I had a few potential suggestions, but I was unsure of whether they fit the board’s scope, since they aren’t EA. The thing is, I have often thought (and told some people) that I wish I could have given advice to my younger self regarding: 1) having a portfolio of competitiveness (e.g., deliberately including more lower-tier/less-competitive positions even if they aren’t really what I’d love to do) rather than mainly focusing on applying to positions I’d really like to get (but which happened to also be very competitive, and none of which I got my first year); 2) Building a portfolio of specific types of work skills/experiences that I can tailor to later applications (e.g., data collection/analysis, editing, independent research, daily summaries, administrative work).
All of that is to say: if you aren’t already planning to, I would recommend going beyond simply providing a list of high-impact, high-competition positions that people like younger me probably would have looked at and said “I’ll focus on applying for these positions,” only to end up being systemically under-qualified/competitive. For example, I think that also providing advice about application portfolios and skill/experience portfolios would be quite helpful to people who are in a similar situation as I was.
I had a few potential suggestions, but I was unsure of whether they fit the board’s scope, since they aren’t EA. The thing is, I have often thought (and told some people) that I wish I could have given advice to my younger self regarding: 1) having a portfolio of competitiveness (e.g., deliberately including more lower-tier/less-competitive positions even if they aren’t really what I’d love to do) rather than mainly focusing on applying to positions I’d really like to get (but which happened to also be very competitive, and none of which I got my first year); 2) Building a portfolio of specific types of work skills/experiences that I can tailor to later applications (e.g., data collection/analysis, editing, independent research, daily summaries, administrative work).
All of that is to say: if you aren’t already planning to, I would recommend going beyond simply providing a list of high-impact, high-competition positions that people like younger me probably would have looked at and said “I’ll focus on applying for these positions,” only to end up being systemically under-qualified/competitive. For example, I think that also providing advice about application portfolios and skill/experience portfolios would be quite helpful to people who are in a similar situation as I was.