80,000 Hours

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Find a fulfilling career that tackles the world’s most pressing problems, using this guide based on over ten years of research alongside academics at Oxford.

You have about 80,000 hours in your career: 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 40 years. This means your choice of career is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make.

Make the right choices, and you can help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, as well as have a more rewarding, interesting life.

For such an important decision, however, there’s surprisingly little good advice out there. Most career advice focuses on things like how to write a CV, and much of the rest is just (misleading) platitudes like ‘follow your passion’. Most people we speak to don’t even use career advice – they just speak to friends and try to figure it out for themselves.

When it comes to helping others with your career the advice usually assumes you need to work as a teacher, doctor, charity worker, and so on, even though these paths might not be a good fit for you, and were not what the highest-impact people in history did.

This guide is based on over ten years of research conducted alongside academics at the University of Oxford. It aims to help you find a career you enjoy, you’re good at, and that tackles the world’s most pressing problems.

It covers topics like:

What makes for a dream job, and why ‘follow your passion’ can be misleading.
Why the most effective ways to make a difference aren’t always the obvious ones like working at a charity, or becoming a doctor.
How to compare global problems, like climate change and poverty, in terms of their scale and urgency.
How to discover and develop your strengths.

It’s also full of practical tips and tools. You’ll come away with a plan to use your 80,000 hours in a way that’s fulfilling and high impact.