Link to original article
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Interested in EA/longtermist research careers? Here are my top recommended resources, published by MichaelA on June 26, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. In the past ~2.5 years, I've very often given career advice to people in the EA community. This post is my up-to-date, prioritized list of recommended resources for people who are interested in research careers, longtermism-aligned careers, and/or working at EA orgs (rather than e.g. high-impact roles at non-EA orgs that work on relevant topics). The more you're interested in each of those three things, the more likely it is that this post will be useful to you - but I expect it would also be useful to many people interested in just one or two of those things. This post is also likely to be more useful to people who are earlier in their relevant career journeys, since many of the resources will be well-known or unnecessary for people with more relevant experience. Will these resources be useful to you? Hard to say, as I don't know you or what you already know! But this post itself should only take a few minutes to read, and then you can make your own decision about which links to open and how closely to engage with them. These resources should hopefully help you have an impact, build your career capital (e.g., knowledge, skills, connections, and credentials), & test your personal fit for various roles, and find other good advice or valuable opportunities for doing those things. This post won't itself give you many specific tips. I've bolded the resources that I expect will typically be most useful. Behold! The herald resources: Things you could apply to Note: I suggest you don’t spend too long thinking about the pros and cons of applying to an opportunity (e.g., a job, grant, degree program, or internship). Assuming the initial application wouldn’t take you long, if it seems worth thinking hard about, you should probably just apply instead. I and Akash elaborate on this in Don’t think, just apply! (usually). You could use the 80,000 Hours Job Board to find listings of jobs relevant to effective altruism, including jobs that could help in building skills and testing fit. You could apply to EA-aligned research training programs or internships. You can find lists of such programs here and here. I previously put together a list of EA funding opportunities, and noted: “I strongly encourage people to consider applying for one or more of these things. Given how quick applying often is and how impactful funded projects often are, applying is often worthwhile in expectation even if your odds of getting funding aren’t very high. (I think the same basic logic applies to job applications.)” These funding opportunities could be used to support a very wide range of activities, such as research, career exploration and planning, community building, and entrepreneurship. You could apply for coaching from Effective Thesis or check our their resources if you're working on a thesis or other piece of academic research or considering doing so. You could subscribe to the Effective Altruism Newsletter to stay up to date with the effective altruism community and get updates about new job opportunities. Other sources of career advice 80,000 Hours have a lot of valuable guidance on having more social impact with your career. In particular, I often suggest people check out their in-depth process and template for career planning and apply for their free career advising. If you're reading this post, you've almost certainly heard of 80,000 Hours and know they have a career planning process and a career advising service. But I still find that many people who are keen to talk to me for career advice haven't actually worked through 80k's process or applied for their advising service. In most such cases, I strongly suggest actually doing so! In 2...