Experiment: Career Change Bootcamp

Experiment #1: Career Change Bootcamp

Goal

Help EAs transition into high-impact career paths. Targeted at people who plan to transition in the next 12 months or so. This will help address a lack of structure, networks and support for EAs in the process of a career change.

Applicants would be recommended by group organisers or go through an application process to ensure a base level dedication and competency. The program will be 8 weeks, with twice a month calls, weekly 1-1 peer-peer check-ins and coworking sessions. The initial cohort of 10-12 participants split into 2-3 groups depending on similarities of career path. The cohort would be selected to have participants with similar career interests and transition stage.

Precise content will be molded to applicant’s needs.

Participants

  • vetted by group organisers
  • an application process to ensure a level of commitment and alignment
  • likely be later-stage academics or professionals, because students have other resources available. Calls will likely take place on weekends to accommodate this.

Time Estimates

Total estimate for trial run (excluding curriculum design): 58-79 hours

  • For a 10-12 person cohort
  • Recruitment/set-up: 10 hours
  • Per week: 6-8 hours
    • 1 hour meeting
    • 2 hour pre/post meeting work
      • Follow-ups & check-ins
      • Research on specific questions
      • Coordinating with guest speakers
    • 2 hours 1-1s
    • 1 hour coordination work
  • Evaluation: 10-15 hours

Course structure

  • Week 0: Do quick chats with the ppts and see if their major bottleneck is not actually career related (i.e. mental health or productivity or language) and if so, send them on their way. Check in on them periodically to see progress and get feedback.
  • Week 1-4:
    • Get participants to know each other, share their backgrounds, establish an environment of trust/honesty
    • Identify key uncertainties and bottlenecks
    • Try to resolve key uncertainties via research and networking if possible, if not plan for experiments to help resolve uncertainties
    • For bottlenecks, rank and evaluate bottlenecks and figure out which ones are the most tractable to work on.
    • Make a decision on which career path to pursue
    • Have EAs with relevant experience join 2 group calls, one junior EA and one more senior EA and have a guided discussion session with them.
  • Week 4-8:
    • Targeted programming addressed at 1-2 similar roles. If there are individuals who’ve decided to choose a different path, we will still try to provide support to them, and they should still be able to benefit from the general course structure in taking the next steps. If needed, we can rearrange the cohorts so that more similar people are matched.

Measuring success

  • Participant feedback: 2 feedback forms at 50% and 100% completion. An automated 3,6 and 12 month evaluation.
  • Feedback from guest speakers about their interactions with the participants.

Tools

Zoom for meetings, Slack for communications - and letting participants use the rooms for coworking, setting up 1-1s and so on. I plan to automate check-ins and follow-ups as much as possible. Draw on existing resources for remote work and virtual meetings such as:  Ideas for virtual EA group meetups

Expected value

I expect most of the value of this bootcamp to be experimental. It will allow me to test the hypotheses I’ve developed from the research conducted so far. I hope the bootcamp will provide value by improving the rates that people successfully take action:

  • Helping people actually take action on their career change plans
  • Encourage people who might be on the fence for whatever reason to seriously consider a career change, evaluate concrete options and take action
  • Help people who are stuck overcome these bottlenecks such as a lack of connections or knowledge
  • Speed up the process of a career change by providing an accountability structure