I very much agree with Danielās paragraph on personal fit.
The message on personal fit I got from 80k was basically āPersonal fit is really important. This is one reason to find an area and type of work that youāll be very passionate about. But that doesnāt mean you should just follow your current passion; you might discover later that you donāt remain passionate about something once you actually do it for a job, and you might discover that you can become passionate about things you arenāt yet passionate about, or havenāt even heard of. So itās generally good to try to explore a lot early on, figure out what you have strong personal fit for, and then do one of those things.ā
I wrote that from my remembered impression, but then googled ā80,000 Hours personal fitā, and hereās part of their summary from 2017 career guide article on āHow to find the right career for youā (which was the first hit):
Your degree of personal fit in a job depends on your chances of excelling in the job, if you work at it. Personal fit is even more important than most people think, because it increases your impact, job satisfaction and career capital.
Research shows that itās really hard to work out what youāre going to be good at ahead of time, especially through self-reflection.
Instead, go investigate. After an initial cut-down of your options, learn more and then try them out.
I think that thatās great advice, and has been really helpful for me. There are some things I thought Iād like/ābe good at but wasnāt, and vice versa. And there are many things I hadnāt even considered but turned out to like and be good at.
Unfortunately, it seems like itās common for people to round off what 80k said to āPersonal fit and passion donāt matterā, even thought they explicitly argue against that. (80kās 2014-2015 review does say that they think they previously hadnāt emphasised personal fit enough; perhaps this common misinterpretation can be traced back to ripple effects from 80kās early messaging?)
Of course, itās still necessary to figure out precisely how important personal fit and interest are relative to other things, and so itās still possible and reasonable for someone to āemphasise personal fit and interest significantly more than 80k does, when giving career adviceā. But Iām pretty confident that 80k would already agree, for example, that āpassion about a field is a very important component of doing world-class research in itā.
What Michael says is closer to the message weāre trying to get across, which I might summarise as:
Donāt immediately rule out an area just because youāre not currently interested in it, because you can develop new interests and become motivated if other conditions are present.
Personal fit is really important
When predicting your fit in an area, lots of factors are relevant (including interest & motivation in the path).
Itās hard to predict fitābe prepared to try several areas and refine your hypotheses over time.
We no longer mention ādonāt follow your passionā prominently in our intro materials.
I think our pre-2015 materials didnāt emphasise fit enough.
The message is a bit complicated, but hopefully weāre doing better today. Iām also planning to make personal fit more prominent on the key ideas page and also give more practical advice on how to assess it for further emphasis.
A related matter: I get the impression from the section ā2. I should have prioritised personal fit moreā that you (Richard) think it wouldāve been better if youād skipped trying out engineering-style roles and gone straight into philosophy-style roles. Do you indeed think that?
It seems plausible that going in an engineering direction for a couple years first was a good move ex ante, because you already knew you were a fit for philosophy but didnāt know whether you were a fit for things more along the lines of engineering? So maybe it was worth checking whether something else was an even better fit for you, or whether something else was a good enough fit that your comparative advantage (including your interest as a factor) would be things that somehow draw on both skillsets to a substantial degree?
I.e., even if ex post it appears that āexploitingā in the philosophy path is the best move, perhaps, ex ante, it was worth some exploration first?
(Of course, I donāt know the details of your career, plans, or your own knowledge several years ago of your skills and interests. And even if the answers to the above questions are basically āyesā, itās still plausible that it wouldāve been better to explore for less time, or in a way more consciously focused on exploration valueāwhich mightāve entailed different roles or a different approach.)
Iāve had a related experience. I did an economics PhD, and I started with a speculative, exploratory intent: I meant to use that time to figure out whether I was a good fit for a career in academic economics research. It turned out I was not a good fit, and the experience was miserable. I hadnāt minded taking classes or working as a research assistant for other people, but I disliked the speculative and open-ended nature of leading my own research projects. Once I realized that, I graduated as fast as I could. Now Iām much happier as a tech industry economist and data scientist.
Iām still not sure if I made a mistake in choosing to start the PhD. On one hand, I think it was a reasonable gamble that could have had a huge payoff, and I donāt know if I could have figured out I was not cut out for academic research without actually doing it. And it was a good investment; my current job requires an economics PhD or long experience in a related field, as do highly-compensated jobs in other industries. On the other hand, 4-5 years is a very long time to feel like you hate your job. Itās hard to be creative and hardworking and build your Plan B when youāre totally miserable.
If I were to start my career over, I would spend more time thinking about how to āfail earlyā and make exploration more pleasant and efficient.
I get the impression that you (Richard) think it wouldāve been better if youād skipped trying out engineering-style roles and gone straight into philosophy-style roles. Do you indeed think that?
I donāt think this; learning about technical ideas in AI, and other aspects of working at DeepMind, have been valuable for me; so itās hard to point to things which I should have changed. But as I say in the post, in worlds where I wasnāt so lucky, then I expect it would have been useful to weight personal fit more. For example, if Iād had the option of committing to a ML PhD instead of a research engineering role, then I might have done so despite uncertainty about the personal fit; this would probably have gone badly.
I very much agree with Danielās paragraph on personal fit.
The message on personal fit I got from 80k was basically āPersonal fit is really important. This is one reason to find an area and type of work that youāll be very passionate about. But that doesnāt mean you should just follow your current passion; you might discover later that you donāt remain passionate about something once you actually do it for a job, and you might discover that you can become passionate about things you arenāt yet passionate about, or havenāt even heard of. So itās generally good to try to explore a lot early on, figure out what you have strong personal fit for, and then do one of those things.ā
I wrote that from my remembered impression, but then googled ā80,000 Hours personal fitā, and hereās part of their summary from 2017 career guide article on āHow to find the right career for youā (which was the first hit):
I think that thatās great advice, and has been really helpful for me. There are some things I thought Iād like/ābe good at but wasnāt, and vice versa. And there are many things I hadnāt even considered but turned out to like and be good at.
Unfortunately, it seems like itās common for people to round off what 80k said to āPersonal fit and passion donāt matterā, even thought they explicitly argue against that. (80kās 2014-2015 review does say that they think they previously hadnāt emphasised personal fit enough; perhaps this common misinterpretation can be traced back to ripple effects from 80kās early messaging?)
Of course, itās still necessary to figure out precisely how important personal fit and interest are relative to other things, and so itās still possible and reasonable for someone to āemphasise personal fit and interest significantly more than 80k does, when giving career adviceā. But Iām pretty confident that 80k would already agree, for example, that āpassion about a field is a very important component of doing world-class research in itā.
What Michael says is closer to the message weāre trying to get across, which I might summarise as:
Donāt immediately rule out an area just because youāre not currently interested in it, because you can develop new interests and become motivated if other conditions are present.
Personal fit is really important
When predicting your fit in an area, lots of factors are relevant (including interest & motivation in the path).
Itās hard to predict fitābe prepared to try several areas and refine your hypotheses over time.
We no longer mention ādonāt follow your passionā prominently in our intro materials.
I think our pre-2015 materials didnāt emphasise fit enough.
The message is a bit complicated, but hopefully weāre doing better today. Iām also planning to make personal fit more prominent on the key ideas page and also give more practical advice on how to assess it for further emphasis.
A related matter: I get the impression from the section ā2. I should have prioritised personal fit moreā that you (Richard) think it wouldāve been better if youād skipped trying out engineering-style roles and gone straight into philosophy-style roles. Do you indeed think that?
It seems plausible that going in an engineering direction for a couple years first was a good move ex ante, because you already knew you were a fit for philosophy but didnāt know whether you were a fit for things more along the lines of engineering? So maybe it was worth checking whether something else was an even better fit for you, or whether something else was a good enough fit that your comparative advantage (including your interest as a factor) would be things that somehow draw on both skillsets to a substantial degree?
I.e., even if ex post it appears that āexploitingā in the philosophy path is the best move, perhaps, ex ante, it was worth some exploration first?
(Of course, I donāt know the details of your career, plans, or your own knowledge several years ago of your skills and interests. And even if the answers to the above questions are basically āyesā, itās still plausible that it wouldāve been better to explore for less time, or in a way more consciously focused on exploration valueāwhich mightāve entailed different roles or a different approach.)
Iāve had a related experience. I did an economics PhD, and I started with a speculative, exploratory intent: I meant to use that time to figure out whether I was a good fit for a career in academic economics research. It turned out I was not a good fit, and the experience was miserable. I hadnāt minded taking classes or working as a research assistant for other people, but I disliked the speculative and open-ended nature of leading my own research projects. Once I realized that, I graduated as fast as I could. Now Iām much happier as a tech industry economist and data scientist.
Iām still not sure if I made a mistake in choosing to start the PhD. On one hand, I think it was a reasonable gamble that could have had a huge payoff, and I donāt know if I could have figured out I was not cut out for academic research without actually doing it. And it was a good investment; my current job requires an economics PhD or long experience in a related field, as do highly-compensated jobs in other industries. On the other hand, 4-5 years is a very long time to feel like you hate your job. Itās hard to be creative and hardworking and build your Plan B when youāre totally miserable.
If I were to start my career over, I would spend more time thinking about how to āfail earlyā and make exploration more pleasant and efficient.
I donāt think this; learning about technical ideas in AI, and other aspects of working at DeepMind, have been valuable for me; so itās hard to point to things which I should have changed. But as I say in the post, in worlds where I wasnāt so lucky, then I expect it would have been useful to weight personal fit more. For example, if Iād had the option of committing to a ML PhD instead of a research engineering role, then I might have done so despite uncertainty about the personal fit; this would probably have gone badly.