Thanks for the suggestion! Would you be able to say more about why things like LinkedIn don’t work for you?
For me, if I want to find managers (my career path) to speak with:
There’s a bunch of leadership mentorship groups that are fairly easy to join, or I can just choose a company I admire and find random people on LinkedIn to message
The downside of those is that either they aren’t EA’s, or their members/advice aren’t very good
If I’m trying to find EA managers then I mostly know the organizations I’m looking for, so can just pull them up on LinkedIn
If I’m trying to get to someone prestigious, then they aren’t going to respond to cold messages (probably), so I need to get a warm intro
Basically, I worry that you are pointing to a real problem here, but it doesn’t have the kind of solution that the Forum could help with.
Hey for sure, thanks for asking. LinkedIn is definitely a great option, and honestly I don’t think (or have any ideas for how) the Forum could provide better connections between individuals wrt career mentoring. More just calling out a challenge I face personally that others might share, but some thoughts on it:
LinkedIn is not great for getting meaningful conversations with senior people in my experience. It’s a very spammy site with most of my inbox being bots and unsolicited / irrelevant recruitment. Personally I even finding sharing my resume publicly with all my friends a little toxic, it’s too easy to spur jealousy and competition, though I participate as fully as anyone. So IMO when trying to connect with a senior person that you don’t know, LinkedIn is not a good option. They’ll see you alongside a bunch of spam and ignore you. (Open to other experiences, maybe I just need to get my game up.)
Cold emails are better, people check their emails more seriously thank LinkedIn, but not everyone is remotely likely to respond to a cold email. Personally I put a lot of effort into those emails, often more than an hour of research and writing for the individual person. I have maybe a 20% reply rate, which is wonderful and enough to make it worthwhile, but also much lower than I would like given the investment of time.
One idea that’s probably already been tried would be a list of people open to cold emails and / or giving career advice. When I write a good cold email explaining a question or decision I face and asking for specific advice, I often share it with a few people that might be able to help. Sharing with a few dozen, or with people who self identify as open to helping, might result in more replies. A curated spreadsheet or online group could definitely help (and again, probably been tried—does anyone know of attempts?).
EA at its best can be a bubble of trust goodwill and friendliness. PabloAMC’s recent post about meeting senior people in his field at EA Global is a perfect example—EA Global makes it much easier to find meaningful connections with senior people in EA fields. I would love if we had an online service that facilitated connections with the ease and quality of EA Global that could be used year-round over the internet.
Separately, and as context on my specifics—Anybody looking to give career advice to a young data scientist looking to break into AI Safety? I’ve got a great cold email I can send you explaining my upcoming decisions: classes, degrees, job opportunities, all that good stuff. Have emailed a few busy, senior people with no luck so far. Would love to chat!
Thanks for the suggestion! Would you be able to say more about why things like LinkedIn don’t work for you?
For me, if I want to find managers (my career path) to speak with:
There’s a bunch of leadership mentorship groups that are fairly easy to join, or I can just choose a company I admire and find random people on LinkedIn to message
The downside of those is that either they aren’t EA’s, or their members/advice aren’t very good
If I’m trying to find EA managers then I mostly know the organizations I’m looking for, so can just pull them up on LinkedIn
If I’m trying to get to someone prestigious, then they aren’t going to respond to cold messages (probably), so I need to get a warm intro
Basically, I worry that you are pointing to a real problem here, but it doesn’t have the kind of solution that the Forum could help with.
Hey for sure, thanks for asking. LinkedIn is definitely a great option, and honestly I don’t think (or have any ideas for how) the Forum could provide better connections between individuals wrt career mentoring. More just calling out a challenge I face personally that others might share, but some thoughts on it:
LinkedIn is not great for getting meaningful conversations with senior people in my experience. It’s a very spammy site with most of my inbox being bots and unsolicited / irrelevant recruitment. Personally I even finding sharing my resume publicly with all my friends a little toxic, it’s too easy to spur jealousy and competition, though I participate as fully as anyone. So IMO when trying to connect with a senior person that you don’t know, LinkedIn is not a good option. They’ll see you alongside a bunch of spam and ignore you. (Open to other experiences, maybe I just need to get my game up.)
Cold emails are better, people check their emails more seriously thank LinkedIn, but not everyone is remotely likely to respond to a cold email. Personally I put a lot of effort into those emails, often more than an hour of research and writing for the individual person. I have maybe a 20% reply rate, which is wonderful and enough to make it worthwhile, but also much lower than I would like given the investment of time.
One idea that’s probably already been tried would be a list of people open to cold emails and / or giving career advice. When I write a good cold email explaining a question or decision I face and asking for specific advice, I often share it with a few people that might be able to help. Sharing with a few dozen, or with people who self identify as open to helping, might result in more replies. A curated spreadsheet or online group could definitely help (and again, probably been tried—does anyone know of attempts?).
EA at its best can be a bubble of trust goodwill and friendliness. PabloAMC’s recent post about meeting senior people in his field at EA Global is a perfect example—EA Global makes it much easier to find meaningful connections with senior people in EA fields. I would love if we had an online service that facilitated connections with the ease and quality of EA Global that could be used year-round over the internet.
Separately, and as context on my specifics—Anybody looking to give career advice to a young data scientist looking to break into AI Safety? I’ve got a great cold email I can send you explaining my upcoming decisions: classes, degrees, job opportunities, all that good stuff. Have emailed a few busy, senior people with no luck so far. Would love to chat!
That’s awesome, thanks! Will send you a message later this week.
Perfect!