I’ve discussed this post with a couple of people, and realised it’s unclear about where I think the clearest gaps actually are, so I thought I’d add a list.
Each career service idea needs to pick (i) an audience (ii) a set of programmes (iii) a set of causes. You can make different ideas by combining these 3 factors.
Some of the gaps within each factor that we’ll likely leave unfilled include:
i) Audience – there are several audience groups that 80k won’t reach for some time. For instance, careers advice for people over 40 could be useful to increase age diversity in the movement, and find more experienced people, which is a key gap. You could also pick out an audience with a cause area e.g. ‘careers advice for EAs who want to work on global health.’ Another clear group is services for other countries we’re not going to cover (e.g. a German job board), or perhaps focused on certain career paths. Some of the most valuable audiences that we’re not ideally suited to are groups like academics and policy makers, though it’s hard to credibly work with these groups unless you’re a member of this audience. I would also like to see more people working on student groups at top universities. Each of these audiences is clearly differentiable from 80k’s focus,
ii) Programmes – It seems to me like the biggest bottlenecks are around one-on-one advice and headhunting, since we just don’t have enough staff to cover everyone worth talking to, and this means these people don’t get direct help. We’re also not going to get to specialist content outside our priority problem areas for a while, such as in-depth guides to global health careers, or a guide to how to switch career mid-career. On the other hand, we plan to continue to provide more general purpose written content (e.g. advice on high level principles like career capital).
iii) Causes – I think the highest priority is for people to fill programming gaps that we’re leaving open within our priority areas and other promising areas (e.g. better advice for people who want to work on nuclear security). However, there are also some issues we’re not going to cover for some time so you could also fill a gap by replicating one of our existing programs for one of those areas. Global health is perhaps the most obvious example, but you might also want to include some longtermist areas here, such as reducing great power conflict.
Both of the new groups I mentioned in the main post match all these factors pretty well.
Another factor is how easily new programmes can fit into and serve as a multiplier on the existing infrastructure. For instance, specialists in specific topics and causes are fairly easy to slot in, since we and others can simply link or refer people to them when someone needs help with those areas.
On the other hand, I think starting a new job board aimed at the effective altruism community is less of an obvious gap, since the 80k board does cover multiple cause areas (including listing 110 global health jobs and 50 factory farming jobs currently). This argument holds less for job boards aimed at a particular country or cause.
Of course, it may eventually be better to have a direct competitor to the 80k job board (or other core programmes), especially if most of the biggest gaps have already been filled.
Another general thought, my personal advice is to start by doing one thing well, and then broadening over time. I think 80k started by doing too many things at once, and we could have gone faster if we’d started more focused. It also makes it much easier for other groups to coordinate with you.
If you’re considering going ahead with a new organisation to solve a gap, we’d love to hear about it, in case it’s a gap we can quickly plug. e.g. we’re open to consider putting up extra articles, making edits to old articles, or making tweaks to our programmes (though we don’t have a ton of spare capacity and aren’t likely to change any of our main focuses).
I’ve discussed this post with a couple of people, and realised it’s unclear about where I think the clearest gaps actually are, so I thought I’d add a list.
Each career service idea needs to pick (i) an audience (ii) a set of programmes (iii) a set of causes. You can make different ideas by combining these 3 factors.
Some of the gaps within each factor that we’ll likely leave unfilled include:
i) Audience – there are several audience groups that 80k won’t reach for some time. For instance, careers advice for people over 40 could be useful to increase age diversity in the movement, and find more experienced people, which is a key gap. You could also pick out an audience with a cause area e.g. ‘careers advice for EAs who want to work on global health.’ Another clear group is services for other countries we’re not going to cover (e.g. a German job board), or perhaps focused on certain career paths. Some of the most valuable audiences that we’re not ideally suited to are groups like academics and policy makers, though it’s hard to credibly work with these groups unless you’re a member of this audience. I would also like to see more people working on student groups at top universities. Each of these audiences is clearly differentiable from 80k’s focus,
ii) Programmes – It seems to me like the biggest bottlenecks are around one-on-one advice and headhunting, since we just don’t have enough staff to cover everyone worth talking to, and this means these people don’t get direct help. We’re also not going to get to specialist content outside our priority problem areas for a while, such as in-depth guides to global health careers, or a guide to how to switch career mid-career. On the other hand, we plan to continue to provide more general purpose written content (e.g. advice on high level principles like career capital).
iii) Causes – I think the highest priority is for people to fill programming gaps that we’re leaving open within our priority areas and other promising areas (e.g. better advice for people who want to work on nuclear security). However, there are also some issues we’re not going to cover for some time so you could also fill a gap by replicating one of our existing programs for one of those areas. Global health is perhaps the most obvious example, but you might also want to include some longtermist areas here, such as reducing great power conflict.
Both of the new groups I mentioned in the main post match all these factors pretty well.
Another factor is how easily new programmes can fit into and serve as a multiplier on the existing infrastructure. For instance, specialists in specific topics and causes are fairly easy to slot in, since we and others can simply link or refer people to them when someone needs help with those areas.
On the other hand, I think starting a new job board aimed at the effective altruism community is less of an obvious gap, since the 80k board does cover multiple cause areas (including listing 110 global health jobs and 50 factory farming jobs currently). This argument holds less for job boards aimed at a particular country or cause.
Of course, it may eventually be better to have a direct competitor to the 80k job board (or other core programmes), especially if most of the biggest gaps have already been filled.
Another general thought, my personal advice is to start by doing one thing well, and then broadening over time. I think 80k started by doing too many things at once, and we could have gone faster if we’d started more focused. It also makes it much easier for other groups to coordinate with you.
If you’re considering going ahead with a new organisation to solve a gap, we’d love to hear about it, in case it’s a gap we can quickly plug. e.g. we’re open to consider putting up extra articles, making edits to old articles, or making tweaks to our programmes (though we don’t have a ton of spare capacity and aren’t likely to change any of our main focuses).