I'm a great admirer of the 80000hours initiative, ever since I've learned about it. And that's the thing, I was introduced to EA and 80kh relatively late in my life imo. I'm not a student, graduate, or even junior in the field. I'm two decades older senior-level employee without a chance to switch to an impactful career.
I've learned about EA 3 years ago, it took me 2 years to stop fantasizing that there is anything I can do with my career path so my "last resort" was earning to give program. I took the pledge last year and almost immediately felt the pressure to not go down with my salary but to make it as high as possible. There are million other factors at stake, personal and professional, and I need to say it, I feel completely lost at times. I only know I need to move forward, but I can get so critical about my decisions that it paralyzes me.
Am I the only one? I'm sure there are other people in a similar situation. Mature in age and career, that found EA/80kh too late to adjust life road and struggle in being efficient and impactful.
There is great wisdom in onboarding young people and preventing them from similar struggles later in their life. But there is also untapped potential in mid-life and senior members of the community who are not politicians, researchers, scientists, economists, or entrepreneurs and still want to pitch in. Their, our salaries are probably much higher than when we started, and we might have a bit more influence on our positions. And yes, we still need guidance. I need guidance.
So I wanted to challenge this idea today. 40000hours sounds great. 20000hours sounds even better. I realize that it's much harder to advise senior employees, but the gain might be much higher and more immediate at the start. Worth considering I think.
Definitely agree that you are onto something here. I was thinking of starting a 40K about a year ago and I have heard others echo the same sentiment, even with the same name (40K) as well. I ended up recently co-founding High Impact Professionals instead, focussed on all EA working professionals, regardless of age. We are trying to get this group to have the most impact they can given their unique resources. One initiative we have in the pipeline is to cross-pollinate the knowledge, skills and experience that e.g. 40Kers have with EA orgs who need them.
Although I do occasionally personally take calls with mid-career EA professionals looking to have more impact, this isn't a focus of HIP. I think with these calls I can provide value in 1) basic coaching and encouragement and 2) helping the person make connections in the EA community and understand some tenets of EA. In terms of helping them get a specific job, this is often quite difficult as the skillsets are often quite specific and older folk tend to have more constraints (can't move, require a certain salary, etc).
That being said, I think there is a lot of room for someone to push this initiative forward and that with a solid plan something like a 40K could succeed. There are many EAs in your position and they can use the support!
I am happy to chat more if you are interested, just ping me on the forum and we can set something up.
Hi Devon, it's great that you had time to respond. I love this initiative! I'll dive into HIP as soon as I finish my responses.
In terms of constraints - salary level is definitely one of the factors, but not the only one. I can move to the moon and back if needed for the right offer, that's how mobile I can be. I kind of developed a framework for what I expect from my next job, but companies' expectations are another story. When you have job, volunteer, have personal duties and obligations it's hard to even complete the resume, and not to mention career strategy.
I'll ping you in a moment! Thank you for offering that.