After 2+ years of EA involvement, I finally stopped procrastinating and applied to speak to 80000 hours.
I think the thought of discussing my career plan with EAs makes me feel self-conscious—what if they think I’m not being selfless enough, or disagree strongly with my views on global priorities?
I also find thinking about careers stressful and scary in general. I strongly believe that your career is the best way to do good, and that some careers will do a lot more good than others. These are some of my life’s biggest decisions, and will always feel scary and stressful to think about, with insecurities such as:
“What if I’m missing an opportunity for much larger impact?”
“What if I sacrifice too much personal happiness?”
“What if I completely change my mind about EA?”
As a result, I often avoid thinking about my career plans.
I had also convinced myself that 80000 hours’ advice won’t be that useful. But rationally, it’s likely that people with experience in EA- aligned careers advising will give useful advice. And it seems very unlikely to be harmful, andobviously, if I don’t want to follow their advice, I don’t have to.
Rationally, I really should have applied to speak to 80000 hours 2+ years ago!
If I had done this 2 years ago, I probably could have made more progress in whichever direction I’d settled on.
If like me you’re procrastinating on career planning, take this as a nudge to apply to 80000 hours.
Applying to 80000 hours also made me think I should write out a more formally reasoned EA career plan to share with them (and with family, friends and other EAs I know).
I’ve had a career planning Google Doc for a long time, but I was shocked by how much more carefully I was thinking about things when I knew that I’d be sharing the plan with someone else.
I would definitely recommend that other people also write up their career plans with the intention for someone else to look at and give feedback on.
Is your post deliberately categorized as question? The four questions included in it all seem to be of the rhetorical kind. :P
Thanks for the post though! I think I’m in a very similar situation and you basically convinced me. I didn’t expect five minutes ago to be just one minute of reading away from being convinced of applying to a 80000 hours career advice call, yet here we are.
No it isn’t, I think my initial post title had a question mark at the end so the forum turned it into a question and then I was too lazy to change it back lol
Convinced me to apply to positions I hadn’t expected to receive interviews, let alone offers for. Positions I’d been eyeballing for YEARS.
and
I wish we started speaking years ago.
and
my previous plan was to continue to be a [profession A] for 2~4 more years before moving to [profession B], even though I think I am more talented/interested in [profession B].
[Question] Stop procrastinating on career planning
After 2+ years of EA involvement, I finally stopped procrastinating and applied to speak to 80000 hours.
I think the thought of discussing my career plan with EAs makes me feel self-conscious—what if they think I’m not being selfless enough, or disagree strongly with my views on global priorities?
I also find thinking about careers stressful and scary in general. I strongly believe that your career is the best way to do good, and that some careers will do a lot more good than others. These are some of my life’s biggest decisions, and will always feel scary and stressful to think about, with insecurities such as:
“What if I’m missing an opportunity for much larger impact?”
“What if I sacrifice too much personal happiness?”
“What if I completely change my mind about EA?”
As a result, I often avoid thinking about my career plans.
I had also convinced myself that 80000 hours’ advice won’t be that useful. But rationally, it’s likely that people with experience in EA- aligned careers advising will give useful advice. And it seems very unlikely to be harmful, and obviously, if I don’t want to follow their advice, I don’t have to.
Rationally, I really should have applied to speak to 80000 hours 2+ years ago!
If I had done this 2 years ago, I probably could have made more progress in whichever direction I’d settled on.
If like me you’re procrastinating on career planning, take this as a nudge to apply to 80000 hours.
Applying to 80000 hours also made me think I should write out a more formally reasoned EA career plan to share with them (and with family, friends and other EAs I know).
I’ve had a career planning Google Doc for a long time, but I was shocked by how much more carefully I was thinking about things when I knew that I’d be sharing the plan with someone else.
I would definitely recommend that other people also write up their career plans with the intention for someone else to look at and give feedback on.
Is your post deliberately categorized as question? The four questions included in it all seem to be of the rhetorical kind. :P
Thanks for the post though! I think I’m in a very similar situation and you basically convinced me. I didn’t expect five minutes ago to be just one minute of reading away from being convinced of applying to a 80000 hours career advice call, yet here we are.
No it isn’t, I think my initial post title had a question mark at the end so the forum turned it into a question and then I was too lazy to change it back lol
And glad to hear you’re applying!
Software developers?
I’d like to advertise myself as a person to talk to about careers:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FkWHn6WaFGzrzqb9P/i-m-offering-free-coaching-for-software-developers-in-the-ea
Comments to my post include:
and
and
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