We are no longer accepting expressions of interest for this role. Please check our work with us page or job board to learn about future opportunities at 80,000 Hours.

80,000 Hours is considering hiring a headhunting lead to build out the headhunting service we provide to other organisations. They will work with the Director of 1-on-1 to set and execute a strategy which uses our team of advisors’ unique network to find and recommend talented and altruistic candidates for high impact roles.

We’re looking for someone who:

  • Has multiple years of experience in project management, research, or strategy, this could include roles in consulting, product management, or at early-stage startups or nonprofits.
  • Enjoys thinking about and working with different people in a variety of contexts, including maintaining relationships with major stakeholders, and developing models of people’s strengths to match them to specific roles.
  • Has a strong understanding of 80,000 Hours’ focus areas.

This role is based in London, UK. The salary will vary based on your skills and experience, but the starting salary for someone with five years of relevant experience would be in excess of £70,000 per year.

To express interest in this role, please complete this form.

Note: This announcement is for an expression of interest, rather than a job opening. We’ll likely launch a formal hiring round within the next month or two, but aren’t sure exactly when. By filling out this form you’re giving us more information about who might be interested in this role. This information will help us decide whether to run a hiring round and how to structure it.

If we do run a formal hiring round, we’ll email everyone who filled out this expression of interest, inviting them to fill out an application for the role.

If you don’t hear back from us, we probably decided not to run a hiring round; please don’t take it as a rejection! You should feel very welcome to apply to future ads for 80,000 Hours positions (which we’ll list here and on our job board).

About 80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. The effective altruism community, which we are part of, is growing in reach. But how do we make sure people are pursuing the right kinds of work in order to turn all those resources into long-term impact? This is the problem 80,000 Hours is trying to solve.

We’ve had over eight million visitors to our website (with over 100,000 hours of reading time per year), and more than 3,000 people have now told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. 80,000 Hours is also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.

About the 1-on-1 team

The 1-on-1 team at 80,000 Hours provides free, personalised career advice via video calls with our advisors. In 2022 we spoke to well over a thousand people who were looking to make a positive impact with their career, and we think offering tailored job recommendations is a key way we can help. Over the last two years we’ve grown the advising team and maintained a small headhunting service, providing shortlists of great candidates for a few especially exciting roles. We are now looking to build headhunting out into a key part of the value that the 1-on-1 team provides. You can learn more about our work and see some examples of people the 1-on-1 team has helped on our website.

The role

As headhunting lead, you would:

  • Design and lead a headhunting process that makes use of the unique network the 1-on-1 team has built to help fill the world’s most impactful roles.
  • Develop and maintain strong working relationships with hiring managers and team leads at key organisations.
  • Lead on the 1-on-1 team’s internal data strategy, finding ways to make the most of both our internal tracking and the large amount of data people choose to share with us.
  • Work closely with the 1-on-1 and Job Board teams to prioritise between organisations and roles.
    You would be managed by Michelle Hutchinson, Director of 1-on-1.

Who we’re looking for

We’d be most excited to hear from people who closely match the following:

  • Has multiple years of experience in project management, research, or strategy – this could include roles in consulting, product management, or at early-stage startups or nonprofits.
  • Enjoys working with different people in a variety of contexts, including maintaining relationships with major stakeholders, and developing working models of people’s strengths tomatch them to specific roles.
  • Has a strong understanding of 80,000 Hours’ focus areas.

In addition, we’d be especially excited to find someone who:

  • Thinks critically, and communicates clearly about their team’s strategy, consistently prioritising well in order to maintain focus on the most important things.
  • Is comfortable approaching thorny, open-ended questions from multiple perspectives, moving between big picture thinking and getting stuck into the details of data analysis as the problem demands.
  • Is an excellent manager, and is excited to coach and develop the skills of those on their team.
  • Has experience with any of the following:
    • Longtermist and or existential risk strategy, particularly around talent allocation
    • CRM software, especially Salesforce
    • Hiring

We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to apply for roles for which they meet many but not all the suggested attributes. We’d especially like to encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to express interest in this role, even if you don’t meet all the suggested criteria.

Salary and benefits

This is a full-time role, based at our London office (but you can work remotely for up to one third of the year if needed). We are able to support visa applications. The salary will vary based on your skills and experience, but the starting salary for someone with five years of relevant experience would be in excess of £70,000 per year.

Our benefits include:

  • The option to use 10% of your time for self development
  • 25 days of paid holiday, plus bank holidays
  • Standard UK pension with 3% contribution from employer
  • Private medical insurance
  • Long-term disability insurance
  • Shower facilities, a small gym, and free food provided at our London office

We are no longer accepting expressions of interest for this role. Please check our work with us page or job board to learn about future opportunities at 80,000 Hours.