Hi @Eli_Nathan. Apart from those already officially announced or listed in the post above, are conferences specifically in Asia, Latin America or Africa planned for this year? Thanks so much, Pia
I second this, but even people you pay for childcare aren't that easily found (at least where we're living - Germany).
The same with this type of network/friend circle - I absolutely love the idea, but my experience is, that it's hard to build this up and it takes time. Every family is struggling, and have different rhythms (e.g. my kid's nap time is 12-2pm we can meet afterward - oh but my kid is sleeping from 1.30-3pm and then it's almost getting too late before it gets dark/dinner time/whatsoever...), you plan a play-date, and then one kid gets sick - just some examples from real life ;-)
I don't want to sound too pessimistic. That's just been our experience and I wish I'd had more realistic expectations on things like that.
I absolutely LOVE this article and the discussion it sparked.
I'm 35, mum of an almost 3-year-old and 1-year-old, and founder of an EA-aligned organization (+ two other side projects). I've always considered myself a powerhouse, life's challenges usually didn't push me to my limits, even though I worked in 60+ hours careers (eg. as a consultant). But oh boy, did that change. In the last year, I've faced moments on a regular basis when I felt like: I can't do this anymore. I cried, I screamed, I thought about just giving up. But I didn't.
What kept me going:
I resonate with someone saying here that a lot of the time or activities you'll have to sacrifice are mostly things like watching TV/netflix/youtube. It's true, I am not wasting as much time on "shallow" entertainment like this anymore. In a way, it seems like my time is very efficiently spent mostly on just meaningful things. But let's be honest, sometimes all you need is this form of shallow entertainment (at least for many of us).
The one thing I wish I knew before and would have factored into our decision is the lack of childcare outside of Kindergarten. We don't have any family close by, but I thought - hey we can just hire a babysitter/nanny. Well, we tried for a year and we couldn't find anyone. Maybe this is just a coincidence, bad luck, and not very representative, but if I had one piece of advice for everyone thinking about whether to have kids or not it's this: make a reality check on how easily available childcare in your area is.
I was voted into the district parliament for the Tierschutzpartei (animal welfare party) here in Berlin. I would love to share and evaluate my experience with the EA community after one year in this office and see what I could do for the next 4 years to have even more impact. I don't have the capacity to write a long answer or article, but if this would be interesting or helpful I am always open for a call to share what I can share :-)
Hi Lee,
thanks a lot for your comment and perspective - I second that. Given the variety of skills and education in the EA community, I am quite optimistic that there are enough people who could work successfully as a recruiter for EA (or EA-aligned) organizations, even without prior experience in this field. Training and mentorship could be very helpful in these cases. I'd be happy to offer some sort of support, as we have a lot of recruitment experience in our Tälist team. :-)
Hi Chris,
thanks for sharing your thoughts and questions. In the linked job profile I also mention that I think for EA organizations having a value-aligned recruiter might be very valuable. I would love to see more people from the EA community consider this role for themselves because they already are mission-aligned. :-)
Hi Charlie. Great question. I don't have any data at hand on the recruitment industry as a whole compared to in-house recruiting. I know that the demand and market for recruitment services are growing as it gets harder and harder for companies to fill their positions. There are economic calculations comparing the total costs of in-house recruitment vs. hiring an external service, of course assuming that external services are doing a better job (as in successful and efficient). I do believe that there are plenty of services that only do an okay job and might not be better than in-house recruitment. But sometimes these services just get hired because the in-house recruiters don't have the capacity to manage all recruiting processes themselves.
This being said, my article wasn't about promoting the recruitment industry as a whole. I think what makes recruitment impactful is if you are hiring for an impactful project or organization. So I was referring to in-house recruiters of EA (or EA-aligned) organizations and recruiters for EA (or EA-aligned) hiring agencies.
I hope this was helpful and thanks for sharing your experience :-)
Thanks for sharing, Aaron, and I'm glad to hear you have a "chill" work life, while founding and running such an awesome organisation!!! I shrimply love it (is this joke still a thing in 2024?)