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Read the full guide →
Introduction
Your most important decision
Summary
Foundations
A definition of impact
Future generations & their moral significance
Effective altruism
Global priorities
Why problem selection is crucial
The case for reducing existential risks
This could be the most important century
Our current list of pressing problems
Solutions
The best solutions are far more effective
Leverage
What is leverage, and how to get it?
Our list of high-impact careers
Personal fit
Fit is more important than you think
Strategy
What is career capital?
How much to explore?
Coordination and impact
Balancing impact and doing what you love
Aim higher: a rational case for dreaming big
Three career stages
Conclusion
How much do careers differ in impact?
Read the full guide →
Go to problems hub →
Top areas to work on
Positively shaping the development of AI
Global priorities research
Building effective altruism
Reducing the risk of catastrophic pandemics
Nuclear security
Improving institutional decision making
Extreme climate change
Other promising areas
Mitigating great power conflict
Global governance
Space governance
See all →
Go to problems hub →
See all our career reviews →
Key categories of impactful careers
Government and policy
Organisation-building at effective nonprofits
Research
Applying an unusual strength to a needed niche
Communication
Earning to give
List of top-recommended career paths
AI safety technical research
Long-term AI policy
Founder of new projects
Helping build the effective altruism community
Grantmaker
Operations management in high-impact organisations
Research into global priorities
Biorisk research, strategy, and policy
China-related AI safety and governance
Forecasting research and implementation
Sometimes-recommended paths
High-impact but especially competitive
Promising but under-researched
Impactful if you’re an especially good fit
Recommended career capital
Steps to build your skills and network
Making the most of your current job
Doing good in any career
How to invest in yourself
See all our career reviews →
See all planning resources →
Create a high-impact career plan
8-week career planning course
Summary
Career plan template
Annual career check-up
Make good career decisions
Make an immediate decision
Improve your decision-making skills
See all planning resources →
Selected topics
Moral philosophy
Skills
Job satisfaction
Anonymous advice
Unconventional advice
What to study
Advocacy
Catastrophic risks
Meta-causes
Priority paths
See all topics →
Top articles from outside our guides
What makes for a dream job?
Best charities to donate to
Misconceptions about effective altruism
High-impact research questions
What are your chances of getting elected to Congress, if you try?
How many lives does a doctor save?
What's the impact of voting?
Advice for undergraduates
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2017 career guide
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Topic archive: Academic Research

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2022

May

#130 – Will MacAskill on balancing frugality with ambition, whether you need longtermism, & mental health under pressure
Podcast
#129 – James Tibenderana on the state of the art in malaria control and elimination
Podcast

April

#128 – Chris Blattman on the five reasons wars happen
Podcast

2021

November

#117 – David Denkenberger on using paper mills and seaweed to feed everyone in a catastrophe, ft Sahil Shah
Podcast
#116 – Luisa Rodriguez on why global catastrophes seem unlikely to kill us all
Podcast
#115 – David Wallace on the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics and its implications
Podcast

September

#111 – Mushtaq Khan on using institutional economics to predict effective government reforms
Podcast

July

#106 – Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work
Podcast

June

#104 – Pardis Sabeti on the Sentinel system for detecting and stopping pandemics
Podcast
#103 – Max Roser on building the world's first great source of COVID-19 data at Our World in Data
Podcast
#102 – Tom Moynihan on why prior generations missed some of the biggest priorities of all
Podcast

May

#98 – Christian Tarsney on future bias and a possible solution to moral fanaticism
Podcast

March

#95 – Kelly Wanser on whether to deliberately intervene in the climate
Podcast

2020

December

#89 – Owen Cotton-Barratt on epistemic systems & layers of defense against potential global catastrophes
Podcast

November

#87 – Russ Roberts on whether it's more effective to help strangers, or people you know
Podcast

October

#86 – Hilary Greaves on Pascal's mugging, strong longtermism, and whether existing can be good for us
Podcast

August

#84 – Shruti Rajagopalan on what India did to stop COVID-19 and how well it worked
Podcast

July

#83 – Jennifer Doleac on ways to prevent crime other than police and prisons
Podcast
#82 – James Forman Jr on reducing the cruelty of the US criminal legal system
Podcast

May

#77 – Professor Marc Lipsitch on whether we're winning or losing against COVID-19
Podcast

April

#74 – Dr Greg Lewis on COVID-19 & catastrophic biological risks
Podcast

March

#72 – Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity's potential futures
Podcast

February

#70 – Dr Cassidy Nelson on the twelve best ways to stop the next pandemic (and limit COVID-19)
Podcast

January

#68 – Will MacAskill on the paralysis argument, whether we're at the hinge of history, & his new priorities
Podcast

2019

December

#67 – David Chalmers on the nature and ethics of consciousness
Podcast
#66 – Peter Singer on provocative advocacy, EA, how his ethical views have changed, and drowning children
Podcast

October

#64 – Bruce Schneier on the big risks in computer security, secrets, and surveillance without tyranny
Podcast

September

#63 – Vitalik Buterin on better ways to fund public goods, blockchain's failures, & effective giving
Podcast

April

#56 – Persis Eskander on wild animal welfare and what, if anything, to do about it
Podcast

2018

December

#50 – Dr David Denkenberger on how to feed all 8 billion people through an asteroid/nuclear winter
Podcast
#49 – Dr Rachel Glennerster on a year's worth of education for under $1 and other development best buys
Podcast

October

#46 – Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness, population ethics, & harnessing the brainpower of academia to tackle the most important research questions
Podcast
#45 – Prof Tyler Cowen's stubborn attachments to maximising economic growth, making civilization more stable & respecting human rights
Podcast

September

#42 – Amanda Askell on moral empathy, the value of information & the ethics of infinity
Podcast

July

#38 – Prof Yew-Kwang Ng on anticipating EA decades ago & how to make a much happier world
Podcast
#36 – Tanya Singh on ending the operations management bottleneck in effective altruism
Podcast

May

#33 – Dr Anders Sandberg on what if we ended ageing, solar flares & the annual risk of nuclear war
Podcast
#32 – Prof Bryan Caplan on whether the Case Against Education holds up, totalitarianism, & open borders
Podcast
#30 – Dr Eva Vivalt on how little social science findings generalize from one study to another
Podcast
#29 – Dr Anders Sandberg on three new resolutions for the Fermi Paradox and how to easily colonise the universe
Podcast

April

#28 – Dr Owen Cotton-Barratt on why scientists should need insurance, PhD strategy & what if AI progresses fast
Podcast
#26 – Marie Gibbons on how exactly clean meat is created & the advances needed to get it in every supermarket
Podcast

March

#25 – Prof Robin Hanson on why we have to lie to ourselves about why we do what we do
Podcast

February

#20 – Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming
Podcast

January

#17 – Prof Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster
Podcast

2017

December

#16 – Dr Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals
Podcast

November

#15 – Prof Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise
Podcast

October

#13 – Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results
Podcast

June

#2 – Prof David Spiegelhalter on risk, stats and improving understanding of science
Podcast

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80,000 Hours is part of the Centre for Effective Altruism, a registered charity in England and Wales (Charity Number 1149828) and a registered 501(c)(3) Exempt Organization in the USA (EIN 47-1988398).

Please contact us to suggest ideas, improvements, or corrections.

We do our best to provide useful information, but how you use the information is up to you. We don’t take responsibility for any loss that results from the use of information on the site. Please consult our full legal disclaimer and privacy policy.

© 2021 – all rights reserved. Please contact us if you wish to redistribute, translate, or adapt this work.