I’m wondering if folks have suggestions for what EA organizations and / or roles could best leverage the skill set of management consultants? There are quite a few of us interested in EA and it’s a job with relatively high churn (plenty of folks open to opportunities!), but I’m not sure there’s much of a “pipeline” from consulting to EA today.
Back in the day—when I was already planning to enter the industry - an 80,000 Hours quiz result suggested management consulting, and I’ve been doing the job which I’ve generally enjoyed for the last 5+ years. I’ve been earning to give, but would like to explore potential for direct work—just not sure where my experience / skills could best translate.
Here’s my LinkedIn page and I’m happy to share a resume with detailed experience if useful. But, in short, I went to a top US university (no grad degree), jumped to a top management consulting firm, and have worked across most major industries (energy, healthcare, finance, retail, private equity, etc.) across a range of for-profit organizations.
For those at roughly my tenure who leave consulting for the private sector, the most likely next step is “middle management” (e.g., Director roles) in corporate strategy. In terms of concrete skills, I’d say my strengths are in verbal communications, managing varied stakeholders, operating in ambiguous environments / learning quickly, “soft” analysis (i.e., Excel), developing presentations, and coaching --> skills that I think most large corporations value but which aren’t exactly differentiating or suggestive of particular roles within EA. I’m also not sure if there are many EA organizations big enough to have a “middle management” cohort (i.e., supervising teams, but not leading an organization).
I’m especially passionate about helping others think about their own giving and the financial side of maximizing donations / minimizing taxes. If I had my druthers, my ranked preferences within EA would probably be: meta-EA, direct global health / poverty work, and x-risks toward the bottom (uncouth, I know).
Hey Jeremy! Myself and Joan Gass at CEA, and Markus Anderljung at FHI, all use skills like the ones you mention above, from our consulting backgrounds, at non-profits.
I sometimes look at this filter on the 80K job board and one example of a role you might like is this one. I also think that working in government is often a good thing to do, and so maybe there could be some US trade/aid organisations which you might find interesting, and also this talk. If you think that consulting means you can boost the productivity of companies and lead to economic growth overall, then that could be interesting.
Thanks! I actually ran through the whole 80k job board a few weeks back, but I like your filters (and am seeing a few new roles already). I’ll give the talk a listen (and the article a read); thanks for sharing!
I’d say it’s pretty common for people to switch from management consulting into work at EA orgs. Some recent examples: we recently hired Habiba Islam; GPI hired Sven Herrmann and Will Jefferson; and Joan Gas who became the Managing Director of CEA a year ago.
As you can see, the most common route is normally to work in management or operations, but it doesn’t need to be restricted to that.
If you want to pursue the EA orgs path, then as well as applying to jobs on the job board, follow our standard advice here (e.g. meet people, get more involved in the community).
Just bear in mind that there aren’t many positions per year, so even if you’re a good fit, it might take some time to find something.
For this reason, it’s probably best to pursue a couple of other good longer-term paths at the same time. Another common option for someone with your background would to do something in policy, or you could try to work in development.
With this strand in particular:
helping others think about their own giving and the financial side of maximizing donations / minimizing taxes
There is a need for this, and there’s a bit of a philanthropy advisory community building up in London around Founder’s Pledge, Veddis and Longview Philanthropy. I’m not sure there’s yet something like that in the States you could get involved in. You might be able to start your own thing, especially after working elsewhere in EA or philanthropy for 1-2 years. (Example plan: work at a foundation in SF → meet rich tech people → start freelance consulting for them / maybe joining up with another community member.)
Either way, I’d definitely encourage you to think hard about which impactful longer-term paths might be most promising, and what those would imply about the best next steps. You already have a lot of general career capital, and big corporate middle management experience is not that relevant to working at smaller non-profits, so I doubt continuing in the corporate sector will be the optimal one, unless you find something really outstanding.
I just wanted to reinforce the point Benjamin made above about getting involved in the EA community. For example, if you apply for a job at an EA organization, they may request references from the EA community in addition to the standard references from your last job. Do you already have strong references from credible people in the EA community? If not, it would be worthwhile to do more networking. You may also need to build up a track record of EA volunteer work, post on the EA forum, and so on to build up your own EA track record.
Here’s one way to think about this. Getting a job at an EA organization can be like getting a job in the film industry. You’re trying to break into a “glamorous” industry. That is, some people consider these jobs “dream jobs”—they have an extremely compelling “X factor” that has nothing to do with how much the job pays. (In EA, the ‘glamour’ factor is the ability to have a really high-impact career, which is the central life goal of many EAs.) So you may need to network, volunteer for a while, etc. in order to break in.
[This comment isn’t a reply to your main point, just about the ‘glamour factor’ that your film analogy is predicated on, sorry]
I think that the majority of people who believe working at an EA org is the highest impact thing they could do are probably wrong.
Consider: 1) if you work at an EA org you probably have skills that are very useful in a variety of other fields/industries. The ceiling on these impact opportunities is higher, as it uses more of your own creativity/initiative at a macro level (e.g. the level of deciding about where to work) 2) if 1) is not true, it’s probably because you specialise in meta/EA/movement related matters, that don’t transfer well outside. In this case you might be able to make more impact in EA orgs. But this is not the case for most people.
I think it’s different for people starting new EA orgs, or joining very early-stage ones—that does seem to have a high ceiling on potential impact and is worth a shot for anyone doing it.
I’m not the most risk-seeking, so I think I’ll need to reflect on the trade-off of taking a more indirect route in the hopes of landing an EA role while giving up the “capital” I’m told I have for my first role post-consulting. Will mull over what you’ve shared!
Hi all
I’m wondering if folks have suggestions for what EA organizations and / or roles could best leverage the skill set of management consultants? There are quite a few of us interested in EA and it’s a job with relatively high churn (plenty of folks open to opportunities!), but I’m not sure there’s much of a “pipeline” from consulting to EA today.
Back in the day—when I was already planning to enter the industry - an 80,000 Hours quiz result suggested management consulting, and I’ve been doing the job which I’ve generally enjoyed for the last 5+ years. I’ve been earning to give, but would like to explore potential for direct work—just not sure where my experience / skills could best translate.
Here’s my LinkedIn page and I’m happy to share a resume with detailed experience if useful. But, in short, I went to a top US university (no grad degree), jumped to a top management consulting firm, and have worked across most major industries (energy, healthcare, finance, retail, private equity, etc.) across a range of for-profit organizations.
For those at roughly my tenure who leave consulting for the private sector, the most likely next step is “middle management” (e.g., Director roles) in corporate strategy. In terms of concrete skills, I’d say my strengths are in verbal communications, managing varied stakeholders, operating in ambiguous environments / learning quickly, “soft” analysis (i.e., Excel), developing presentations, and coaching --> skills that I think most large corporations value but which aren’t exactly differentiating or suggestive of particular roles within EA. I’m also not sure if there are many EA organizations big enough to have a “middle management” cohort (i.e., supervising teams, but not leading an organization).
I’m especially passionate about helping others think about their own giving and the financial side of maximizing donations / minimizing taxes. If I had my druthers, my ranked preferences within EA would probably be: meta-EA, direct global health / poverty work, and x-risks toward the bottom (uncouth, I know).
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
Hey Jeremy! Myself and Joan Gass at CEA, and Markus Anderljung at FHI, all use skills like the ones you mention above, from our consulting backgrounds, at non-profits.
I sometimes look at this filter on the 80K job board and one example of a role you might like is this one. I also think that working in government is often a good thing to do, and so maybe there could be some US trade/aid organisations which you might find interesting, and also this talk. If you think that consulting means you can boost the productivity of companies and lead to economic growth overall, then that could be interesting.
Thanks! I actually ran through the whole 80k job board a few weeks back, but I like your filters (and am seeing a few new roles already). I’ll give the talk a listen (and the article a read); thanks for sharing!
Hi Jeremy,
Glad to hear things have gone well!
I’d say it’s pretty common for people to switch from management consulting into work at EA orgs. Some recent examples: we recently hired Habiba Islam; GPI hired Sven Herrmann and Will Jefferson; and Joan Gas who became the Managing Director of CEA a year ago.
As you can see, the most common route is normally to work in management or operations, but it doesn’t need to be restricted to that.
If you want to pursue the EA orgs path, then as well as applying to jobs on the job board, follow our standard advice here (e.g. meet people, get more involved in the community).
Just bear in mind that there aren’t many positions per year, so even if you’re a good fit, it might take some time to find something.
For this reason, it’s probably best to pursue a couple of other good longer-term paths at the same time. Another common option for someone with your background would to do something in policy, or you could try to work in development.
With this strand in particular:
There is a need for this, and there’s a bit of a philanthropy advisory community building up in London around Founder’s Pledge, Veddis and Longview Philanthropy. I’m not sure there’s yet something like that in the States you could get involved in. You might be able to start your own thing, especially after working elsewhere in EA or philanthropy for 1-2 years. (Example plan: work at a foundation in SF → meet rich tech people → start freelance consulting for them / maybe joining up with another community member.)
Either way, I’d definitely encourage you to think hard about which impactful longer-term paths might be most promising, and what those would imply about the best next steps. You already have a lot of general career capital, and big corporate middle management experience is not that relevant to working at smaller non-profits, so I doubt continuing in the corporate sector will be the optimal one, unless you find something really outstanding.
I just wanted to reinforce the point Benjamin made above about getting involved in the EA community. For example, if you apply for a job at an EA organization, they may request references from the EA community in addition to the standard references from your last job. Do you already have strong references from credible people in the EA community? If not, it would be worthwhile to do more networking. You may also need to build up a track record of EA volunteer work, post on the EA forum, and so on to build up your own EA track record.
Here’s one way to think about this. Getting a job at an EA organization can be like getting a job in the film industry. You’re trying to break into a “glamorous” industry. That is, some people consider these jobs “dream jobs”—they have an extremely compelling “X factor” that has nothing to do with how much the job pays. (In EA, the ‘glamour’ factor is the ability to have a really high-impact career, which is the central life goal of many EAs.) So you may need to network, volunteer for a while, etc. in order to break in.
[This comment isn’t a reply to your main point, just about the ‘glamour factor’ that your film analogy is predicated on, sorry]
I think that the majority of people who believe working at an EA org is the highest impact thing they could do are probably wrong.
Consider:
1) if you work at an EA org you probably have skills that are very useful in a variety of other fields/industries. The ceiling on these impact opportunities is higher, as it uses more of your own creativity/initiative at a macro level (e.g. the level of deciding about where to work)
2) if 1) is not true, it’s probably because you specialise in meta/EA/movement related matters, that don’t transfer well outside. In this case you might be able to make more impact in EA orgs. But this is not the case for most people.
I think it’s different for people starting new EA orgs, or joining very early-stage ones—that does seem to have a high ceiling on potential impact and is worth a shot for anyone doing it.
This is very accurate but a little sad to me.
Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed reply Ben!
I’m not the most risk-seeking, so I think I’ll need to reflect on the trade-off of taking a more indirect route in the hopes of landing an EA role while giving up the “capital” I’m told I have for my first role post-consulting. Will mull over what you’ve shared!