Maybe ‘advisor’ was the wrong word, and I should go with something like ‘mentor.’ Does ‘mentor’ connote something more casual, and does not claim to be the height of professionalism, while still aspiring to maintain quality moreso than ‘advisor?’
At any rate to respond to your points, I intend to implement the following:
A quality feedback survey for people’s experience with this system.
A short guide pointing advisors and advisees to relevant, pre-existing EA career resources as a primer before calls begin (e.g., an email recommending potential advisors to read 80,000 Hours career profile relevant to the professional or research field they wish to advise upon.)
Re: coordinating with local groups: to my knowledge, most university and local EA groups don’t have an ongoing system for careers advising, but only do one-off workshops. In trying to implement this system, I’ve already run into a couple local groups who do already have an ongoing system for careers workshops, and believe their infrastructure is sufficient in place of the one I’m trying to build. Otherwise, the goal is to coordinate with local groups to build such infrastructure insofar as it’s effective to do so. I have already sent these surveys to dozens of Facebook groups for local EA groups, so I am in contact with every local EA group with any local EA groups that are doing something similar. Since effective altruists tend to be disproportionately concentrated in places like the Bay Area, there was a significant chance advisors and advisees would be able to meet in person. A couple people suggested I include an option for meeting in-person. That introduces a dimension of matching people I haven’t thought through as much. Thus far, it appears the vast majority of matches will be online, which is something I feel more prepared for. So I’ve included local match-ups as an option, but I’m unsure if they’ll turn out to be much of a factor.
Maybe ‘advisor’ was the wrong word, and I should go with something like ‘mentor.’ Does ‘mentor’ connote something more casual, and does not claim to be the height of professionalism, while still aspiring to maintain quality moreso than ‘advisor?’
At any rate to respond to your points, I intend to implement the following:
A quality feedback survey for people’s experience with this system.
A short guide pointing advisors and advisees to relevant, pre-existing EA career resources as a primer before calls begin (e.g., an email recommending potential advisors to read 80,000 Hours career profile relevant to the professional or research field they wish to advise upon.)
Re: coordinating with local groups: to my knowledge, most university and local EA groups don’t have an ongoing system for careers advising, but only do one-off workshops. In trying to implement this system, I’ve already run into a couple local groups who do already have an ongoing system for careers workshops, and believe their infrastructure is sufficient in place of the one I’m trying to build. Otherwise, the goal is to coordinate with local groups to build such infrastructure insofar as it’s effective to do so. I have already sent these surveys to dozens of Facebook groups for local EA groups, so I am in contact with every local EA group with any local EA groups that are doing something similar. Since effective altruists tend to be disproportionately concentrated in places like the Bay Area, there was a significant chance advisors and advisees would be able to meet in person. A couple people suggested I include an option for meeting in-person. That introduces a dimension of matching people I haven’t thought through as much. Thus far, it appears the vast majority of matches will be online, which is something I feel more prepared for. So I’ve included local match-ups as an option, but I’m unsure if they’ll turn out to be much of a factor.