Executive summary: The post discusses the challenges of finding meaningful employment in the Effective Altruism (EA) community and the importance of donations, arguing that donations are often underemphasized compared to impactful careers.
Key points:
There is social pressure within the EA community to have a meaningful job that helps others, but the reality is that only around 10% of non-student respondents in the 2020 EA survey worked at an EA organization.
The author found that the applicant pools for animal welfare jobs were larger than expected, with the researcher position at Animal Charity Evaluators receiving 375 applicants.
The author decided to pursue a job as a substitute teacher, which allows them to live frugally and donate around $300 per month to animal charities, despite not finding their desired animal welfare job.
The author argues that donations are an “amazing opportunity” and are often underemphasized compared to impactful careers, with the median donation among respondents in the 2020 EA survey being close to $500 per year.
The author’s attempts to find a job that would allow them to donate $30,000 per year have been disappointing, as they have faced challenges in the job market, including a negative interview experience for a custodian position.
The author concludes that it is important to be realistic about the difficulty of finding a job in the EA community and that donating is better than many other ways people use their money, even if it doesn’t meet the author’s initial goal.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The post discusses the challenges of finding meaningful employment in the Effective Altruism (EA) community and the importance of donations, arguing that donations are often underemphasized compared to impactful careers.
Key points:
There is social pressure within the EA community to have a meaningful job that helps others, but the reality is that only around 10% of non-student respondents in the 2020 EA survey worked at an EA organization.
The author found that the applicant pools for animal welfare jobs were larger than expected, with the researcher position at Animal Charity Evaluators receiving 375 applicants.
The author decided to pursue a job as a substitute teacher, which allows them to live frugally and donate around $300 per month to animal charities, despite not finding their desired animal welfare job.
The author argues that donations are an “amazing opportunity” and are often underemphasized compared to impactful careers, with the median donation among respondents in the 2020 EA survey being close to $500 per year.
The author’s attempts to find a job that would allow them to donate $30,000 per year have been disappointing, as they have faced challenges in the job market, including a negative interview experience for a custodian position.
The author concludes that it is important to be realistic about the difficulty of finding a job in the EA community and that donating is better than many other ways people use their money, even if it doesn’t meet the author’s initial goal.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.