“There is no sorting hat in EA” by ElliotTep

Summary 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’. 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. Instead of simply deferring, I recommend a combination of: Your own hard work figuring out your path to impact. (Still) Integrating expert advice. Support from the community, and close connections who know your context. 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. Introduction Question: How do you figure out how to do the most good with your career?Answer [...] ---Outline:(00:03) Summary(01:06) Introduction(02:58) Why there isn’t an EA sorting hat(03:24) 1. Your life is full of specific factors to incorporate (aka personal fit)(05:04) 2. EA-branded jobs are scarce and many impactful jobs aren’t on EA job boards(05:59) 3. You need to have your own internal model of how to do good(07:00) 4. Career advice isn’t once-and-done, it's iterative.(07:55) Why do we expect a sorting hat?(08:12) 1. Choosing an impactful career is hard, deferring is tempting(08:48) 2. The 80,000 elephants in the room(09:41) 3. Givewell and other charity recommendations(10:33) What are we supposed to do instead?(10:56) 1. Your own hard work(11:20) 2. Advice from experts(12:10) 3. Support from community(13:09) Final thoughts The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: December 18th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5zzbzbYZcocoLnLif/there-is-no-sorting-hat-in-ea --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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