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The evidence on how to find the right career for you - 80,000 Hours

80000hours.org · 5,180 words · saved by 6 readers

The standard advice is to think about it for weeks and weeks until you “discover your talent.” To help, career advisers give you quizzes about your interests and preferences. Others recommend you go on a gap yah, reflect deeply, imagine different options, and try to figure out what truly motivates you. But as we saw in an earlier article, becoming really good at most things takes decades of practice. So to a large degree, your abilities are built rather than “discovered.” Darwin, Lincoln, and Oprah all failed early in their careers, then went on to completely dominate their fields. Albert Einstein’s 1895 schoolmaster’s report reads, “He will never amount to anything.” Asking “What am I good at?” needlessly narrows your options. It’s better to ask: “What could I become good at?” That aside, the bigger problem is that these methods aren’t reliable. Plenty of research shows that while it’s possible to predict what you’ll be good at ahead of time, it’s difficult. Just “going with your gut”

On this page: Introduction 1 Being good at your job is more important than people think 1.1 What is personal fit? 2 What doesn't work in predicting your fit 3 Why not to go with your gut 4 Why career tests don't work either 5 How to find your fit 5.1 1. Make some best guesses 5.2 2. List your key uncertainties 5.3 3. Do cheap tests to investigate those uncertainties 5.4 4. Update your guesses until your answers stop changing Table of Contents 1 How to find the right career for you 2 Being good at your job is more important than people think 2.1 What is personal fit? 3 What doesn’t work i

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