Curated vacancies

Global health & poverty

• The American Association for the Advancement of Science offers Science & Technology Policy Fellowships, which provide hands-on opportunities to apply scientific knowledge and technical skills to important societal challenges. Fellows are assigned for one year to a selected area of the United States federal government, where they participate in policy development and implementation.
• The Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University produces data-driven research at the intersection of security and technology (including AI, advanced computing, and biotechnology) and provides nonpartisan analysis to the policy community. See current vacancies.
• The Centre for the Governance of AI is focused on building a global research community that’s dedicated to helping humanity navigate the transition to a world with advanced AI. See current vacancies.
• The Centre for Long-Term Resilience facilitates access to the expertise of leading academics who work on long-term global challenges, such as AI, biosecurity, and risk management policy. It helps convert cutting-edge research into actionable recommendations that are grounded in the UK context.
• DeepMind is probably the largest research group developing general machine intelligence in the Western world. We’re only confident about recommending DeepMind roles working specifically on safety, ethics, policy, and security issues. See current vacancies.
• The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. Academics at FHI bring the tools of mathematics, philosophy, and social sciences to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects.
• The Legal Priorities Project is an independent, global research project founded by researchers from Harvard University. It conducts legal research that tackles the world’s most pressing problems, influenced by the principles of effective altruism and longtermism. See current vacancies.
• OpenAI was founded in 2015 with the goal of conducting research into how to make AI safe. It has received over $1 billion in funding commitments from the technology community. We’re only confident in recommending opportunities in their policy, safety, and security teams. See current vacancies.
• United States Congress (for example, as a congressional staffer).
• The United States Office of Science and Technology Policy works to maximise the benefits of science and technology to advance health, prosperity, security, environmental quality, and justice for all Americans.
• The United States Office of the Secretary of Defense is where top civilian defence decision-makers work with the secretary to develop policy, make operational and fiscal plans, manage resources, and evaluate programmes. See current vacancies.

• AI Safety Support works to reduce existential and catastrophic risk from AI by supporting everyone who wants to work on this problem, with a focus on helping new and aspiring AI safety researchers through career advice and community building.
• Alignment Research Center is a nonprofit research organisation working to align future machine learning systems with human interests. Its current work focuses on developing an ‘end-to-end’ alignment strategy that could be adopted in industry today while scaling gracefully to future machine learning systems. See current vacancies.
• Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. Their multidisciplinary team’s research interests include natural language, human feedback, scaling laws, reinforcement learning, code generation, and interpretability. See current vacancies.
• The Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence aims to develop the conceptual and technical wherewithal to reorient the general thrust of AI research towards provably beneficial systems. See current vacancies.
• The Center on Long-term Risk addresses worst-case risks from the development and deployment of advanced AI systems. It is currently focused on conflict scenarios as well as technical and philosophical aspects of cooperation. Their work includes conducting interdisciplinary research, making and recommending grants, and building a community of professionals and other researchers around these priorities. See current vacancies.
• DeepMind is probably the largest research group developing general machine intelligence in the Western world. We’re only confident about recommending DeepMind roles working specifically on safety, ethics, policy, and security issues. See current vacancies.
• The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. Academics at FHI bring the tools of mathematics, philosophy, and social sciences to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects.
• The Machine Intelligence Research Institute was one of the first groups to become concerned about the risks from machine intelligence in the early 2000s, and has published a number of papers on safety issues and how to resolve them. See current vacancies.
• OpenAI was founded in 2015 with the goal of conducting research into how to make AI safe. It has received over $1 billion in funding commitments from the technology community. We’re only confident in recommending opportunities in their policy, safety, and security teams. See current vacancies.
• Redwood Research conducts applied research to help align future AI systems with human interests. See current vacancies.

• Charity Entrepreneurship’s top meta charity ideas and ideas in global health, animal welfare, and mental health
• Ideas for megaprojects on the EA Forum
• Big biosecurity projects by Andrew Snyder-Beattie and Ethan Alley on the EA Forum
• Gaps in effective altruism by Michelle Hutchinson on the EA Forum
• Our profile on founding effective international development charities
• Alternative protein project ideas by the Good Food Institute (and you may also want to listen to our podcast with the founder, Bruce Friedrich)

• The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative works to improve human civilisation’s long-term prospects for survival and flourishing by providing free services and support to university research groups working to reduce existential risk. See current vacancies.
• The Center on Long-term Risk addresses worst-case risks from the development and deployment of advanced AI systems. It is currently focused on conflict scenarios as well as technical and philosophical aspects of cooperation. Their work includes conducting interdisciplinary research, making and recommending grants, and building a community of professionals and other researchers around these priorities. See current vacancies.
• Effective Altruism Funds is a platform where you can donate to expert-led philanthropic ‘funds’ to maximise the effectiveness of your charitable donations.
• The Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research aims to promote academic work that addresses the question of how to use our scarce resources to improve the world as much as possible, with a particular focus on influencing the very long-run future. See current vacancies.
• Founders Pledge encourages entrepreneurs to make a legally binding commitment to donate at least 2% of their personal proceeds to charity when they sell their business. See current vacancies.
• FTX Foundation Group donates 1% of all net fees to the world’s most effective charities.
• The Gates Foundation is a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. See current vacancies.
• Generation Pledge is a community of inheritors who have committed to donate at least 10% of their inheritance to effective causes within five years of inheriting.
• Giving What We Can is a community of effective givers. It provides the support, community, and information that donors need to do the most good with their charitable giving. See current vacancies.
• Longview Philanthropy designs and executes custom giving strategies for major donors, with a focus on using evidence and reason to find the highest-impact opportunities to protect future generations. See current vacancies.
• Open Philanthropy uses an approach inspired by effective altruism to identify high-impact giving opportunities across a wide range of problem areas, shares this research freely online, and uses it to advise top philanthropists on where to give. See current vacancies. Disclaimer of conflict of interest: we have received a grant from Open Philanthropy.
• Rethink Priorities is a research organisation that conducts critical research to inform policymakers and major foundations about how to best help people and nonhuman animals in both the present and the long-term future — spanning everything from animal welfare to the threat of nuclear war. See current vacancies.
• Wikipedia’s list of wealthiest charitable foundations.

• 80,000 Hours — yes, that’s us. We research the careers that do the most good and help people pursue them. See our current vacancies.
• The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative works to improve human civilisation’s long-term prospects for survival and flourishing by providing free services and support to university research groups working to reduce existential risk. See current vacancies.
• The Centre for Effective Altruism works to coordinate the effective altruism community. Their projects include Effective Altruism Global, Effective Altruism Funds, Effective Altruism Grants, and Giving What We Can. See current vacancies. Disclaimer of conflict of interest: we are fiscally sponsored by the Centre for Effective Altruism.
• Effective Altruism Funds is a platform where you can donate to expert-led philanthropic ‘funds’ to maximise the effectiveness of your charitable donations.
• The Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research aims to promote academic work that addresses the question of how to use our scarce resources to improve the world as much as possible, with a particular focus on influencing the very long-run future. See current vacancies.
• GiveWell conducts thorough research to find the best charities available to help people in the developing world. See current vacancies.
• Global Challenges Project works to inspire a new generation of students to tackle the world’s most pressing problems with their careers.
• Longview Philanthropy designs and executes custom giving strategies for major donors, with a focus on using evidence and reason to find the highest-impact opportunities to protect future generations. See current vacancies.
• Magnify Mentoring supports, inspires, and connects a global community of people who are motivated to have a positive impact with their careers and lives — particularly those from traditionally underrepresented groups.
• Open Philanthropy uses an approach inspired by effective altruism to identify high-impact giving opportunities across a wide range of problem areas, shares this research freely online, and uses it to advise top philanthropists on where to give. See current vacancies. Disclaimer of conflict of interest: we have received a grant from Open Philanthropy.
• Rethink Priorities is a research organisation that conducts critical research to inform policymakers and major foundations about how to best help people and nonhuman animals in both the present and the long-term future — spanning everything from animal welfare to the threat of nuclear war. See current vacancies.

• The Centre for the Study of Existential Risks at Cambridge University is dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilisational collapse. See current vacancies.
• The Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research aims to promote academic work that addresses the question of how to use our scarce resources to improve the world as much as possible, with a particular focus on influencing the very long-run future. See current vacancies.
• The Global Priorities Institute is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford. It conducts foundational research that informs the decision-making of individuals and institutions seeking to do as much good as possible, using the tools of multiple academic disciplines (especially philosophy and economics) to explore the issues at stake. See current vacancies, or submit a general expression of interest.
• Longview Philanthropy designs and executes custom giving strategies for major donors, with a focus on using evidence and reason to find the highest-impact opportunities to protect future generations. See current vacancies.
• Open Philanthropy uses an approach inspired by effective altruism to identify high-impact giving opportunities across a wide range of problem areas, shares this research freely online, and uses it to advise top philanthropists on where to give. See current vacancies. Disclaimer of conflict of interest: we have received a grant from Open Philanthropy.
• Rethink Priorities is a research organisation that conducts critical research to inform policymakers and major foundations about how to best help people and nonhuman animals in both the present and the long-term future — spanning everything from animal welfare to the threat of nuclear war. See current vacancies.

• altLabs is a research nonprofit institution focused on the development and advancement of safety-promoting technologies. It prioritises thoughtful solutions with long-term positive impact on a global scale.
• The Center for International Security and Cooperation is Stanford University’s hub for researchers tackling some of the world’s most pressing security and international cooperation issues. See current vacancies.
• The Esvelt Lab is a group of biotechnologists working to cultivate wisdom and guard against catastrophe via evolutionary and ecological engineering. Projects span from robotics and machine learning, to preventing catastrophic misuse of biotechnology, to working with wild populations and ecosystems.
• The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. Academics at FHI bring the tools of mathematics, philosophy, and social sciences to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects.
• The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security explores how new policy approaches, scientific advances, and technological innovations can strengthen health security and save lives. See current vacancies.
• The Legal Priorities Project is an independent, global research project founded by researchers from Harvard University. It conducts legal research that tackles the world’s most pressing problems, influenced by the principles of effective altruism and longtermism. See current vacancies.
• The Nuclear Threat Initiative is a US nonpartisan think tank that works to prevent catastrophic attacks and accidents with nuclear, biological, radiological, chemical, and cyberweapons of mass destruction and disruption. See current vacancies.
• The Sabeti Lab at Harvard University uses computational methods and genomics to understand mechanisms of evolutionary adaptation in humans and pathogens. See current vacancies.
• The Secure DNA project is a global team of academic life scientists, cryptographers, and policy analysts working to develop an automated DNA screening system capable of secure and universal DNA synthesis, which will be freely available everywhere. See current vacancies.
• Telis Bioscience aims to radically accelerate drug development by building an antibody design engine to safely and effectively drug any novel target in hours, instead of months or years. See current vacancies.

• The Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University produces data-driven research at the intersection of security and technology (including AI, advanced computing, and biotechnology) and provides nonpartisan analysis to the policy community. See current vacancies.
• Concordia Consulting is currently focused on promoting the safe and responsible development of artificial intelligence. To do this, it advises and connects leaders from industry and academia in China, the United States, and Europe, drawing upon its deep cross-cultural expertise and an extensive network of advisers and collaborators.
• The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent and nonpartisan membership organisation, think tank, and publisher dedicated to helping stakeholders and interested citizens better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. See current vacancies.
• The Schwarzman Scholars programme is a one-year, fully-funded master’s programme at Tsinghua University in Beijing, designed to build a global community of future leaders who will deepen understanding between China and the rest of the world.
• The United Nations is the foremost forum to address issues that transcend national boundaries and cannot be resolved by any one country acting alone. See current vacancies.
• The United States Department of State leads America’s foreign policy to advance the interests and security of the American people. See current vacancies.
• The United States Office of the Secretary of Defense is where top civilian defence decision-makers work with the secretary to develop policy, make operational and fiscal plans, manage resources, and evaluate programmes. See current vacancies.
• The Yenching Scholars programme at Peking University aims to build bridges between China and the rest of the world through an interdisciplinary master’s programme in China Studies.

• AI Impacts works on forecasting progress in machine intelligence and predicting its likely impacts. See current vacancies.
• The Decision Lab of Professor Philip Tetlock is a socially conscious applied research firm that is dedicated to empowering the world to make better decisions. See current vacancies.
• Good Judgment was cofounded by Professor Philip Tetlock. This for-profit company maintains a global network of elite ‘superforecasters’ who collaborate to tackle clients’ forecasting questions with unparalleled accuracy.
• Metaculus is a community dedicated to generating accurate predictions about future real-world events by aggregating the collective wisdom, insight, and intelligence of its participants. See current vacancies.
• Open Philanthropy uses an approach inspired by effective altruism to identify high-impact giving opportunities across a wide range of problem areas, shares this research freely online, and uses it to advise top philanthropists on where to give. See current vacancies. Disclaimer of conflict of interest: we have received a grant from Open Philanthropy.
• The Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute aims to advance forecasting and epistemics to improve the long-term future of humanity, which it does by conducting research and making software.

Advocacy for animals on factory farms

• Animal Charity Evaluators conducts research to find the highest impact ways to help non-human animals. See current vacancies.
• The Humane League runs programmes, such as corporate campaigns and grassroots outreach, that aim to persuade individuals and organisations to adopt behaviours that reduce farmed animal suffering. See current vacancies.
• Animal Equality is a farmed animal advocacy organisation that conducts undercover investigations and promotes them online and through media outlets, as well as doing grassroots outreach. See current vacancies.
• Mercy for Animals engages in a variety of farmed animal advocacy programmes through undercover investigations of factory farms, legal advocacy and corporate outreach campaigns. See current vacancies.

Development of meat substitutes

• The Good Food Institute seeks out entrepreneurs and scientists to join or form start-ups focused on producing plant-based and cultured meat, and provides advice and lobbying to help them succeed. See current vacancies.
• Impossible Foods is creating plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, and has already created the widely-acclaimed Impossible Burger. See current vacancies.
• Beyond Meat creates plant-based meat alternatives that are sold in Whole Foods stores in the US. See current vacancies.
• New Harvest supports, funds, and promotes the development of animal products made without animals, such as cultured meat, milk and egg whites.

• GiveWell conducts thorough research to find the best charities available to help people in the developing world. See current vacancies.
• The Center for Global Development is a U.S. nonprofit think tank that focuses on international development. See current vacancies.
• Evidence Action scales proven interventions to improve life for the global poor. Their Deworm the World Initiative is one of GiveWell’s top-rated charities. See current vacancies.
• Charity Entrepreneurship helps people start new charities that have the potential to become recommended by GiveWell, such as Charity Science Health and Fortify Health.
• Against Malaria Foundation is one of charity evaluator GiveWell’s top charities and provides funding for antimalarial bed net distributions.
• Schistosomiasis Control Initiative is one of charity evaluator GiveWell’s top charities and works with governments across Sub-Saharan Africa and Yemen to develop national schistosomiasis control programmes.
• Innovations for Poverty Action is a nonprofit research and policy organisation which, since its inception in 2002, has conducted over 600 randomised controlled trials and other evaluations. See current vacancies.
• GiveDirectly, one of GiveWell’s top-rated charities, distributes unconditional cash transfers to people living in East Africa. See current vacancies.
• Any other organisation not already listed that’s recommended by GiveWell (see list) or that has received a GiveWell Incubation Grant (see list).

We think that social impact is a bit like other areas such as business, finance or the arts: to have an unusually large impact, you probably need to innovate in some way. This might mean coming up with a novel approach to a widely recognised problem, or it might mean deciding to work on problems that are currently neglected by society in general.

The question of which problems most warrant more attention right now partly depends on your moral philosophy. One idea that we take seriously is the moral significance of the way our actions affect future generations. Barring catastrophe, the vast majority of people who will ever live have yet to be born. This means that the value of passing on a better world – one that gives future generations a greater chance to lead flourishing lives – could be enormous.

In part for this reason, we are very concerned by the risk of existential catastrophes in this century. Such risks threaten the survival of humanity, and our ability to realise any values in the short-term or long-term future.

Another key consideration is how society is currently allocating resources. If an important problem is already widely recognised, then it is likely that a lot of people are already trying to solve it. If that’s the case, then it will usually be harder for a few extra people who decide to work on the issue to have a very large impact. All else equal, you are likely to be able to do far more good in an area that is not getting the attention it deserves.

To learn more, see our key ideas page and our problem profiles.

We run the following process roughly twice per month:

1. Discovery: We check the vacancy pages of more than 400 organisations.
2. Longlist: Of the thousands of vacancy postings we see, we select 5-15% of the most promising.
3. Shortlist: We narrow down our longlist, consulting outside experts or staff familiar with the area to help us decide.

We aim to strike a good balance between breadth of coverage and the confidence with which we can recommend a particular vacancy or organisation, given the resources we have available. Our process predictably generates many false negatives and some false positives – at stage (2) we’re averaging less than a minute per vacancy decision, and at stage (3) just a few minutes. The process selects for opportunities that are easy for us to identify as promising, and selects against opportunities that are difficult to assess quickly, e.g. options at less prominent organisations that might seem like a good bet after careful consideration.

We weigh several factors when deciding which organisations to check. These include:

• Is this organisation working directly on one of our recommended problem areas?
• Is this organisation likely to provide good opportunities to acquire relevant career capital for working on a recommended problem area later?
• Does this organisation have an impressive track record that we can easily verify? Have they been funded, recommended, or otherwise supported by a group or individual whose judgement we trust?
• Do we have an edge that makes it easier for us to confidently vouch for a particular organisation (e.g. we know people who work there)?

It’s important to note that rigorously evaluating organisations is not a primary focus of 80,000 Hours. Our decisions rely on rules of thumb we can apply relatively quickly and draw heavily on the judgement of outside experts and other groups.

We weigh several criteria when deciding which vacancies to list. These include:

• Is this a good opportunity to work directly on a problem area we recommend?
• Is this a good opportunity to develop the career capital – skills, experience, knowledge, connections and credentials – needed to work on a top problem later?
• Is this opportunity likely to be a good fit for people in our audience?

If a vacancy or organisation is included on the board, take this as a positive signal that it may be worth your consideration. The omission of a particular vacancy or organisation from our list should be taken as a neutral signal, not a negative signal. Our coverage is not comprehensive and there’s a good chance that your best option will be a role that we have not listed.

The first stage in a job search involves generating leads. A lead is any opportunity that might turn into a job – including friends or colleagues who might know an opportunity or a side project you might be able to get paid for. It’s important to search for “informal” leads like these in addition to publicly available vacancies that can be listed on a job board.

We recommend generating wide variety of leads and sending dozens of applications. You should apply for “stretch” roles you think you’re unlikely to get, as well as a large number of “reasonable” options and some “backup” options.

Stretch options are important because (i) some people are under confident and underestimate their chances of getting highly demanding roles and (ii) it’s easy to overestimate the hiring bar of a particular vacancy or organisation (e.g. a common mistake is to assume that if you’re missing a formal qualification mentioned in the job requirements, you have no chance of getting an interview.). If you are making either mistake, it is very valuable to find this out. What’s more, even if you do not get a role you apply for, there can be a large upside to getting “on the radar” of an organisation – they may consider you for future opportunities, or they may know of other opportunities (perhaps not publicly advertised) that might be a good fit. In general, when searching for jobs, there are often large returns to optimism and actions that increase your “luck surface area” (i.e. the probability you get a “lucky” break).

Your backup options should mean that you’re extremely likely to finish your search with an acceptable short-term option available. Well-defined backup options reduce personal risk and can help make a job search process somewhat less stressful. Example backup options might be (i) staying in your current job rather than changing; (ii) taking a job that’s not an ideal fit or (iii) doing whatever it takes to free up energy to invest in developing your skills while not at work, e.g. taking an easy part-time job or moving in with friends or parents to reduce your living expenses.

Many successful careers involve periods of great uncertainty and repeated setbacks – if you find the process tough, it may help to remind yourself that it is normal to find this difficult, and to invest more than usual in self-care. Many of the roles we advertise are very difficult to get and in many fields it’s common for talented people to get 20+ rejections during an early career job search.

Our job board aims to list opportunities that may be among the best opportunities for some of our readers. Some opportunities on the board may be a suitable backup option for you, but most readers will need to look elsewhere to find their backup options. Most readers should also do more than just check our job board to build their list of “stretch” and “reasonable” leads. Further steps you might take:

• Lead discovery: make a list of the organisations you’re interested in, then check their websites, follow them on social media and join their newsletters. Do the same thing for individuals who are working in the areas you’re interested in. Check other job boards that cover your areas of interest.
• Lead creation: many of the best roles are never publicly advertised. Consider sending speculative applications to relevant organisations and individuals if you think you can help them (whether or not they’re advertising a role that fits you). Reach out to friends and colleagues and ask who they think you should talk to and whether they know anywhere that might be a good fit. Consider doing voluntary or freelance contract work.

There’s more advice in our articles on how to get a job and how to make a career plan.

Some limitations of the 80,000 Hours job board to bear in mind:

• We focus on our top recommended problem areas and priority career paths. If you want to work on a different problem, including those on our lists of potentially promising problems areas and career paths, the board is less likely to be useful.
• We aim to present a “short, curated list” rather than comprehensive coverage. This means we highlight a selection of the most promising roles we know about that will be relevant to our audience. We do not have the resources to cover (or even discover) all the promising organisations that exist, and the fact that we sometimes advertise roles at a given organisation does not mean we’ll always list every promising vacancy they have.
• Our curation process selects for opportunities that are easy for us to identify as promising. Read more about how we decide what to list.

The job board aims to bring promising opportunities to your attention. The presence of a vacancy on the board means that we think it may be among the best opportunities for some of our readers. If you are excited about a role you find via the board, we’d encourage you to investigate it and seriously consider applying.

That said, there is a good chance that your best option is actually a role that is not featured on the board. If you find a role that seems promising but is not listed on our board, you should not infer that it is less promising than the roles that we do feature.

In short: if a vacancy is featured on the board, take this as a positive signal that it may be worth your consideration. If a vacancy is not featured on the board, you should take this as a neutral signal.

Similar logic applies for organisations we feature on the board.

To learn more about how we select roles and organisations for the board, see above.

It’s worth remembering that personal fit is one of the most important considerations when choosing a career. There are many reasons why a role that would be the best option for some people might be a bad option for you.

If you put effort into writing a good cover letter for a job application, you probably know more about that job than we did when we decided to advertise it. Applying for a job is an investigation (into the organisation, the role, and your personal fit), so by the time you are deciding whether to accept a job offer you will know many things that we don’t. At that stage, we would not recommend putting much weight on whether or not a particular role was featured on our job board. If, during your investigation, you learn things about an organisation that you think we should know but perhaps don’t, please get in touch.

We often list roles that are good for building the career capital – skills, experience, knowledge, connections and credentials – you’ll need to have a big impact later. Good opportunities to build career capital do not always involve doing work that directly contributes to solving a top problem.

For example, if you want to work in AI policy, your best option may be to start by working in nearby areas at relevant institutions (e.g. taking any role that helps you build experience in policy, AI, and/or national security).

One note of caution: we sometimes see people who try to build career capital by pursuing traditional prestigious options (such as consulting, law or banking) that are not particularly close to the problems they want to work on. We think most people should consider other options first. In many cases, you’ll be able to find a role that is relatively close to an area where you might want to end up, and this will get you more relevant experience and connections. Specialised career capital usually beats general career capital.

Read more about career capital.

Most powerful organisations cause some harm or are at least somewhat controversial. For example, few people agree with everything that Amazon, Facebook, or the US military have done. But large organisations like these have large influence on several of our recommended problem areas, so if you want to have a big impact, your best option might be to work at such an organisation – either to build career capital so you can have an impact later, or to have a direct impact by helping improve them from the inside.

Regrettably, some generally respectable media outlets and political narratives sometimes encourage us to categorise organisations as “good” or “evil”. In reality, people at large organisations like these are doing a huge range of things, some good, some bad, and some neutral. It’s important to consider what you’ll be doing within the specific job you might take, and how you might be able to shape that role in a more positive direction. In general, you’ll probably have more impact by contributing to responsibly led organisations whose track records have been positive overall (we list some reasons for this in our article on harmful jobs). But this may not always be the case, so you should not automatically rule out taking jobs at controversial or unpopular organisations.

More broadly, all actions – including all career decisions – involve a risk of harm, so you need to do your best to weigh the upsides and downsides of your different options. This is one reason why career decisions are morally and practically difficult. Our general advice is to avoid taking jobs you expect to cause serious harm even if you think they could do a greater amount of good. It’s also important to think carefully about how to reduce the risk of accidentally causing harm.

If you think we are mistakenly promoting roles that are foreseeably causing serious harms, please let us know.

No. The total number of roles we list in a given problem area is constantly changing and determined by many factors.

Our views on which problems we think are most pressing for more people to work on can be found here.

We are an English-speaking team and most of our audience is based in English-speaking countries, in particular the USA and the UK. This is one reason why most of the opportunities we feature are based in these countries. We also think these countries may be among the most influential in several of our priority problem areas.

Knowing that there will be many great roles we’ll end up missing is an aspect of running this job board that is difficult for us. We’re aware that if you know about a position where someone could make a big difference, and you can’t get the position posted here, that must be even more frustrating.

Unfortunately, however, we can’t respond to requests to promote particular vacancies or organisations, nor to questions about why we’ve included or excluded something specific. This is a compromise we’ve had to make in order to manage the high demand while keeping the resources we expend on the board at a level we think is cost effective.

You could consider posting your vacancy in this facebook group, which many of our readers also check.

As a starting point, see our general advice on how to make career decisions.

We may also be able to offer you personalised advice and support. For example, we can sometimes provide useful information about the specific organisation or role, or can introduce you to someone who works at the organisation and could help you decide. If you’re moving into a new field, we might know people who are happy to provide advice and introductions to help build your network.

We won’t be able to help in every case. But we often can, and any support we can offer is free of charge.

If you’ve received an offer for a role or organisation that is featured on the job board, send us an email. Please include a link to the role you’re considering, some information on your background (e.g. a resume or LinkedIn profile) and some brief notes on how you’re thinking about the decision. The subject line of your email should take the form: “Job board offer received, decision due by [DATE]”.

Please note: our advising team is unable to reply to other kinds of queries sent to this email address. If you’re looking for advice in another situation, please apply to our advising service.