vs. bar hiring

(01:28) Thoughts on how to think about slot vs. bar hiring

(01:55) When to slot vs. bar hire

(04:59) Navigating the bar shifting up and down

(06:52) Always be hiring

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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