1:1 Careers Advising

Speak with our team about pursuing a career that does good

Request a free call

Careers > Job Board > 1:1 Careers Advising

How it works

Fill in our brief application form. Tell us your current thoughts on career options so we can work out how to help best.

1.

Apply

If we think we can help, we’ll send you a link to book your call and (potentially) ask for some extra information.

2.

Prepare

You’ll have a video call to talk through your career with one of our team and work out next steps.

3.

Have a 1:1 call

In some cases, we’ll stay in touch with you after the call if we can continue supporting your career.

4.

Stay in touch

How we can help

Whether you’re changing careers, just starting out, or are already on an impactful path but have questions or uncertainties, our advisors are here to help. Here’s what we can do in a free 1:1 call:

Review your options

We can talk through the problems you're hoping to work on and the career options you're considering. We can help you tackle your uncertainties: what the different options are like, which seem most impactful, and the best routes into paths you're considering.

Make introductions

We can introduce you to experts and hiring managers in relevant fields. Advisees have found these connections particularly valuable in learning more and progressing in their chosen career path.

Suggest next steps

We can help you work out practical next steps, such as suggesting promising job opportunities or supporting you to apply for funding.

Who we can help

We’re most helpful for people who:

If you’re not sure about whether to request a call, we recommend that you do. It doesn’t take long and just filling out the form might help you think through your career.

If it doesn’t seem like we’re the best people for you to talk to, we might be able to put you in touch with someone else instead of us or offer you some resources that we think will help. We offer most people we don’t speak to an introduction to someone else or some other resources.

If you know someone else who is interested in effective altruism and could benefit from speaking with us, then we’d really appreciate it if you encouraged them to request a call.

Ask to speak with our team

Our 5-minute application will give you a chance to reflect on your options and let us know if we’re in a position to help.

FAQs

  • We aim to work with the people we can most help to have a great impact. This means we look for people who:

    • Make doing good one of their main career goals.

    • Take an analytical approach to doing good and choosing their career

    • Are already somewhat familiar with the basic principles of effective altruism

    • Have the ability to excel in their chosen career

    We’re aware that factors like gender, race, and socioeconomic background can affect people’s willingness to call attention to their own achievements. We’d especially encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.

  • You don’t need to have a career plan before applying. In fact, talking with us earlier in the process of planning might be better, so that we can help you answer some key uncertainties and work out where to focus your efforts.

    If you’ve already done a lot of career planning, we’ll be happy to talk through your thoughts. But as long as you can write a couple of paragraphs in the application form setting out your current thinking (even if you have a lot of uncertainties) then that is enough for applying.

  • We speak with people at a wide range of different points in their career, including people who are mid- or late-career. We work closely with many organisations that are working on the problems we think are most pressing. They are often keen to find people with significant experience, and we might be able to flag particularly relevant roles — especially if you’re willing to be flexible.

  • We aim to talk to the people we think we can help the most. But even if we can’t talk to you, we often suggest someone else you can talk to or provide more resources.

    If we can’t speak with you, that does not mean we think you won’t have a highly impactful career. Whether we can be helpful to you sometimes depends on contingent factors like whether one of our advisers happens to know of a role or introduction right now that might be a good fit for you. Also, unfortunately, it’s impossible for us to know everyone’s situation well enough to be completely sure we’re speaking to the right people. We try to do the best with the information we have from the application form but we might still make mistakes that aren’t a reflection on you at all.

  • We speak with people at a wide range of different points in their career, including students. We can often be useful even if you don’t yet have a firm idea of what career seems like a good fit for you.

    For example, we might be able to help you think about what directions seem most promising to try out first, talk through what subjects to study, suggest promising opportunities you can do during your vacations, and connect you with more people to build your network.

  • Working out what to work on is an important factor in our approach to planning an impactful career, but we know it is a difficult question to form a view on. Talking this through with people is one of the most helpful things we can do on our calls. So if you’re unsure about which problem to work on, don’t let that stop you applying.

  • Please email us at info@effectivealtruism.nz