Just as you can have an impact in any job by donating or using your influence, you can build career capital in any job.
There’s a huge amount written about how to learn new skills and become more productive. You can find a list of resources in Appendix 2. For now, here are a couple of points to highlight.
We find many high achievers don’t take care of themselves.
The basics – sleep, diet, exercise, mental health and supportive friendships – make a huge difference to your happiness and productivity. So if there’s anything easy you can do to improve these areas, it’s usually worth it.
Around 20% of people each year experience a mental health problem. We know people who took the time to focus intensely on dealing with serious mental health problems and who, having found treatments and techniques that worked, have gone on to perform at the highest level. It’s one of the best investments you can make in yourself.
The basics, however, are just a starting point. Any job can be an opportunity to build connections and learn useful skills.
Regular career advice focuses on the standard lists of transferable skills, like communication and data analysis, but the first area to focus on is skills that are useful in all jobs. There are lots of habits that can make you more productive no matter what you’re doing. One simple example is the habit of writing down your top priority for the next day every evening, then doing it first thing. Check out the book Deep Work by Cal Newport for more ideas, as well as the resources in section 6 of Appendix 2.
Modern research also shows that it’s possible to learn new skills much faster than you did at school. Learning how to learn is another example of a highly flexible skill that doesn’t get discussed in regular careers advice. It’ll help you succeed however the world changes, and it’s becoming more important as technological change accelerates. In fact, learning how to learn is the ultimate skill because it’ll help you learn everything else. To get started, see Barbara Oakley’s work, including her Coursera course, Learning How to Learn.
A third example is rational thinking. Recent research shows that intelligence and rationality are distinct,46 but rationality is much easier to train. Being able to think well and make good decisions is vital in all jobs. But it’s even more important if you want to engage with the complex challenges of making the world a better place. The Center for Applied Rationality is using the research on rationality to develop practical training programs, especially for people who want to have an impact, and they usually offer discounts to readers of 80,000 Hours.
For more tips, including advice on how to network, see Appendix 2.
Conclusion
You may not be sure how best to contribute today, and you may suspect that you have few valuable skills, but that’s fine.
Although we like stories of those who achieved apparently instant fame and early success, like the Forbes 30 under 30, it’s
46 For a summary of some of this research, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/the‐difference‐between‐
rationality‐and‐intelligence.html
not the norm. Behind most great achievements are many years spent diligently building expertise.
We’ve seen people transform their careers by doing things like learning to program, finding the right boss, moving to a city where they can build good connections, and getting the right PhD.
If you focus on building valuable, flexible career capital, then you’ll be able to have a more impactful, satisfying career too.
Apply this to your own career
1. Go over all the four paths to career capital and ways to gain career capital in any job, and note down three new ways you could gain career capital.
a. Can you work at a high‐performance, growing organization?
b. Do you have a good option for graduate study?
c. Can you do something that will teach you a valuable skill?
d. Is there an option where you’ll achieve something impressive, especially if relevant to social impact?
2. Read the list of ways to gain career capital in any job in Appendix 2. Choose one to focus on over the next year.
3. What’s the most valuable career capital you already have? Identifying your most valuable career capital can give you clues about what you’ll be best at, and help you to convince employers to hire you. Review each of the categories:
a. Skills, which you can break down into (i) transferable skills, (ii) knowledge, and (iii) personality traits.
b. Connections c. Credentials,
d. Runway.
If you’re stuck, list out the five achievements you’re most proud of, and ask what they have in common.
4. If you’re early in your career, take our career quiz (http://80k.link/APT). Select “early career” and it’ll mainly rank options by their potential for career capital.
5. If you’re later in your career, take a look at our advice by area:
wiki.80000hours.org/index.php/Advice_by_expertise 6. To read more, check out So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport (where we learned the term
“career capital”).