My guess is that the median person who filled out the EA survey isnât being consistent in this way. I expect that they could have a one-hour 1-1 with a top community-builder that makes them realize they could be doing something at least 10% better. This is a crux for me.
I agree with most of this. (I think that other people in EA usually think theyâre doing roughly the best thing for their skills/âbeliefs, but I donât think theyâre usually correct.)
I donât know about âtop community builderâ, unless we tautologically define that as âperson whoâs really good at giving career/âtrajectory adviceâ. I think you could be great at building or running a group and also bad at giving advice. (There are several ways to be bad at giving advice â you might be ignorant of good options, bad at surfacing key features of a personâs situation, bad at securing someoneâs trust, etc.)
Separately, I do feel a bit weird about making every conversation into a career advice conversation, but often this seems like the highest impact thing.
Iâm thinking about conversations in the vein of an EAG speed meeting, where youâre meeting a new person and learning about what they do for a few minutes. If someone comes to EAG and all their speed meetings turn into career advice with an overtone of âyouâre probably doing something wrongâ, that seems exhausting/âdispiriting and unlikely to help (if they arenât looking for help). Iâve heard from a lot of people who had this experience at an event, and it often made them less interested in further engagement.
If I were going to have an hour-long, in-depth conversation with someone about their work, even if they werenât specifically asking for advice, I wouldnât be surprised if we eventually got into probing questions about how they made their choices (and I hope theyâd challenge me about my choices, too!). But I wouldnât try to ask probing questions unprompted in a brief conversation unless someone said something that sounded very off-base to me.
I agree with most of this. (I think that other people in EA usually think theyâre doing roughly the best thing for their skills/âbeliefs, but I donât think theyâre usually correct.)
I donât know about âtop community builderâ, unless we tautologically define that as âperson whoâs really good at giving career/âtrajectory adviceâ. I think you could be great at building or running a group and also bad at giving advice. (There are several ways to be bad at giving advice â you might be ignorant of good options, bad at surfacing key features of a personâs situation, bad at securing someoneâs trust, etc.)
Iâm thinking about conversations in the vein of an EAG speed meeting, where youâre meeting a new person and learning about what they do for a few minutes. If someone comes to EAG and all their speed meetings turn into career advice with an overtone of âyouâre probably doing something wrongâ, that seems exhausting/âdispiriting and unlikely to help (if they arenât looking for help). Iâve heard from a lot of people who had this experience at an event, and it often made them less interested in further engagement.
If I were going to have an hour-long, in-depth conversation with someone about their work, even if they werenât specifically asking for advice, I wouldnât be surprised if we eventually got into probing questions about how they made their choices (and I hope theyâd challenge me about my choices, too!). But I wouldnât try to ask probing questions unprompted in a brief conversation unless someone said something that sounded very off-base to me.