Thank you for the question, Joseph.
Many people do not have a “clear career path.” I think there might be a higher proportion of EAs who are very curious intellectually and have experimented with a variety of paths. I am 34 and I personally feel like I had many lives (advocate, refugee lawyer, lecturer, researcher…) that I am pressured to fit into a single narrative on the job market. When it comes to career transitions, it is important to be flexible and past career transitions can be a positive sign of that. So 5 years of work are 5 years of work. How wide or narrow these experiences are will play a role in determining what interventions are needed and what direction a person can take to an impactful career.
We have many people in our program with 10+ years of experience. Some of them have variety in their career histories and others have been on a singular path. Both of these are valuable and can serve different purposes.
In terms of PhDs, we generally do not count those years toward work experience.
We make exceptions and look at each individual profile as a whole, but in broad terms, we look at someone’s competence, motivation, commitment to effective causes and existential risks prevention, as well as specific signals (e.g., for agency, flexibility…).
Thanks for the questions, Vaidehi.
These insights are based on 102 former advisees, including 43 women.
Their expressed interest when they applied for our services are as follows:
44 Global health & development
38 AI safety
22 Animal welfare
17 biorisks prevention
2 nuclear arms risk prevention
11 climate change mitigation
Note that these are not mutually exclusive as people can express interest in multiple cause areas when applying. (Later, they engage in cause prioritization as part of our program.)
In terms of our own MLE, we had in-depth interviews with 24 past advisees and have a bi-annual anonymous survey. We have occasionally run surveys to gain insights on specific things (e.g., recently, on how to make EA community building events more inclusive of mid-career people).