The 80,000 Hours Career Guide — Find a fulfilling career that does good
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Introduction: Why read this guide?
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You have 80,000 hours in your career. That’s a long time. Spend one or two of those hours on this guide, to help you work out how to use the rest. W...
Part 1: What makes for a dream job?
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Research shows that to have a fulfilling career, you should do something you’re good at that makes the world a better place. Don’t aim for...
Part 2: Can one person make a difference? What the evidence says.
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Many common ways to do good, such as becoming a doctor, have less impact than you might first think. Other, more unconventional options, have ...
Part 3: Three ways anyone can make a difference, no matter their job
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: With the right approach, you can make a major difference to the lives of others without changing jobs, or making a major sacrifice. You can do...
Part 4: Want to do good? Here’s how to choose an area to focus on.
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: To maximise your impact, work on areas (1) that are large in scale, (2) that others neglect, and (3) where it’s possible to make progress. M...
Part 5: The world’s biggest problems and why they’re not what first comes to mind
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Most people in rich countries who aim to do good work on health, poverty, and education in their home country. But health in poor countries is...
Part 6: Which jobs help people the most?
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: When we think of jobs that help people, medicine, teaching, and charity work are what first come to mind. But these are not always the highest...
Part 7: Which jobs put you in the best long-term position?
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Especially early in your career, take options that will give you career capital — skills, connections, credentials, character, and runway th...
Part 8: How to find the right career for you
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Don’t expect to figure out what you’re best at right away, especially through introspection, going with your gut, or career tests. Instead...
Part 9: How to make your career plan
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Rather than try to pinpoint the single best option, accept that your plan is likely to change. But don’t try to “keep your options open”...
Part 10: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Don’t just send out your CV in response to job listings. Get leads through your connections, and prove that you can do the work by actually ...
Part 11: One of the most powerful ways to improve your career — join a community.
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Answer: Join a community of people working in the same area as you. You’ll get hundreds of connections at once. And two people working together effe...
The end: A cheery final note — imagining your deathbed
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We sum up the whole guide in a few minutes.
Appendix A: The meaning of making a difference
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lots of people say they want to “make a difference,” “do good,” “have a social impact,” or “make the world a better place” — but the...
Appendix B: All the evidence-based advice we found on how to be more successful in any job
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The trouble with self-help advice is that it’s often based on barely any evidence.Much other advice is just one person’s opinion, or useless clich...
Appendix C: Four biases to avoid in career decisions
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last couple of decades, a large and growing body of research has emerged which shows that our decisions are far from rational. We did a surve...
Appendix D: How to make tough career decisions
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Appendix E: Is it ever OK to take a harmful job in order to do more good? An in-depth analysis
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Appendix H: Career review summaries
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As part of our research, we’ve evaluated different careers: how likely people are to succeed in them, how much good they could do in them, and how t...
Appendix G: Additional resources
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Appendix F: College advice
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Appendix I: Problem profile summaries
03 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We aim to list issues where each additional person can have the most positive impact. So we focus on problems that others neglect, which are solvable,...