Open thread: Get/give feedback on career plans

You might be interested in the lottery of fascinations.

For what it's worth, I was barely able to do CS homework, but worked pretty successfully as a programmer for about a decade and still occasionally code for fun. Some (all?) universities have a remarkable ability to make the most interesting subjects monotonous, and I would be cautious in going from "I don't want to read a CS textbook" to "CS is not for me". (If you are directly reading AI safety research, and you have enough of the background to understand it yet still are bored by it, that seems like a stronger signal to me.)

Thanks for commenting! That seems like an interesting question/predicament, and well-worth reaching out for people's advice about. 

I'll send you a PM to see if I'd have more useful things to say if given more context. But first I'll share a few very tentative, low-effort-from-me thoughts/links that might be useful in situations somewhat similar to this one. And I'll do so publicly in case that's helpful for other people too. But these are not confident recommendations, since I haven't been in precisely that situation and don't know your full context. (Also, no need to respond here unless you want to; you can also respond via PM.)

And hopefully some other people can jump in with advice as well, here or in PMs.

With those caveats in mind...

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It sounds to me like maybe there are two angles from which this situation could be tackled:

1. (How) Can you increase your ability/tendency to be motivated about and focused on the things you think it might in theory be highest impact for you to do?
   • With the key issue being motivation and focus on a very practical level and relatively short time-scales, rather than something like higher-level goals.
2. What career paths should you pursue, given your hypotheses about what you'll be motivated about and focused on?

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On Q1, some things that come to mind are:

• You could schedule a free call with Lynette Bye, who runs EA Coaching
  • I haven't used this service myself, nor interacted with Lynette much, but it looks like various EAs have found her services valuable.
  • My impression is that she especially focuses on productivity, but sees things like motivation and focus as part of / related to that.
• You could read relevant-seeming posts from Lynette
  • I'm not sure how much reading posts would help by itself, but I'd guess it'd help with similar things for some people, and it could be a quite low-effort thing to try
• You could read LessWrong posts on akrasia
  • I'm not sure this is exactly the right concept for what you're talking about, but it seems somewhat related
• You could read 80k's All the evidence-based advice we found on how to be more successful in any job
  • I think this has relevant stuff, though I haven't read it since early 2019 so I can't remember for sure
• I'd normally suggest the Replacing Guilt blog post series as an option as well (mainly because some people I know found it useful, rather than because of my own views on it). But it sounds like you've read that already.

I think each of these things would be essentially just starting points, rather than full solutions in themselves; I'm pointing you to them in hopes that one of them can point you to further relevant and useful things.

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On Q2, some thoughts that come to mind are:

• "being interested in your work sure is good for productivity" seems very true to me
  • Relatedly, I'd be cautious with thoughts like "The reality of work is that it's not something you do because it’s exciting, it’s something you do because it’s useful—surely everyone feels that way."
    • I'd guess that (i) almost everyone does feel that way sometimes, but (ii) probably a lot of the particularly productive people will fairly often not feel like they're "working" or having to "push themselves" when doing their job.
• As such, I think it's probably indeed wise to really think about what work you can be excited about, on a day to day level, a lot of the time (though it won't be all of the time).
• But I don't think that that by itself strongly pushes in favour of doing what you currently expect you'd be most excited about, or strongly pushes against doing the two paths you currently expect you wouldn't be excited about on a day-to-day-level. This is for three reasons:
  • Have you actually tried out what day to day life would be like in the two career paths you mention? It is plausible you actually would like that, even if you don't currently imagine you would, or even if you don't like the day to day life of the sort of preliminary or training activities (like relevant college courses)?
    • Maybe there are relatively low-effort ways to test out how much you'd like doing the tasks involved in actually having those jobs?
  • Maybe there are other career paths that would be highly impactful and that you would become excited about on a day to day level, but that you haven't considered much or haven't tried out?
  • Maybe there'd be some way you could make one of the highly impactful paths more motivating to you than it'd be by default?
    • E.g., maybe there's a way to tweak the exact nature of the role, or combine it with some side activity, such that it's more appealing?
    • E.g., maybe if you get better at a particular skill, that part of the role will suddenly flow easily, and that'll make the day-to-day less aversive?
    • (Again, I should know that I have very little context on you or your situation, so these are just quick thoughts.)
• (But all that said, for all I know, it definitely is possible that the best career path for you - from both a personal and impact perspective - would be a path that's quite related to the things you currently expect to be most motivated by.)
• (My thinking here is informed by 80k's 2014/2017 article on personal fit.)

Hey Fin, thanks for offering to speak to other people in that situation!

And feel free to send me a message sharing that doc if you'd be interested in chatting about your decision/situation/thought process with me. (But I do know you a little bit, so I'll leave it to you to decide whether I'd count as outside-view-y enough.) 

I find your second paragraph relatable. 

I was in my first year of teaching, as part of the Teach For Australia program, when I learned about EA in late 2018. And I think I actually learned of EA specifically because I was worried about whether my job was as impactful as I'd expected, and I went to that 80k article for reassurance (since I half-remembered a different 80k article I'd been shared and skimmed the previous year that sounded more positive about teaching). I was initially inclined to disagree with the article, but its arguments did seem reasonable, so I read a bunch more and then got really sold on EA. 

The problem is that there doesn't seem to be an EA-aligned career path in which these skills would be directly relevant. [...] Are there any EA opportunities in which the skills I've listed above would be relevant?

I think there are. Michelle Hutchinson describes some relevant potential opportunities here. And on that article, I made the following comment, which also seems relevant here:

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Regarding influencing future decision-makers

[Michelle writes:]

Something which would make that most likely to happen is having EA ideas discussed in courses in all top universities. That led me to wonder whether we’re currently neglecting supporting and encouraging lecturers to do that.

Both of those claims match my independent impression. 

On the first claim: This post using neoliberalism as a case study seems relevant (I highlight that mainly for readers, not as new evidence, as I imagine that article probably already influenced [Michelle's] thinking here). 

On the second claim: When I was a high school teacher and first learned of EA, two of the main next career steps I initially considered were:

• Try to write a sort of EA textbook
• Try to become a university lecturer who doesn't do much research, and basically just takes on lots of teaching duties
  • My thinking was that:
    • I'd seen various people argue that it's a shame that so many world-class researchers have to spend much of their time teaching when that wasn't their comparative advantage (and in some cases they were outright bad at it)
    • And I'd also heard various people argue that a major point of leverage over future leaders may be influencing what ideas students at top unis are exposed to
    • So it seemed like it might be worth considering trying to find a way to specialise in taking teaching load off top researchers' plates while also influencing future generations of leaders
  • I didn't actually look into whether jobs along those lines exist. I considered that maybe, even if they don't exist, one could be entrepreneurial and convince a uni to create one, or adapt another role into that.
    • Though an obstacle would probably be the rigidity of many universities.

I ultimately decided on other paths, partly due to reading more of 80k's articles. And I do think the decisions I made make more sense for me. But reading this post has reminded me of those ideas and updated me towards thinking it could be worth some people considering the second one in particular.

Supporting teaching of effective altruism at universities

I feel quite good about the ideas in this section [of Michelle's post] - I'd definitely be excited for one or more things along those lines to be done one or more people who are good fits for that.

Some of those activities sound like they might be sort-of similar to some of the roles people involved in other EA education efforts (e.g., Students for High-Impact Charity, SPARC) and Effective Thesis have played. So maybe it'd be valuable to talk to such people, learn about their experiences and their perspectives on these ideas, etc.

[End of quoted comment.]

Hey PolicyPhDPoser! Unfortunately, I don't think I'd have much in the way of valuable direct responses to the questions in your first paragraph and your comment on the 80k open thread. But it sounds like you've been talking to a range of people who'd know more about that, which is great! 

One other thing I'd add is that you might find other good people to talk to in EA London's Community Directory, which is "a list of people based near London who are interested in effective altruism and would be happy for you to reach out to them to ask questions or arrange a 1-1." I think it includes several people who've focused on things like civil service careers, tech policy, and AI.

(I'll address your other questions in a separate comment.)

I've sent you a message :)

(Though I'd still encourage other readers to offer feedback if they have the time, given that (a) I might only have time for a relatively shallow look, and (b) in any case it's often useful to get multiple different perspectives.)

And thanks for offering to swap and give feedback on other people's worksheets. I think it'd be great if that was something that could just regularly happen with pairs of EAs (i.e., that whenever someone fills out such a worksheet, there's somewhere they can go to request/offer to swap and both give and get feedback).

Here's more of what the particularly relevant section of 80,000 Hours' article on How to plan your career says:

Try to get feedback from people who understand your aim to have an impact, and can be supportive while they challenge your thinking. A ‘career-planning partner’ can be great if you can find someone to trade career plans with — you can critique each other’s plans and help each other generate more options, plus provide moral support. Our advisors may be able to help too.

How do you reach out to people? It depends on your relationship — but if the person is someone you don’t know as well or with whom you have a more formal relationship, these tips may be helpful. In these cases, it’s better to send one or two specific questions rather than your whole plan.

It can often be easier to reach out to people if you’re both part of a community focused on making a positive difference, because then they know helping you will help them further your shared goals.

If you get some negative feedback, don’t respond hastily. If your plan is unconventional — which is likely if you’re targeting something neglected — probably not everyone is going to agree with it. Try to understand the reasons behind their negative reaction, and decide whether to adjust. If the reasons are unclear, perhaps wait to see if others have a similar reaction or if it’s an isolated example.

On a similar note, I think it'd be really cool if this open thread led to people finding "career-planning partners". (See also Rob Wiblin's comments about how having a line manager can be surprisingly beneficial, and how it may be possible to capture a lot of those benefits by just having pairs of junior people who want more line management act as each other's line managers.)

I expect a lot of people would benefit from going through 80,000 Hours career planning article and/or the accompanying worksheet. 

I think this applies especially to people who haven't yet spent a huge amount of time on career planning or reading articles from 80,000 Hours. But I worked through the article and worksheet recently and found it helpful, despite already having spent a lot of time on career planning, as well as having (I think) read almost all of 80,000 Hours main articles and many of the more blog-post-y ones too.

The trigger for me to make this open thread post was this comment thread. As I wrote there:

Your comment makes me think that something that might be really easy and really valuable is to just have an online space where people are encouraged to share docs outlining their career ideas, plans, and uncertainties [...], in order to get feedback and advice.[1]

Obviously people can already take the initiative to do that in ad hoc ways, either in public spaces (like you've done) or via reaching out to specific people. And that's already useful. But I expect a lot of people who could benefit from this sort of thing would be too shy to do that, or just not think to do it, or be held back by not having enough of a network of relevant people.

Four options come to mind for how to do this:

• Create an "open thread" on the EA Forum for people to share such things
  • Similar to 80k's previous Careers Questions Open Thread
• Create a Facebook group for this
• Create a Slack workspace for this, or a channel in an existing workspace
• Make this a common thing in the Effective Altruism Careers Discussion FB group

Does anyone have thoughts on which of these options might be best? Maybe as a first step someone should just make an open thread and see how it goes?

[...]

[1] This also reminds me of Rob Wiblin's comments about how having a line manager can be surprisingly beneficial, and how it may be possible to capture a lot of those benefits by just having pairs of junior people who want more line management act as each other's line managers.

Michelle Hutchinson replied:

This sounds great to me! I'd be tempted to try out things in existing infrastructure first, like trying it out in the careers discussion fbook group, or the open thread you mentioned.

Other options that come to mind:

• Look at the EA London community directory for people who would likely have relevant comments on your plan and reach out to them. This seems like it might be more likely to get a reply than a general call, and the person might have more relevant comments than a random person would. But they would likely have less time because they're not selected by being keen to look over a career plan.
• Finding an accountability partner eg through the EA life coaching exchange Facebook group and looking through each other's.
• Talking to other EAs at your local meet up about looking through your plan, or if there isn't a group in your area joining EA Anywhere

I've been surprised how much people's preferences on how to give comments on career plans differs. For example, I find it takes me ages to read through a plan so I end up putting it off for ages. Whereas I really like talking to people, so I'm much happier to chat to someone for half an hour. By contrast a friend of mine finds answering questions on the spot really stressful, so far prefers reading over things. So it seems worth giving people an option about whether to read through something (and if so how much) or whether to chat.

In the longer run, I think it would be cool to have a facebook group or slack for EA job seekers to keep each other motivated and accountable, because it's so hard to apply for jobs and deal with the uncertainty. That might also be a good place for people sharing and commenting on career plans.

And the user gkaufman27@gmail.com suggested a Discord server.

I like all of Michelle's suggestions. And Discord sounds like it could work too, though I haven't tried the platform at all myself. I think it's very possible that one of these ideas other than an EA Forum open thread would be better, or should be used as well. But I figured I may as well experiment with this open thread first.