Before joining 80,000 Hours, Matt was a legislative staffer on the National Security Committee in Canada. He previously managed a Member of Parliament’s legislative office, worked as a policy analyst and grantmaker in the civil service, and received an MA in political science. Matt is now based in Washington, DC.
Matt Beard
Karma: 94
Hi Warren, thanks for this comment. I feel for your situation- in my undergrad I jumped between majors and wasn’t sure what skills I wanted to develop, and I was worried that coming from a non-prestigious public college in Canada that there wouldn’t be a place for me in these more competitive roles. This sounds like a cliche, but it was helpful for me at the time: relentlessly focus on what you can control. We don’t choose the cards we’re dealt to start out in life, but you have a remarkable amount of freedom in college to try out projects, explore different options, and get really good at something. College can be your ‘training montage.’
As you identified with the GED, there’s no speed limit. Once you’ve identified a rare and valuable skill that helps solve a pressing problem, you should try to obsessively improve at it. If you haven’t identified that yet, test your fit with small projects that let you try out different skills and interests efficiently, like taking a range of courses, writing something for a personal site, trying a weekend coding project, etc. You’ll want to balance explore/exploit strategies.
The specifics will really depend on your situation. One way to look for your advantage is to ask yourself “which things feel like work for other people, but energize me?” For myself it started with a political philosophy course that I loved (and which introduced me to Peter Singer), but maybe you just haven’t found that spark yet. I’d encourage you not to compare yourself to others who got luckier or are farther along, but to compare to where you’ve been and where you might have been if you didn’t step up. You should be proud of getting your GED and being where you are now.
Also, I don’t think your writing was messy. It seems like you’ve identified a feeling a lot of people have.
You might consider the Talos Fellowship if EU AI governance is on your radar. I think the responsible and safe development of artificial intelligence is an incredibly pressing problem today. Consultants for Impact has some resources about how/whether to build skills for an impactful career in consulting. If you’re passionate about climate change, I’d recommend keeping a laser-focus on evidence-backed interventions that are tractable, neglected, and have a significant GHG reduction potential. Hannah Ritchie and Johannes Ackva have had interesting podcasts about this. Lastly, I’d want to highlight 80,000 Hours’ argument for why climate change, while still a very important issue, might not be the most pressing at current margins.
Sounds really cool! I’d recommend the space governance career profile and checking out what the Center for Space Governance is working on. If technical governance is exciting to you, you might consider ways you can test your fit for various policy skills and decide which part of that ecosystem you think you’d best fit in with. As a student I’d encourage you to keep building career capital and getting ‘so good they can’t ignore you,’ even if it means your first job out of college is more about skill building than direct impact right away.
I wonder if you might have relevant skills and experience for AI safety research, and/or for high impact cybersecurity? It sounds like you enjoy working on technical problems and research projects directly. I made this list of technical AI safety upskilling resources which might help you test out whether you’d enjoy improving those skills.
I know you mentioned not being energized by policy work as much, but given your political science + technical skills, I wonder if emerging tech policy would feel more rewarding? https://EmergingTechPolicy.org is a great resource. Technical AI governance skills are often in demand. Our job board might have some cool ideas for you. As to your other uncertainties, I think you should practice doing “cheap tests” such as a small project over evenings/weekends, or talking to people who are already working in the roles you’re considering about what their job looks like. Conferences can be great for this.
Hi Mokhantso, thanks for the question. I think some of the advice I gave in this other comment might apply: it can be hard to find opportunities in some situations, but no one has a monopoly on applying these principles to effectively reduce suffering and save lives. One option might be to look at Charity Entrepreneurship’s charity incubation program to start a health charity of your own inspired by these principles. If you are able to join the civil service, you might implement effective programs and build state capacity- for example I know Lead Elimination Project has worked closely with government officials in various countries to help implement their program. In the future I’d also encourage you to look out for regional EAGx conferences that you might attend to learn more and network with high impact health professionals, such as the EAGx Nigeria conference that just happened. And I’d definitely keep an eye on ProbablyGood’s job board and resources.
I’m not sure if this is a full answer to your question, though. I feel for your situation and admire that you want to use your career to reduce suffering and have a positive impact.
Hi Clare! I think this varies a lot by industry. For one example, here is a guide to policy/government resumes with some tips and examples. In general I think tailoring your resume to the specific posting and emphasizing the relevant skills can be useful, just be sure to accurately represent your experience. Paying close attention to the job posting can also help you try to get in the mindset of a hiring manager. But it can be hard to know specific answers from the outside. I think this is why networking among colleagues, peers, hiring managers in your industry, etc for informal advice and conversations can help model others’ expectations. For example I could see you discussing this at an EAG or EAGx conference.
A similar question has been answered a couple times in this thread, so I’d encourage reviewing those comments. Hopefully this technical AI safety upskilling resources list can help- it has advice from experts, overviews of the field, fellowships and courses, etc.
Hi Kamil, this sounds like a great approach so far. I don’t have a complete answer, but wanted to flag a couple ideas. For freelance, fractional, or volunteer gigs, networking and building relationships can often really help. This might mean going to EAGx Berlin in October, doing outreach to organizations whose work you respect, or continuing to ‘work in public’ by putting yourself out there on the forum/twitter/substack/whatever. The EA Opportunities Board sometimes has cool projects as well.
You mention hoping to land a role in Global Health and Development. I try to flag to advisees that this is unfortunately a really difficult time to be job searching in that field- the USAID and broader funding cuts have led to thousands of people job searching all at once, and many orgs have had to cut back on hiring. You might’ve already known that, but I don’t want you to feel discouraged if you’re not finding traction at the moment. Keep focusing on core skills and getting ‘so good they can’t ignore you.’ I really like this post on what skills you need to be successful in operations, and how to identify and develop them.
Lastly, I’d also recommend Consultants for Impact, who have career advice tailored to consultants trying to use their specific skillset for good.
I’m glad to hear you’re excited about this! I made a list of technical AI safety upskilling resources for someone in your position. I highly recommend the “Shallow review...” article to get a broad overview of the field and see which research agendas excite you and match your potential skillset. Testing your fit with small projects on evenings/weekends can help you do this as well. There are a few “expert advice” articles in there that can speak to object level skills, though it will vary by sub-field and by research engineer vs research scientist roles, etc.
In my opinion this is a great field for self-directed learners. There is so much out in the open on the internet (courses listed in the above link), so many arxiv.org papers to read, so much discussion happening out in the open on twitter or Alignment Forum or here on the EA Forum, etc. I’d recommend sharing your work in public once you have some cool results to throw on GitHub or in a post, even if you’re just implementing a paper or exploring part of a research methodology. It’ll be valuable to make your skills legible and get feedback as you develop them. Relatedly, networking can be really valuable for hearing what projects or research agendas others are excited about and getting more concrete feedback. Conferences can be one way to do this, but so can BlueDot courses, local university AI safety or EA groups, outreach to alumni or academics in your network, etc. Try to be succinct and specific when you do such outreach, engaging with their work in particular.
I’m less familiar with the EU, but I can give my big picture overview of the “be in the room to shape decisions” theory of change versus “prepare great policy proposals to have ready on the shelf” theory of change. I think both are valuable and are sometimes two sides of the same coin. (In my experience) legislative staffers and key decision makers are busy, putting out five different fires at once and moving between various portfolios. They’re really sharp generalists who pull from outside expertise- sometimes from think tanks with capacity to do the deeper research and find the policy levers. Both are important, but to assess the need you might ask yourself “do we have a dearth of excellent policy proposals in a well-communicated package? or do we have many of them, but they aren’t breaking through to key decision makers?”
Also, a lot of this should come down to your personal fit: do you have more of a comparative advantage in generalist quick decision making, writing succinct action-relevant memos, acting as a ‘node in a network’ of other experts, using lots of social stamina, etc? If so, maybe working within established legislative/government role makes sense for you. Or do you think you’d be better at longer horizon research, deep wonky details, communicating technical insights to a broader audience, etc? Then maybe think tanks might be the right fit. I’d recommend looking at the job postings for roles in both areas and checking where your skills fit in.
I should note there can often be overlap and this is just a general picture—many civil servants are deep researchers, some legislative staffers’ jobs are different from how I described, etc. I really like this “testing your fit for policy” guide from EmergingTechPolicy.org to assess where your skills might best fit.
Thanks for the question! I agree with what Tom Rowlands wrote in his response, and just want to add a couple things. The world is full of neglected problems that cause a lot of harm, and people working in the information economy don’t have a monopoly on identifying or solving them. For example, your question reminded me of Jesse Smith’s article in Asterisk Magazine about HVAC, indoor air quality, and pandemic prevention. Jesse is an HVAC technician that has been following the EA community and its ideas for years, and I think he thoughtfully applied the framework to his area of expertise. I’d imagine that firsthand arguments like this could help policymakers improve indoor air quality, such as Alex Bores’ bill in New York State.
So applying rare and valuable skills to a pressing problem can take many forms. I’m not sure what your version of this is, but I bet there is something. We’re lucky that for all its flaws, the internet helps us “work in public” to make our skills legible and apply them to real problems.
My Notes from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ by Cal Newport
This is really cool! I’ve found Policy Engine’s tax calculator so useful for our personal household income, glad this specific calculator exists now
Interesting post! Smil is great on this. His (poorly named) book How The World Really Works is excellent and has a chapter on fertilizers.
I’ve done some research on sustainable transitions in the concrete industry, which is another high capital expenditure/low margin product that requires innovation. It contributes ~4-8% to global CO2 emissions and is expected to rise. I wouldn’t say concrete is as important for wellbeing as fertilizer, but it follows the same pattern that the developing world needs green innovations, not de-growth.
I’m skeptical that direct investments in fertilizer or R&D would meet GiveWell’s 10x cash transfers threshold, at least in the short/medium term. For the fertilizer itself, it might be cheaper to subsidize imports of food from more productive regions. For R&D, cleantech breakthroughs typically start in university or private research labs, requiring significant investment without guaranteed returns. One approach might be to follow the Good Food Institute’s model of $ spent persuading governments to unlock $$$ at the scale required for these problems. (Exciting to note that alternative proteins are also a high capital expenditure/low margin product which requires innovation to overcome climate barriers. I think this is a common pattern policymakers should be more aware of, trying to get the same learning-curve benefits solar had). Low emission concrete is often held back by regulatory barriers, I wonder if the same is true for fertilizer?
Lastly, I’m not sure how neglected this is in the overall development/climate space. You describe a bunch of ongoing research and investment- what is the marginal benefit of the next EA dollar compared to other causes? I’d be interested to hear more about that aspect of the problem!
Congrats on admission to Carleton! I’m finishing my MA in political science there this summer. We’d be happy to have you in the EA Carleton Discord if you haven’t joined yet :) I’m not aware of any specific internships, but I can connect you with some people who might be. Feel free to reach out!
If it passes, Canada’s proposed AI and Data Act (part of Bill C-27) will almost certainly involve hiring new employees at Innovation Canada. ISED also has staff working to support the AI startup ecosystem in Canada. Effective Altruism Canada is building momentum, and I know AI Governance and Safety (AIGS) Canada is working on advocacy.
Hi Libby! I’m glad you’re applying broadly to a range of roles. I think consulting can provide a solid foundation for generalist skills, but if you’re able to find work for a directly impactful organization that aligns with your values, I’d encourage you to consider that. Sometimes these organizations can provide valuable networks, growth opportunities, and context for the pressing problems you care about. In addition, many impactful causes allow you to work on personal projects in your evenings/weekends to upskill if ops isn’t your goal forever (BlueDot courses, personal writing projects, putting work on a GitHub, etc.) Depending on where you work, consulting sometimes provides less work life balance to continue this kind of learning.
Without knowing your specific cause area interests and longer term goals, it’s hard to say more. But I’d encourage you to check out Consultants for Impact’s resources on the pros and cons of a consulting career, as well as 80,000 Hours’ many guides (high impact ops, top problems, etc.)