A starting point would be, roughly in order of importance:
Personal fit in high earning careers vs. personal fit in best direct work opportunities. You can start to approximate this by asking various organisations whether they’d prefer to hire you or receive $x per year in donations. The more coordinated you are with other EAs, the closer this gets to something like comparative advantage. In general I think EAs are tilting too far towards etg.
Career capital potential of the two options. In particular, how likely are really impressive achievements in each option? to what extent do you expect EA to take off? how impressive will your peers be? how useful are the skills?
How uncertain you are about which causes will be best in the future (earning to give is the more flexible strategy, though if you gain transferable skills it’s not so bad).
Your assessment of whether the top causes are going to be more funding constrained or more constrained by the type of skills you could offer in the future.
Which considerations to use?
A starting point would be, roughly in order of importance:
Personal fit in high earning careers vs. personal fit in best direct work opportunities. You can start to approximate this by asking various organisations whether they’d prefer to hire you or receive $x per year in donations. The more coordinated you are with other EAs, the closer this gets to something like comparative advantage. In general I think EAs are tilting too far towards etg.
Career capital potential of the two options. In particular, how likely are really impressive achievements in each option? to what extent do you expect EA to take off? how impressive will your peers be? how useful are the skills?
How uncertain you are about which causes will be best in the future (earning to give is the more flexible strategy, though if you gain transferable skills it’s not so bad).
Your assessment of whether the top causes are going to be more funding constrained or more constrained by the type of skills you could offer in the future.
Here’s a bunch more rough notes on the topic, just considering impact potential: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a5SDGv1bX09fRe7a6mp6BzAv69LJVkZ-o9r3WYFk_yM/edit
In terms of short-term decision making strategy, also consider:
How can I test each option?
Which best keeps my options open?