“How good it is to donate and how hard it is to get a job” by Elijah Persson-Gordon

In this post, I hope to inspire other Effective Altruists to focus more on donation and commiserate with those who have been disappointed in their ability to get an altruistic job. First, I argue that the impact of having a job that helps others is complicated. In this section, I discuss annual donation statistics of people in the Effective Altruism community donate, which I find quite low. In the rest of the post, I describe my recent job search, my experience substituting at public schools, and my expenses. Having a job that helps others might be overemphasized Doing a job that helps others seems like a good thing to do. Weirdly, it's not as simple as that. While some job vacancies last for years, other fields are very competitive and have many qualified applicants for most position listings. In the latter case, if you take the [...] ---Outline:(00:42) Having a job that helps others might be overemphasized(02:07) Donations are an amazing opportunity, and I think they are underemphasized(03:42) I used to really want an animal welfare-related job. Then I wanted to donate more. Now I am a substitute at a public school(06:13) I live frugally and donate(08:06) I have been disappointed in my ability to find a job that would allow me to donate more(09:52) Its okay(10:24) Additional reading--- First published: April 16th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/G9ocwYA2LpLqC4vmq/how-good-it-is-to-donate-and-how-hard-it-is-to-get-a-job --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.