“There is no sorting hat in EA” by ElliotTep

<p><strong> Summary</strong></p><ul> <li> My sense is some EAs act like/hope they will be assigned the perfect impactful career by some combination of 80,000 Hours recommendations (and similar) and ‘perceived consensus views in EA’.</li><li> But, your life is full of specific factors, many impactful jobs haven’t yet been spotted by other EAs and career advice is importantly iterative.</li><li> Instead of simply deferring, I recommend a combination of:<ul> <li> Your own hard work figuring out your path to impact.</li><li> (Still) Integrating expert advice.</li><li> Support from the community, and close connections who know your context.</li></ul></li></ul><p> Thank you for the thoughtful feedback from Alex Rahl-Kaplan, Alix Pham, Caitlin Borke, Claude, Matt Reardon, and Michelle Hutchinson for making this post better. Claude also kindly offered to take the blame for all the mistakes I might have made.</p><p><strong> Introduction</strong></p><p> Question: How do you figure out how to do the most good with your career?</p><p data-internal-id="ftnt_ref1" id="ftnt_ref1">Answer [...]</p> <p>---</p><p><strong>Outline:</strong></p><p>(00:03) Summary</p><p>(01:06) Introduction</p><p>(02:58) Why there isn’t an EA sorting hat</p><p>(03:24) 1. Your life is full of specific factors to incorporate (aka personal fit)</p><p>(05:04) 2. EA-branded jobs are scarce and many impactful jobs aren’t on EA job boards</p><p>(05:59) 3. You need to have your own internal model of how to do good</p><p>(07:00) 4. Career advice isn’t once-and-done, it's iterative.</p><p>(07:55) Why do we expect a sorting hat?</p><p>(08:12) 1. Choosing an impactful career is hard, deferring is tempting</p><p>(08:48) 2. The 80,000 elephants in the room</p><p>(09:41) 3. Givewell and other charity recommendations</p><p>(10:33) What are we supposed to do instead?</p><p>(10:56) 1. Your own hard work</p><p>(11:20) 2. Advice from experts</p><p>(12:10) 3. Support from community</p><p>(13:09) Final thoughts</p> <p><i>The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.</i> </p><p>---</p> <p><b>First published:</b><br/> December 18th, 2024 </p> <p><b>Source:</b><br/> <a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5zzbzbYZcocoLnLif/there-is-no-sorting-hat-in-ea?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Source+URL+in+episode+description&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5zzbzbYZcocoLnLif/there-is-no-sorting-hat-in-ea</a> </p> <p>---</p> <p>Narrated by <a href="https://type3.audio/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Narrated+by+TYPE+III+AUDIO&utm_term=ea_forum&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TYPE III AUDIO</a>.</p>