Find a high-impact career

Career planning can be tough to do by yourself. If you’d like to use your career to help others as much as possible, we’d like to help you.

Over the last decade, we’ve spoken to over 2,000 people.

We can help you choose your focus, make connections, and find a fulfilling job to tackle one of the world’s most important problems.

Apply to speak with us

How we can help

Whether you’re changing careers, just starting out, or are already on an impactful path but have questions or uncertainties, our advisors are here to help. Here’s what we can do:

Review your options

We can talk through the problems you’re hoping to work on and the career options you’re considering — both in the long and short term. We might even suggest some you haven’t thought about. We can help you tackle your uncertainties — what the different options are like, which seem most impactful, and the best routes into paths you’re considering.

Make introductions

We can introduce you to experts and hiring managers in relevant fields. Advisees have found these connections particularly valuable in learning more and progressing in their chosen career path.

Suggest next career steps

We can help you work out practical next steps, such as suggesting promising job opportunities and supporting you to get funding.

For more on what speaking with us is like and how we can help, listen to this podcast with one of our advisors.

How it works

1. Apply

Fill in our brief application form. Tell us your current thoughts on career options so we can work out how to help best.

2.Prepare

If we think we can help, we’ll send you a link to book your call and ask for some extra information.

3.Have a one-on-one call

You’ll have a video call to talk through your career with one of our advisors and work out next steps.

4.Stay in touch

In some cases, your advisor will stay in touch with you after the call if they can continue supporting your career.

Who we can help

We’re most helpful for people who:

Take an analytical approach to social impact and career choice.
Aim to use their career to do the most good, and take seriously the idea of promoting welfare over the long term. (You can read more about what we think it means to help others as effectively as possible on our key ideas page.)
Are interested in the problems we think are most pressing, which you can read about in our problem profiles.

If you’re not sure about whether to apply, we recommend that you do. It doesn’t take long and just filling out the form might help you think through your career. Plus, you can always apply again in the future.

In 2021, we spoke to:

About 50% of people who applied
About 70 people every month

If it doesn’t seem like we’re the best people for you to talk to, we might be able to put you in touch with someone else instead of us or offer you some resources that we think will help. We offer most people we don’t speak to an introduction to someone else or a free book.

If you know someone else who is interested in 80,000 Hours and could benefit from speaking with us, then nominate a friend and we’ll send you a free copy of The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef.

Apply to speak with our team

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Our advising team

Habiba Islam

Habiba previously served as the Senior Administrator for the Future of Humanity Institute and the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford. Before that, she qualified as a barrister and worked in management consulting at PwC, specialising in operations for public and third sector clients.

Michelle Hutchinson

Michelle holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford, where her thesis was on global priorities research. While completing that, she did the operational set-up of the Centre for Effective Altruism and then became executive director of Giving What We Can. She came to us fresh from setting up the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford.

Alex Lawsen

Alex studied physics at Oxford, after which he completed Teach First and taught physics and maths at King’s Maths School. Alongside teaching he worked for SoGive as a senior analyst. He’s a moderator and enthusiastic forecaster on Metaculus and has run occasional forecasting workshops, including for Cambridge Existential Risk Initiative, Stanford Existential Risk Initiative, and the LSE Arete fellowship.

Matt Reardon

Matt came to 80,000 Hours after three years of litigating for a top global law firm. Before that, he led Harvard Law School’s Effective Altruism student group. He continues to support EA groups at law schools and EA community building in the legal field more broadly, in part through his organisation of the Legal Topics in Effective Altruism virtual programme.

Some people we've helped

Of the hundreds of people we’ve advised, 95% would recommend us to a friend and 76% said they changed their career plans to something higher impact.

As a direct result of advising, I found a role as Assistant Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley, where I will contribute to shaping provably beneficial AI.
Rosie Campbell
Technical Program Manager
OpenAI

The advising team is incredibly well-researched and connected in AI safety. Their advice is far more insightful, personalized, and impact-focused than most of what I got from Google, self-reflection, or the peers or mentors I would typically go to.
Ethan Perez
Natural Language Processing PhD student
New York University

A huge thank you for offering this service! University career counselors tend to focus on finding job listings, networking, and tweaking a resume — but the big issues I was able to explore with 80,000 Hours were far more important to me in thinking about my career over the next 30 years.
Jessica Almy
Policy Director
The Good Food Institute

FAQ

What are you looking for in the application?

We aim to work with the people we can most help to have a great impact. This means we look for people who:

Make social impact one of their main career goals.
Take an analytical approach to social impact and career choice.
Are already somewhat familiar with the basic principles of social impact career choice as presented in our key ideas series.
Are interested in working on our pressing problems.
Have the ability to excel in a challenging career.

We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to call attention to their own achievements. We’d especially encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.

How much do I have to think about my career before applying? Do I have to have a career plan already?

You do not need to have a worked out career plan before applying. In fact, talking with us earlier in the process of planning might be better, so that we can help you answer some key uncertainties and work out where to focus your efforts.

If you have already done a lot of career planning, we’ll be happy to talk through your thoughts. But as long as you can write a couple of paragraphs in the application form setting out your current thinking (even if you have a lot of uncertainties) then that is enough for applying.

How much do I need to read before applying?

To get the most out of the call, it’s helpful for you to have some familiarity with some of 80,000 Hours’ content or the wider effective altruism movement. We find that it’s best for people to absorb these ideas at their own pace before talking. But we know there’s so much you could read and want to emphasise that you don’t need to have thought about everything before applying. There’s a list of resources you might have read in the application form — but don’t worry, we don’t expect you to have read all of those.

If you aren’t that familiar with 80,000 Hours’ content, we recommend you learn more before applying. For example, you can:

Listen to our 10-part podcast series Effective Altruism: An Introduction. Together these give you the most essential information you need about some of the world’s most pressing problems, and how to work out how to do the most good.
Check out a book like The Precipice by philosopher Toby Ord, which discusses the catastrophic risks that threaten the future of humanity and the reasons for taking those issues really seriously.
Sign up for a free online introductory or in-depth EA programme. The programmes run regularly and they are a great way to learn more about the ideas alongside others.

As a rule of thumb, if you’ve done at least one of the above and the ideas have resonated with you, then it might be worth applying to speak with our team now.

What if I don’t know which problem to work on?

Working out what problem to work on is an important factor in our approach to planning an impactful career, but we know it is a difficult question to form a view on. Talking this through with people is one of the most helpful things we can do on our calls. So if you’re unsure about which problem to work on, don’t let that stop you applying.

What if I’m still studying, or just starting out in my career?

We speak with people at a wide range of different points in their career, including students. We can often be useful even if you don’t yet have a firm idea of what career seems like a good fit for you.

For example, we might be able to help you think about what directions seem most promising to try out first, talk through what subjects to study, suggest promising opportunities you can do during your vacations, and connect you with more people to build your network.

What if I’m later on in my career?

We speak with people at a wide range of different points in their career, including people who are mid- or late-career. We work closely with many organisations that are working on the problems we think are most pressing. They are often keen to find people with significant experience, and we might be able to flag particularly relevant roles — especially if you’re willing to be flexible.

What if I'm already very involved in the effective altruism community?

Even if you’re very involved in the effective altruism community, you may find it useful to spend some focused time talking to an advisor about your career questions. We have helped people who are already highly engaged with the community by talking through their uncertainties about their career plans as well as introducing them to potential new employers, funders, and mentors. We can also double check you haven’t missed any of our relevant research.

Why is this service free?

Our donors cover the cost of this service because they see it as an opportunity for impact — many people we advise go on to have a greater impact over the course of their career than they would have otherwise.

When will I find out if we can have a call?

We’ll let you know the result of your application within a month, and usually within a week. If you have an urgent decision to make, we encourage you to put that in your application, and email [email protected].

Which advisor will I get to speak to?

You can choose which advisor to book a call with when we send you the details for the call.

I’m finding applying to be intimidating. Do you have any advice?

We understand that it can seem intimidating to apply, but we’d encourage you to give it a try if you think it might be helpful for you. If it helps, you can check out this Twitter thread from one of our advisors, Habiba, about the range of people she talks to in advising.

In particular, we know that things like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can often make people less willing to put themselves forward or call attention to their achievements. We really encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply — we want our service to help people as much as possible.

What happens if you don’t talk to me?

We sincerely regret that we can’t advise everyone who applies. We read every application individually and are thankful that you took the time to apply. It’s really touching to read about people who have come across 80,000 Hours and are excited about using their careers to help others.

We aim to talk to the people we think we can help the most. But even if we can’t talk to you, we often suggest someone else you can talk to or provide more resources (such as a free book!).

If we can’t speak with you, that does not mean we think you won’t have a highly impactful career. Whether we can be helpful to you sometimes depends on contingent factors like whether one of our advisers happens to know of a role or introduction right now that might be a good fit for you. Also, unfortunately, it’s impossible for us to know everyone’s situation well enough to be completely sure we’re speaking to the right people. We try to do the best with the information we have from the application form but we might still make mistakes that aren’t a reflection on you at all.

You’re very welcome to re-apply, particularly if your situation changes. In the meantime, it might be worth reading our key ideas series and trying out our career planning process, which we developed to help people think through their career decisions. You can also get involved in our community to get help from other people trying to do good with their careers.

Who should I contact if I have further questions?

Please email us at [email protected].

More testimonials

I was introduced to some experts in the field and others who were interested in following a similar path. These introductions have played a big part in me obtaining an internship at MILA. 80,000 Hours also helped me to be awarded an EA grant for pursuing research related to AI safety.
Dr Zac Kenton
Research Scientist
DeepMind

I am very grateful to 80,000 Hours. The career advising was invaluable in providing the confidence and the direction that I needed to pursue a PhD in computer science. Since the advising session, Peter continues to introduce me via email to influential individuals in relevant fields.
Emma Rocheteau
PhD Student, Machine Learning
University of Cambridge

80,000 Hours advising showed me that I could pursue a career that was both ethically and personally rewarding. They showed me that my job horizons — and therefore opportunities to do good — were broader than I had thought, even with my heavy involvement in effective altruism.
Cullen O'Keefe
Associate Counsel for Policy & Governance
OpenAI