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This is a really fantastic and useful post. Much as I love the EA career planning resources, I think general career advice (e.g., networking/interview prep/not checking your email!) is less amplified within EA but perhaps equally important: after deciding a path is high-impact, how are you going to land that job?
As someone who had to go through all this on my own + with the help of a non-EA friend who’s very experienced, I’m glad I now have this to show other people in the future. : )
Hey Miranda, thanks for reading—I’m so pleased you found it useful. I too agree that we need more info on how to actually get jobs, as it’s a science in itself and it’s not currently taught at schools and unis as much as it should be. So unless you have relatives/friends who are really good at this and willing to help you, you are at a disadvantage. So good that your friend help you though and that you asked! Some people just wing it, thinking that it’s a tick-box exercise while it’s a lot more than that.
Thank you for this excellent post! I’m a student group organizer & I’ll be recommending this to other members/organizers :)
A few specific thoughts that came up as I read:
I love this advice, and I think it can have a special implication for EAs. The question flips from “how can I get this job” to “how can I help this employer make an informed assessment of how impactful I will be at this job”.
A traditional approach to job applications might be something like “I want to impress the interviewer, so I maximize my chance of getting a job offer. Then, I will select the offer that is best for me.”
An EA alternative to this might be something like “I want to be highly transparent with the interviewer, so I maximize the amount of information they have when determining who would be most impactful for this role. Then, I will compare my options and consider which one generates the most counterfactual impact [alongside other considerations like personal fit].”
With this “transparency frame” in mind, I’m not sure how I feel about this point. I think this line suggests that people should optimize for “reassuring employers that you are a good hire.” I would rather have people optimize for “being transparent and providing information that helps employers assess whether or not you are a good hire.”
As a result, I would be inclined to encourage people to explicitly state their key uncertainties about taking the role & be upfront about potential weaknesses/doubts. (Of course, this is assuming someone is reasonably well-calibrated about their skills/aptitudes. For people who underestimate themselves, this advice would backfire).
I also think this is easier said than done—optimizing for transparency inherently means that you might reduce your odds of getting the job. I’d guess that the tradeoff generally isn’t super high, though, and it’s also quite plausible to me that EA employers would be enthusiastic about people who are upfront with their weaknesses/doubts. It could also help them recommend the applicant for a role that’s more suited to their particular aptitudes.
What do you think? (I could be very wrong about this, and I’ve never been in a hiring role!)
Hey Akash, thanks so much for reading and also for your thoughts. I love that you connected the “helping” bit with EA principles—I don’t think I thought of that! So this is a really valuable point. After all, we are trying to make an impact with our jobs and by applying for a job, we are trying to solve a problem for the organisation and the cause area in general. Also many thanks for sharing this with your network, I hope it will help more people!
I agree with you about transparency, we definitely shouldn’t say anything that’s not true about our candidacy and shouldn’t hire any facts that make us a bad fit. And you are also right in saying that this can backfire, especially for non-EA ogs and for people with impostor syndrome (most of us haha). I can think of underepresented groups not getting roles as, generally, men are more likely to be overconfident about their ability.
I would say that the key here is to treat each application individually, try to see exactly what the hiring manager is looking for, and start by presenting yourself in the best possible light. Put your best foot forward!
If you’re absolutely sure that you don’t have a particular skill, I think it’s possible to be transparent and also talk about any skill/aptitude gap in a positive way. I think a lot of EA orgs will hire for potential and attitude, so phrasing things like “I haven’t done this yet, however, I’d really like to learn in/I have learnt things really quickly in the past/done something very similar”. That is if you genuinely like to do it.
Another way to talk positively about skill gaps is flipping it and finding why not having this skill will give you an advantage (fresh eyes, ability to form the way you operate in this org etc.).
So what I’m trying to say is, having been on the hiring manager’s side,”I can’t do this” shows that the person doesn’t want to learn or isn’t right for the job. I would much rather hear “I’ve never done it but I’m just so excited to learn”.
Additionally, many orgs now offer trial tasks, so before you say “I am not good at strategy”, if it’s a core skill and it is tested, I would first see if you can do the trial task. Sometimes we appear to be good at something we’ve never done! So I wouldn’t speak so soon until you try it :)
Hey Sofia, wonderful job writing this so thoroughly! I’m sure many will benefit from it ! Wish this post had existed before I went through my own job search experience (yikes!) I really hope that the community has (hopefully sooner than later) application peer support groups where people like you can give this kind of advice on a 1-on-1 basis and that people can easily access the support they need :)
Hey Cristina, thanks a lot for your kind comment—I really appreciate it! I too wish someone held my hand through my first job application experience, I didn’t know any of this haha. Unfortunately, I had to learn all of this through mistakes, so I hope people reading this will avoid some of them! I also hope that more people will get the support they need, peer support groups are a very good idea! We should suggest it to AAC or 80,000 Hours!
AAC does offer (or at least they did offer something similar after I went through their Introductory Course) :) in the form of matchmaking with one your peers of the cohort. I assume 80,000 Hours offers similar support with their 1-1 advice. Also people with WANBAM mentors or other mentors get similar support.
Although my thinking is more around “widely available application support for EAs” (regardless of participation in a program etc) I would imagine a pilot being run with a simple survey and then asking people to participate (both in “mentor”/”mentee” roles). The mentees being people planning an application phase at a given time and having mentor support for that process (+ any other available support: mentors for more strategic considerations, coach, therapist, friends, family, etc.) I’d love to see someone run that. Full disclosure: I’m not doing it myself because of limited capacity, therefore → would love to see someone else give it a go!
Hey Sofia
I was just preparing for an interview and thought I’d search the forum in case anyone had written up anything useful...and there was your really extensive, considered and helpful post!!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this up, it’s really helpful and much appreciated!
Hey Evan, thanks a lot for the feedback, I’m glad it’s been useful! Interviews are tough to get right, but it is possible :) Good luck!
Thanks, Sofia. I really value your experience and insights here, and I’ll be checking back to reference your article and book recommendations!
Hey! I’ve been digging through your posts, and I quite appreciate that you’ve taken the time to write all this advice, because I know it’s easy to land the job you want and then forget to come back to help guide those still on the path who haven’t found their own end yet.
Question here though: how do you cultivate references when you don’t have any explicit history in that sort of job? To give a bit more here, I’m a generalist who thought I might be able to leverage the variety of experience when applying for a variety of EA aligned jobs, but listing any single person from this generalist experience rarely lines precisely up with the more specific aspects of x job I’m applying to, so I find myself unable to produce any great references when needed.
I suppose maybe this interfaces with another big question I’ve had reading your various forum posts: it seems like you’re assuming some degree of background work experience (I think somewhere you said you’d been working for 10 years already when you began this process?) so how much of this will I be able to do if I have little to no work experience (just out of college)? I know part of the answer here will be job dependent (I’m most interested in EA Community Building and General Longtermism Research) but I also just kind of feel like this amorphous concept of EA jobs is this impenetrable fortress that I’m not going to be able to make any headway towards without getting a non-EA job first and gaining some specific, relevant experience.
Hey Tristan, thanks for this! Glad you’ve found the posts useful:)
To your point about references: ideally references should be just a tick box exercise of fact checking and should testify to your character and ability to do great work. Which means that all your good references should do for all future jobs (keep in mind that most employers want two most recent places of work). Some organisations still ask questions about your ability to do that particular job which I don’t agree with as all jobs are different. To help with that I’d advise to cultivate references who believe in you and will testify to your ability to do completely new tasks. This is easier if you demonstrate in the job that you can handle new things and be good at them quickly. I personally really struggled with going from management to leadership, and if not for people who believed in me, encouraged me and saw my potential, I’d probably still be in my old role.
I think that while EA jobs and adjacent roles are preferable, remember that they are not the only options. My first three roles weren’t EA—very entry level work, but without it I’d never have gotten my subsequent animal roles. Id certainly continue job hunting in EA if I were you but I’d also be open to non EA roles simply to get experience. In the end EA roles are mostly usual roles like HR, Ops, Strategy etc, all these skills you can get outside and then come back when a role comes up. The movement is very competitive, not going to lie, but it’s definitely possible to get a role, especially if you spend time building your network from now on, and maybe have a volunteer side project. Let me know if you have any more questions, I feel like I should try and write a more suitable post for entry level folks:)
Thank you, that’s a pretty helpful framing that I think I’ve probably heard before but haven’t internalized quite this way until now. In sum, references are generally a testament to character and general skills, not specific aptitudes for given work.
I do have question in response, but perhaps I’ll instead just speak in favor of making a post geared towards what you think entry level EA aligned people should do for work. Or perhaps a “things I wish I’d known starting out” or “if I could do it all again this is what I’d do” sort of deal. Your content has been great so far, and don’t feel like you need to rewrite anything with just a slightly changed veneer to be adaptable, but if you do feel like there’s enough you might want to say along these lines, I’d love to read a post from you on it! :)
I love this! Thank you for all the amazing super helpful information! I am currently in my job search and aiming to scale my career in science communication. I found this article while searching for how to show that I am an EA and start applying for organizations. However, I am still unsure if I need to mention that directly in my CV or expand on it in my cover letters?
Would really appreciate your insights!
Hey, many thanks for your comment, I’m very pleased you found the blog useful :) I’m writing another one based on my most recent job search which I’ll link here soon!
As to your question, I think you should absolutely mention that you’re an EA, but I would probably not say “I am an EA” but do it by linking to your forum posts, or any EA courses you’ve done, events/retreats you’ve been to, any EA jobs you had. In your skills section, you can highlight the skills that EAs value, or just use some EA language and style of writing in all of your CV.
I am a huge fan of a CV headline (like a line in LinkedIn that tells you who you are) - you can put “Looking to make an impact at an EA org” or something right below your name. There is always space for a 4-line summary, you can also write about your motivation to work in EA there.
Hope this helps and best of luck with your search!