I feel similarly about finding EA later in my life—I heard about it when I was a few years into my career rather than in university. I’m glad I did because if I’d heard about it in uni, I could imagine it becoming my whole deal. I’ve got a lot of value from working a normie corporate job first and I’m glad a lot of my friends really don’t care about EA at all.
One of my other half-written drafts is about the benefits of doing graduate training at an employer that churns out dozens of graduates a year rather than a small EA organisation (where the quality of management, mentorship, training and support is more variable). I think the 80k advice on career capital for new grads is great and getting people to think about their long term output (thinking 20-30 years head rather than just 5) is excellent, but I think their ideas for initial first jobs are limited (and so obviously written by cerebral oxford grads who would have access to top of the range opportunities).
IMO they underrate graduates spending their first few years post-grad joining professions where there are existing networks and professional ethics requirements. Examples would be law/​accountancy/​engineering/​medicine/​teaching etc. I think there are downsides (time requirement, skills you might not use later) but I think there are benefits to having a more diverse non-academia EA talent pipeline and I want to spread effective giving into those spaces!! Having the pipeline mostly filled with early start up employees, policy people and management consultants is high risk—none of these roles are accountable to external ethical or professional standards. Plus, having worked in international tax, I now have opinions on potentially high impact tax policy work that isn’t obvious to people without that background—I like being able to bring a different perspective.
Thank you! That’s very kind!
I feel similarly about finding EA later in my life—I heard about it when I was a few years into my career rather than in university. I’m glad I did because if I’d heard about it in uni, I could imagine it becoming my whole deal. I’ve got a lot of value from working a normie corporate job first and I’m glad a lot of my friends really don’t care about EA at all.
One of my other half-written drafts is about the benefits of doing graduate training at an employer that churns out dozens of graduates a year rather than a small EA organisation (where the quality of management, mentorship, training and support is more variable). I think the 80k advice on career capital for new grads is great and getting people to think about their long term output (thinking 20-30 years head rather than just 5) is excellent, but I think their ideas for initial first jobs are limited (and so obviously written by cerebral oxford grads who would have access to top of the range opportunities).
IMO they underrate graduates spending their first few years post-grad joining professions where there are existing networks and professional ethics requirements. Examples would be law/​accountancy/​engineering/​medicine/​teaching etc. I think there are downsides (time requirement, skills you might not use later) but I think there are benefits to having a more diverse non-academia EA talent pipeline and I want to spread effective giving into those spaces!! Having the pipeline mostly filled with early start up employees, policy people and management consultants is high risk—none of these roles are accountable to external ethical or professional standards. Plus, having worked in international tax, I now have opinions on potentially high impact tax policy work that isn’t obvious to people without that background—I like being able to bring a different perspective.
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Good for you on bad criticisms! Keep at it 💪