This online course has been run twice, but due to staff changes, it is likely (50%) that we pause it for next year. This funding would help us in running the next iteration of the course. It is a 6-week course based on 80,000 Hours' career plan. You can check out the information on the last course here: https://www.effektivaltruism.org/the-ea-nordics-career-course The course funded through community choice would be run either in the fall of 2024 or early spring of 2025.
We hope to receive a minimum of 30 applications and accept 20-25 participants for the next iteration of the program. This is similar to the previous two rounds. Through the program, the participants will engage more deeply with EA ideas, and create a concrete career plan to act upon.
Mainly for staff costs for one part-time employee for two months, and some marketing and operational costs. The minimum funding amount would cover only part of the employee costs, the rest coming from existing national group funding.
Karla Still, potential candidate for running the course. Track record:
Part-time employee at EA Finland, doing a bit of everything
Held 19 Career advising sessions in the past 12 months
Coordinated and facilitated the Finnish EA intro program in 2021 in a team of 4 people.
Unknown candidate for running the intro program instead of Karla. Would be someone who
Has in-depth knowledge of EA
Has previously done career advising or coaching and facilitated groups
Great project management skills
The Nordic EA group leaders (at least EA Finland, EA Norway, EA Sweden, and EA Denmark)
They would support the marketing, potentially vetting candidates, and give feedback on participants' career plans.
Find people in their EA communities who could hold presentations about their impact-focused career (plans).
All groups have 5-10 years of history building an EA community and have participated in the previous iterations of the program.
Little interest or low-quality applications. This has not been the case previously but can vary from round to round. If that happened, we would run a smaller course, postpone the course, or review the format.
The course doesn't seem as impactful anymore considering the other career-related activities EA groups do. In that case, pivoting the program from the current plan would make sense. I find this 70% likely to happen as this project proposal on Manifund has not been reviewed by all mentioned groups before posting.
High Impact Professionals' Impact Accelerator Program. They have a narrower target audience and a lower acceptance rate. In addition to mid and late-career professionals, our program also accepts students and early-career professionals. HIP's program is more extensive, and to those who seem like a good fit, I would recommend it over the Nordic career course.
EA Virtual Programs. The curriculum is likely similar. The main difference is the geographic focus. The Nordic course's advantage is to be able to give more local advice and connections for career planning.
Cause-specific fellowships and courses. The Nordic career course is cause-neutral and can help the participant in cause prioritization and identifying potential cause-specific programs they could join after the course. Therefore these compete but rather complement or support.
Generic one-off career advising sessions provided e.g., by 80,000 Hours, Probably Good and the National groups. We can recommend participants to also sign up for 80k or PG career advising after the program, where they can get even more specific advice and resources. I believe the course format to be more cost-effective than individual career advising and to encourage participants to do career planning earlier than they would've otherwise. The one-off advising and course complement each other in that sense. I would love more people to join the career course instead of one-off career advising but the 1-1s can have a lower threshold for participation, allow for discussing smaller more immediate questions and fit better for people with a tight or uncertain schedule.
Specifically for this project, we don't currently have funding, but we are likely to also use staff time from national EA groups. The difference between minimum and full funding is also explained by the flexibility of using staff time for this project (which will in the case of full funding be used for other projects).