Dive into our most in-depth research on careers
The idea this week: your career choices may be much more important than you think — and we have a lot of resources to help you think them through.
Your career is one of your biggest opportunities to make a difference in the world and also have a rewarding and interesting life.
That’s why we wrote our career guide — to help people create a career plan that’s aimed at having a positive impact and a fulfilling career.
But there’s a lot of ground to cover, so we couldn’t do it all in a single book.
That’s why we wrote our advanced series. It covers our most in-depth research on questions like:
- What does it mean to “make a difference”?
- What is “longtermism,” and why does it matter?
- Is it ever OK to take a harmful job?
- Can we balance doing what we love with having a positive impact?
- What role should finding your personal strengths play in your career?
- How should you coordinate with others when trying to do good?
- How long should you explore different career options?
- And a whole lot more!
We hope the articles in our advanced series help you tackle these questions and accelerate you along your path to an impactful career.
See the whole series here or just browse selected topics below.
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Making a difference
- What is social impact? A definition
- Longtermism: a call to protect future generations
- Is it ever OK to take a harmful job in order to do more good? An in-depth analysis
Part 3: Choosing a problem
- Why the problem you work on is the biggest driver of your impact
- The case for reducing existential risks
- What are the most pressing world problems?
Part 4: Contribution
- In which career can you make the biggest contribution?
- The best solutions are far more effective than others
Part 5: Personal fit
- How much do people differ in productivity? What the evidence says.
- How to identify your personal strengths
- Should you play to your comparative advantage when choosing your career?
Part 6: Strategy
- Be more ambitious: a rational case for dreaming big (if you want to do good)
- Doing good together: how to coordinate effectively and avoid single-player thinking
- Career exploration: when should you settle?
- How to balance impact and doing what you love
- Ways people trying to do good accidentally make things worse, and how to avoid them
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