Hi all,

People looking for EA-aligned careers have various resources available to them: 80K Hours, Probably Good, High Impact professionals, etc. 

When entering the field of career advising, I didn't have many resources to learn from, and felt like I had to piece it together.

I’ll start with the bottom line – I wrote a guidebook on how to give career advisory that is EA-oriented, especially Probably Good-oriented philosophy. This is an attempt to formalize my learnings into a repeatable, useful resource.

https://guideflow-co.lovable.app/

Based on it, I led a workshop in the recent EA Israel conference for ~80 people and has been mentioned several times as the best session by surveyed participants. 

I have been the EA Israel Career Fellowship instructor for the past 6 months. In the process, I have been guiding small cohorts through a curriculum loosely based on the High Impact Professionals workbook. Also in the process, I have done a few dozen 1:1 advisory sessions. 

In the beginning, it went horribly. 

Well, not horribly, but I felt like nothing good came out of it. What I was aiming for, was people leaving with excitement and clear directions towards an EA-oriented goal. This didn’t happen. So I asked for feedback. I read materials from 80K Hours, Probably Good, and High Impact Professionals. I watched every video in EA Connect, and mentored during the conference. And as I improved, I started to notice emerging patterns in my 1:1s.

First, I usually spend almost half the time just understanding the participant. No advice, just trying to see what motivates them. Getting in their shoes. While at it, looking for hooks for ideas to come later. 

Afterwards, I develop a back-and-forth pattern. The participant and I toss ideas around. Each idea, we stop and asked ourselves: “Why is this idea exciting?” or “Why is that idea way off?”. Within 20-30 minutes, we settle on several promising directions.

Last, I make sure to wrap it well. Concrete actions, clear summary, next follow up, and mutual debt (introductions/resources).  

Once I framed them in these components, I realized I could create other useful frameworks: questions I often ask, actions I tend to suggest, and what connects between them.

This guidebook is meant to be an easy ramp up for new EA-oriented career advisors, and useful to experienced advisors. I hope it is of use. 

This is a work in progress, and I would love suggestions for improvement, here or at:
itamar@effective-altruism.org.il