Hi, have you been rejected from all the 80K listed EA jobs you’ve applied for? It sucks, right? Welcome to the club. What might be comforting is that you (and I) are not alone. EA Job listings are extremely competitive, and in the classic EA career path, you just get rejected over and over. Many others have written about their rejection experience, here, here, and here.

Even if it is quite normal for very smart, hardworking, proactive, and highly motivated EAs to get rejected from high-impact positions, it still sucks.

It sucks because we sincerely want to make the world a radically better place. We’ve read everything, planned accordingly, gone through fellowships, rejected other options, and worked very hard just to get the following message:

"Thank you for your interest in [Insert EA Org Name]... we have decided to move forward with other candidates for this role... we're unfortunately unable to provide individual feedback...”

It’s also a hit to your self-esteem. People who get rejected from EA jobs are used to performing very well in the non-EA world. They get into extremely competitive programs in top universities, are at the top of their class, and are generally appraised within their family and social circle for their performance. After getting used to this, receiving 20 rejections for something you deeply cared about and worked really hard for is a blow to your ego.

This may also lead to disillusionment with the overall EA community. We have been told that we can create an incredible impact. We’ve believed in it and done all we can. Now we are unemployed with very weird niche skills and knowledge that we can’t use elsewhere.

You also get frustrated with EA. How is the community not seeing my value? In all other places, I’m at the top, I’m selected in the most competitive positions, highly regarded, respected, and appreciated. How does EA not see how awesome I am?

With the combination of all the different feelings above, I’ve seen many who lose their hope of creating an incredible impact with their career by saying something like: “Well, I’ve tried it, and I can’t seem to be able to create an impact with my career.” and slowly engage less and less with the community.

As a person who has also been rejected repeatedly, I feel the frustration. But I think the statement above is just wrong. You can create a massive impact with your career. Getting rejected from 30 positions is just a very weak evidence for your “inability to create impact with your career”.

We generally see our path to impact like this:

However, this is very unlikely or even ODD to happen. I think most of the people in the EA Community impact will be something more like this:

Most of our career paths will look like this since are very few job listings, extreme competition, and a lack of funding.

One can have many reasons not to aim for a career to create good: not aligning with the core EA ideas, having other  priorities etc. But abandoning this goal simply because of 30+ rejections is just a poor reason to give up. 

You typically need 100-200+ applications to land a job. ^[1] These figures are for the job market as a whole; now add the EA space's competitiveness. Not finding a position is less about you and more about the number of jobs and early-career people in EA. This is normal. You are at the beginning of your impact journey, and there will be excellent opportunities for you in the near future.

Take Brendan, for example:

He discovered EA and realized that he was strongly aligned with the principles. However, he couldn’t find a position in EA in his journalism/comms field. So, for the 3-4 years, he took different roles in both the public and private sectors for skill-building. During this time, he also stayed connected with the community by volunteering for high-impact organizations and writing a blog on effective giving. His skill-building and continued engagement paid off. He is now the Communications Lead at the School of Moral Ambition.

Or Richie:

After earning his PhD in evolutionary psychology, Richie was turned down for several roles in the EA space and realised he needed new skills to make a contribution. Realising there is a growing need for data science across most organisations, he retrained in data science and worked for three years as an AI consultant in for-profit companies.. At EAGx Cambridge 2023, he met his now-boss Chris at an alternative proteins event, which led to a researcher role at Bryant Research, a social science think tank serving animal advocacy and alternative proteins. This year, he was promoted to director of research.

I think we are very lucky to have them. I’m happy that they didn’t give up on EA 5 years ago when they couldn’t find a position from the 80K job listings. Similar to them, it would also be a pity if we lose you as well. With more experience, you’ll be  needed more. Yes, it is a bit frustrating to “wait” to have an impact, but in this context, we already couldn't find our cool ideal EA job, and 5 years will pass, even if we want it or not. So why not optimize that and maximize the chance to have an impact in 5 years? Why abandon this project just because you lost some years? Yes, you won’t be doing high-impact work for 80,000 hours, but you can still train and use well 10,000 hours (5 years) and later do the most good you can with the remaining 70,000 hours.

A note on AI timelines 

In the current stage of LLMs, one may reasonably have short timelines for AGI coming in the next 3-5 years, as given here. Here, here, here, and here. It might not make sense to optimize skilling up for a couple of years because AGI will already be here, and most of the impact opportunity will be lost. So maybe if I can’t find a highly impactful job right now, I’ll never have to because we’ll run out of time.

I believe there is significant evidence that AGI can be invented in the next few years. However, even the biggest proponents of this idea disclaim that this scenario is around or much less than 50% likely. However, it still makes sense to allocate a lot of resources to this area due to the stakes and possible consequences we might have. Yes, the efforts and careers spent on short timelines are unlikely to create any impact. But it still makes sense to work in the area because it is a good bet to take.

This is the case for all interventions. There’s no guarantee that any career will create any impact. Not all 4000 dollars donated to GiveWell saves a life, and not all cage-free campaigns are successful. However, doing all of them makes sense because they are all “good bets to take”. Similarly, skilling up for longer timelines is a good bet to take.

Let's imagine a scenario where 5 years pass and we don’t have AGI in 2030. This wouldn’t be surprising for the loudest advocates of short timelines wouldn’t be so surprised:

We should, as a civilization, operate under the assumption that transformative AI will arrive 10-40 years from now, with a wide range for error in either direction. ^[2]- Scott Alexander

Either we hit AI that can cause transformative effects by ~2030: AI progress continues or even accelerates, and we probably enter a period of explosive change. Or progress will slow. I roughly think of these scenarios as 50:50 — though I can vary between 30% and 80% depending on the day. ^[3]- Benjamin Todd

And for this very likely scenario, we will definitely need intelligent, altruistic, and experienced EAs to take positions in high-impact organizations.

So you taking 5 years to skill up is a very good bet to take. Again it's not 100% certain and maybe you won’t have any impact, just like all other interventions in EA.

Time to go forward

I know it is very disappointing to get rejected over and over. It makes you feel like your value is not seen, and all your work was wasted, but that is not true. I know that you sincerely want to create an impact. I know that you worked so hard for it, and I’m thankful that you are in this community.

I also know that these rejections are not the end of your career.

You can still earn to give, found to give, take on EA projects, write in the forum, host events, give feedback, inspire friends and family to donate…. and more importantly, develop skills and experience in the outside world and bring them back to EA when we need it. Just like Brendan and Richie, we’ll be lucky to have you when we have you.

Let's get, frustrated, angry with EA. Mourn that our cool EA career goals are currently not in reach... Then shake it off and continue on your journey.

You still have 70,000 hours

Don’t waste them

1. ^{^}

   Through a Glass Darkly

2. ^{^}

   How Many Applications It Takes to Get Hired in 2025

3. ^{^}

   The case for AGI by 2030