That’s a valid point and as my comment also had the offer of a private conversation I will try to add a few thoughts here. Generally, if someone asks me about EA career advice when mid-career I would suggest following:
Look at the 80K content and especially the 8-week career course. I think it can be a misconception that this is only for students, early-career people or if you want to completely change your career path. For me, it was very helpful and there are several places that discuss different options depending on prior experience and seniority. Thinking about what a fulfilling career looks like and doing cause prioritization is something that can be helpful for anyone.
Apply for a 80K 1:1 call when you’re ready. I had one with Habiba and she was able to connect me to other people in their mid-career that recently were hired or contracted by EA orgs. Talking to them helped me a lot to see that there are many opportunities to help organisations to have an impact and very different paths to them.
Take your time: “If you can increase the impact of your career by just 1%, it would be worth spending up to 800 hours learning how to do that.[1]” by 80K can be translated to 400 or 200 hours for shorter careers that is still a lot of time.
Try things out. I keep coming back to the book Designing Your Life[2], especially the tipps around
Tracking the amounts of engagement and energy different activities bring in order to assess better what kinds of work could energize you.
Planning and trying out smaller prototypes in order to find out what is a good fit. For this was volunteering
Get some slack: If you don’t have the time in your life to think about these topics and try things out then I would recommend trying to free up time by:
Reducing your job hours if possible (perhaps there is a way to reduce your donations or spending for some time to only work 4 days/week?)
Reducing other activities for some time or using vacation
Temporarily moving to a place where you spend less and take a remote job
Setting up a plan to free up time after you are able to (eg when the children reach a certain age, when you have a certain amount saved up etc.)
If this all seems too much at the moment then give yourself some slack. Rushing into a new job that does not suit you is not only bad for you but also for the organisation hiring you. For me it took 6 years from reading about EA to starting to volunteer and I had to overcome many misconceptions around the demandingness of EA and might have dropped out if it wasn’t for meeting people and seeing that everyone is human and many people struggle with the question how much they should dedicate of their lives to doing good.
For me it was and is very important to meet people and to see how big and diverse on many lines the movement is. I can’t recommend enough to apply for EAG and EAGx conferences and to talk to many people. Especially the mid- and late-career speedmeetings at EAG London were very inspiring.
The last point brings me back to the private conversations: As good as communicating on the forum is, I would recommend doing these. I anybody wants to have a chat, please send me a message, I would be happy to take a call.
That’s a valid point and as my comment also had the offer of a private conversation I will try to add a few thoughts here. Generally, if someone asks me about EA career advice when mid-career I would suggest following:
Look at the 80K content and especially the 8-week career course. I think it can be a misconception that this is only for students, early-career people or if you want to completely change your career path. For me, it was very helpful and there are several places that discuss different options depending on prior experience and seniority. Thinking about what a fulfilling career looks like and doing cause prioritization is something that can be helpful for anyone.
Apply for a 80K 1:1 call when you’re ready. I had one with Habiba and she was able to connect me to other people in their mid-career that recently were hired or contracted by EA orgs. Talking to them helped me a lot to see that there are many opportunities to help organisations to have an impact and very different paths to them.
Take your time: “If you can increase the impact of your career by just 1%, it would be worth spending up to 800 hours learning how to do that.[1]” by 80K can be translated to 400 or 200 hours for shorter careers that is still a lot of time.
Try things out. I keep coming back to the book Designing Your Life [2], especially the tipps around
Tracking the amounts of engagement and energy different activities bring in order to assess better what kinds of work could energize you.
Planning and trying out smaller prototypes in order to find out what is a good fit. For this was volunteering
Get some slack: If you don’t have the time in your life to think about these topics and try things out then I would recommend trying to free up time by:
Reducing your job hours if possible (perhaps there is a way to reduce your donations or spending for some time to only work 4 days/week?)
Reducing other activities for some time or using vacation
Temporarily moving to a place where you spend less and take a remote job
Setting up a plan to free up time after you are able to (eg when the children reach a certain age, when you have a certain amount saved up etc.)
If this all seems too much at the moment then give yourself some slack. Rushing into a new job that does not suit you is not only bad for you but also for the organisation hiring you. For me it took 6 years from reading about EA to starting to volunteer and I had to overcome many misconceptions around the demandingness of EA and might have dropped out if it wasn’t for meeting people and seeing that everyone is human and many people struggle with the question how much they should dedicate of their lives to doing good.
For me it was and is very important to meet people and to see how big and diverse on many lines the movement is. I can’t recommend enough to apply for EAG and EAGx conferences and to talk to many people. Especially the mid- and late-career speedmeetings at EAG London were very inspiring.
The last point brings me back to the private conversations: As good as communicating on the forum is, I would recommend doing these. I anybody wants to have a chat, please send me a message, I would be happy to take a call.
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80K career advisor Michelle Hutchinson also found it useful as I found in this comment