Annotated List of EA Career Advice Resources

By Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸 @ 2020-07-13T06:12 (+43)

This list was created as part of the Local Career Advice Network's (LCAN's) efforts to collect advice from sources other than 80,000 Hours and specifically 80,000 Hours current priority paths. For other annotated lists and bibliograhies, see here. It will be updated as new resources are suggested.

Please make suggestions in the google doc, and link to the article, author’s name or username, and a one line summary. You can also add comments to existing resources.

General advice

A guide to improving your odds at getting a job in EA by Joey Savoie. This is a standard guide of all the things you can do to get a job at an EA organisation- like getting an internship, or relevant experience etc. It’s targeted at people who may apply for jobs even if they are a bad fit.

SHOW: A framework for shaping your talent for direct work by Ryan Carey and Tegan Mccaslin. Compared to Joey’s guide, this advice is specifically on how to make progress on your career outside of an explicitly EA path. “If your career as an EA has stalled, you’ll eventually break through if you do one (or more) of four things: gaining skills outside the EA community, assisting the work of more senior EAs, finding valuable projects that EAs aren’t willing to do, or finding projects that no one is doing yet.” It was written mainly for people doing research, but seems like good advice for other career paths as well.

How to increase your odds of starting a career in charity entrepreneurship by Katherine Savoie. An action-oriented guide to increasing your chances of getting into Charity Entrepreneurship's incubation program. Contains lots of actionable advice on things you could do.

Dealing with network constraints by Ray Arnold. This post suggests staying connected to the community network and getting in on projects at an early stage to improve your chances of doing direct work in EA.

Thoughts on doing good through non-standard EA careers by Buck Shelgeris. The post provides suggests how to have an impact outside of 80,000 Hours' priority paths.

Are you a job search drone? by Tee Barnett. This post provides practical advice on how to deal with the difficuly of the job search processs, and what questions you should ask yourself as you do a job search.

Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 Hours. In the last section of this podcast Michelle provides some general advice to readers based on her experience as a career advisor at 80,000 Hours. Her AMA also has some relevant comments such as this one, this one and this one.

Career Planning Resources

Career reflection framework by Daniel Kestenholz. This is a detailed template for a career plan.

Career Path Advice

Policy

UK Policy and Politics Careers by Sam Hilton (2019).

AI Policy careers in the EU by Lauro Langosco (2019). This guide follows the 80,000 Hours' guide to US AI Policy, but applied to the EU.

How Europe might matter for AI governance by Stefan Torges (2019). "This post explores which levers exist in Europe for influencing the governance of AI."

AI Governance Career Paths for Europeans by careersthrowaway (2020). Considers AI governance path for European citizens, inclulding work in industry governance, policy, and field-building.

Personal thoughts on AI Policy and Strategy by Carrick Flynn (2017). Discussion on bottlenecks in the field and suggestions on how to improve them. Could be a potential product output - following the general structure and the kinds of caveats that are made. If sufficient time passes it might be useful to ask the person how they thought this post has aged and whether they thought it was net positive or negative.

Tech Policy Grad-School Funding and Post-Graduation Opportunities by Roxanne Heston. It appears that most of the advice in this guide is US-focused, but there may be insights that could apply to other countries as well.

Report on Career in Politics and Policy in Germany by careersthrowaway (2020). Makes the case for why a career in politics & policy could be influential in Germany, and practical advice for entering the field.

Operations

Professional Development in Operations by Daniel Kestenholz. A roadmap on how to skill-up in an operations role.

So you want to do operations Part one - which skills do you need? by EA Norway. This is a summary of the relevant skills needed to succeed in an operations role, which of these skills are innate and which are acquirable.

So you want to do operations Part two - how to acquire and test for relevant skills? by EA Norway. This is an analysis of “ops skills” and discussion how to learn and improve acquirable skills, and how innate traits can be tested.

Climate Change

Working on Climate Change as a Technologist by Martin Hare Robertson.

What can a technologist do about climate change by Bret Victor details critical skills that are rare in the energy and energy efficiency industry.

Others

Animal Advocacy Career advice by Animal Advocacy Careers. Contains links to a variety of their resources, including 3 skills profiles.

Effective animal advocacy movement building: a neglected opportunity? By Jamie Harris. Presents a number of experiments to find good fits for hiring, but it could also be useful for the format i.e. “EAA in [Country] is a neglected opportunity”

Finance Careers for Earning to Give by kbog. The advice is mostly tailored to the US context.

Vocational Guides for EAs by kbog. Contains a list of vocational careers that could be useful to EA. Possibly the only resource focusing on vocational careers in an EA context.

Student Guide to Navigating the Alternative Protein Space by the Good Food Institute. A set of educational resources and career roadmap for students interested in the cultivated meat, plant-based products, etc. space.

How to build a High-Impact Career in International Development by Joan Gass. A proposed methodology to figure out what cause areas within global development to work on.

Cause Area Guide: Global Priorities Resaerch by EA Norway. This contains many resources on global priorities research, lists the main actors, and provides some general careers advice on this path.

Information Security Careers for GCR Reduction by Claire Zabel and Luke Muehlnhauser at Open Philanthropy Project. This post makes the case for why pursuing a career in information security could be high impact.

Potentially Promising Cause Areas & Some promising career ideas beyond 80,000 Hours' priority paths by 80,000 Hours. A list of various cause areas and careers that might be high impact.

Other lists of career advice resources

Career Advising Resources by Evan Gaensbauer. List of EA articles written about a range of fields. Useful for finding neglected fields/industries/career paths and related Facebook groups. Not sure when it was last updated.

A Compilation of 80K advice by EA Waterloo. Organised list of several key 80,000 Hours articles.

LCAN Annotated Lists

Annotated List of Project Ideas & Volunteering Resources

Annotated List of EA Careers Advice