Benjamin Todd

Sales and negotiation.

Similar to marketing and management, sales skills can be hugely useful, whatever your job, and whether or not it has sales in the title.

If you want to hire people, promote an important cause, rent an office, get a job, or do almost anything, you'll need to sell.

Sales can feel adversarial, like you're trying to persuade people to do something against their interest.

But the best kind of sales is collaborative.

It's about finding ways to meet the needs of both parties.

Much of good selling comes from genuinely trying to benefit and build good relationships with people.

We give you some practical advice on how to build connections in Appendix 2, and a list of some of the best resources we've found to develop these skills in Appendix 7.

And develop expertise in China or another important emerging economy.

China has grown rapidly into an important global power and is increasingly an important player in many of our top global problems, as well as the economy more broadly.

However, very few people outside China have much knowledge of it.

For these reasons, becoming a China specialist may be a very impactful career path, especially with a focus on global catastrophic risks.

Knowledge of China could also open up other positions in business and policy.

with the caveat that recent tension between the US and China could mean that spending significant time in China could exclude you from certain government positions in other countries.

We can make a similar case about India, and to a lesser extent about Russia, the Arabic world, and Brazil.

5.

Do anything where you might excel, even if it's a bit random.

We came across someone who had a significant chance of becoming a magician and maybe landing a national TV show in India, and was deciding between that and... consulting.

It seemed to us that the magician path was more exciting since the skills and connections within media would be more unusual and valuable for work on the world's most pressing problems than those of another consultant.

A common mistake is to think that building career capital always means doing something that gives you formal credentials, like a law degree, or is prestigious, like consulting.