I'm currently planning my Philosophy PhD applications.
If I'm interested in a traditional area of Philosophy (Epistemology, Ethics, Phil of Language), I can easily check recommendations from Philosophy Gourmet Reports, rely on testimonies from my tutors, or look at job placement data for existing PhD programs.
If I'm interested in working on alignment, the decision is far harder. It's a smaller field with less publicly available information. There are no "ranking" systems like PGR. My tutors are mostly epistemologists working on classic philosophy problems. It is far harder to estimate impact/alignment efforts as compared to estimating tenure chance by comparing job placement data.
& PhD program choices will have great impacts on ones career in the short term. I can list out the mechanisms for this but I don't think this will be disputed.
So the question: Are there a comprehensive guide on this? If not, would people be interested in making one? Just to be clear, I'm not sure if a "ranking" system like GMR would be useful, but program recommendations would be really valuable.
The quick answer is that wanting to do alignment-related work does not depend on a Philosophy PhD, or any graduate degree tbh. I'd say, start thinking about what are your interests more specifically and then there might be different paths to impact with or without the degree.