80k will sponsor conference trips for 10 people who refer others to 80k advising

By Mjreard @ 2024-06-07T12:47 (+22)

Semi-linkpost for: https://80000hours.org/speak-with-us/referral-form/

TL;DR: generate a referral link to our advising application form here and share the link you generate with potential 80k advisees. If we speak to just two people who applied through your link, you’ll have a chance to win full travel + admission reimbursement to a professional conference of your choice, worth up to $5,000. The more advisees you refer, the better your chances are. 

Background

The 1-1 advising team at 80k wants to speak to more people than ever before and I think Forum readers’ broader personal networks are one of the biggest reservoirs of talent we could reach. 

We are looking to speak to everyone who:

1. Is interested in working on our top problems, and 
2. Has accomplishments that suggest they could do great work on those problems

Many of our advisees have told us that their single prepared-for and focused conversation with an advisor was the catalyst for them pursuing impactful work. If you know a talented person who would endorse this kind of exercise, we can execute on the conversation for them. My guess is that readers might both be excited to go to e.g. an EAG or NeurIPs and know many such people that we haven’t spoken to. The referral program aims to incentivize those people to accelerate the impactful careers of their friends, colleagues, students, professors, and others, and at the same time help them further their own careers with a travel grant for a conference.

How it works

1. Enter your own name and email address on this page to generate a unique link to share with prospective advisees
2. We will track referrals from now until October 6, 2024
3. A referral counts as successful if:
   1. We invite the applicant for a call
   2. They show up for the call^[1]
   3. We haven’t spoken to them before
4. There are two ways to have your referral counted:
   1. Have your contacts use the link you generated above to apply
   2. Have your contacts type your full name into the referral field in their application (less reliable along a number of dimensions)
5. Win conditions
   1. The top three referrers are guaranteed winners
   2. The next seven will be drawn by lottery from among everyone with at least 2 successful referrals, where referrers with more referrals get proportionately greater chances to win (i.e. every referral over 2 gives you an additional lot in the random draw) 
6. If you win:
   1. We’ll get in touch with winners shortly after October 6th 
   2. You can then tell us what conference you plan on attending and what the costs will be
   3. Importantly, you’ll need to have been granted admission to the conference you want us to fund. For example, I assume many participants will want to attend an EAG, where the EAG team has final say over who attends 
   4. Other conferences that are likely of interest are things like NeurIPs, ICML, Founders Forum, or the Animal Rights National Conference
   5. You are also welcome to gift your prize to someone else 

Who to refer

The thing we want to stress more than anything is when in doubt, refer and apply. The form takes 10 minutes (we updated it to contain only one substantive question last year).^[2] It’s easy for us to imagine people spending more than that vexing over whether they’re the right kind of person – that’s not good for any of us!

Again, we are looking to speak to everyone who:

1. Is interested in working on our top problems, and 
2. Has accomplishments that suggest they could do great work on those problems

Everyone means all ages, educational backgrounds and areas of expertise. This is not just a service for young adults or people who are already at the peak of their careers. It is for both of those groups and everyone in between. It is also not just for people looking to change roles now or in the next few months. Planning is underrated. 

On interest in our top problems: it’s usually important that our advisees have context on the nature of our top problems and the specific reasons we’re concerned about them. Having tentative or more well-developed views on exactly which interventions are most helpful is a bonus, but not at all necessary. If you’ve had (or could have) a productive 30 minute conversation with a given friend about our top problems, there’s a good chance they’re above the bar! 

On accomplishments: we construe them broadly. If someone you’re considering referring has really impressed you, there’s a good chance they’ll impress us too. Our top problems need a broad range of talented contributors working on them from policy experts and computer scientists to communicators and academics. People with generalist skills in building teams, systems, and organizations can be especially valuable too.

Importantly, potential can count just as much as historical success. The easiest way to show this is getting good grades at a top-100 world university, but there are many other ways. A thoughtful and well-maintained blog can do the trick. A few examples of impressive public speaking or a rapid series of promotions in an otherwise non-prestigious job can often tell us as much as a degree from Harvard.

Many thanks in advance to everyone who participates! 

1. ^{^}

   In good faith.

2. ^{^}

   Now you only need to propose two long term career ideas along with some pros and cons. No greatest accomplishments, and no need to spell out a plan to pursue the ideas at the application stage.