How to make your career plan | The 80,000 Hours career guide (2023 edition)

• Long-term career plans are inherently unstable and frequently require adjustment due to personal growth, evolving industry landscapes, and the emergence of roles that do not yet exist.
• While specific long-term plans often fail, the act of planning is essential for identifying opportunities to advance and accumulating specialist "career capital" required for high-impact roles.
• Relying solely on keeping options open is often counterproductive, as it can lead to prolonged periods in prestigious but irrelevant jobs that fail to build the specific capital needed for top-tier outcomes.

Three-Stage Career Trajectory

• Explore (Approx. ages 18–24): Focus on low-cost methods to test promising long-term roles and identify personal fit.
  • Individuals uncertain about long-term goals may extend this stage or build transferable career capital while deferring a specific vision.
• Build Career Capital (Approx. ages 25–35): Commit to a specific long-term path to rapidly acquire the skills, connections, and reputation necessary for high impact.
  • This stage involves taking a calculated bet on a path with a defined backup plan.
  • Individuals with diminishing returns on capital or urgent global problems (e.g., AI safety) may accelerate toward the next stage.
• Deploy (Approx. age 36+): Utilize accumulated capital to tackle pressing global problems and negotiate for personally satisfying work.
• Plans should be reviewed and updated every one to three years to account for new information and changing circumstances.

Strategic Planning Framework

• Long-Term Vision: Maintain a vague but directional vision covering 5 to 25 years.
  • The vision should identify 2–5 global problems to solve and 1–5 specific roles or types of work to aim for.
  • A clear vision serves to spot opportunities rather than dictate a rigid path.
• Focus on Concrete Next Steps: Dedicate the majority of planning effort to identifying the single best action for the next 1–3 years.
  • Concrete decisions (e.g., specific jobs, courses, projects) are often easier to evaluate than abstract long-term paths.
  • Iterative progress via concrete steps allows for career building even without a defined long-term destination.
• Dual-Approach for Next Steps:
  • Work Backwards: Identify the most direct routes to a vision by consulting experts and analyzing rapid-advancement case studies (e.g., Bill Clinton's network-building).
  • Work Forwards: Actively scan for high-quality opportunities immediately available, such as jobs with unique responsibility, excellent mentors, or better-than-expected fit, regardless of their alignment with a strict long-term plan.
• The ABZ Plan:
  • Plan A: The primary best-guess scenario, which could be a specific path, a series of experimental steps, or the accumulation of transferable capital.
  • Plan B: One or two promising nearby alternatives to switch to if Plan A fails; writing these out prepares the individual to pivot quickly.
  • Plan Z: A temporary fallback to cover basic needs (e.g., living with family, tutoring, teaching abroad) if both A and B fail, reducing the fear of risk.
• Risk Management:
  • Clarify the realistic worst-case scenario, which is often less catastrophic than anticipated.
  • Take steps to ensure serious risks (e.g., burning out, reputational damage) do not occur, rather than avoiding all risk.
  • Create a specific coping plan for worst-case scenarios to ensure resilience.

Execution and Review Protocol

• Identify Key Uncertainties: Determine the specific information gaps that, if filled, would most significantly alter the current plan rankings.
• Resolve Uncertainties: Investigate these gaps through action, research, or conversations before finalizing decisions.
• Set a Review Point: Establish a mandatory review schedule (typically 6–24 months) to prevent sunk cost fallacy and status quo bias.
  • Reviews should involve re-evaluating the plan from a "blank slate" perspective and discussing it with others to reduce personal bias.
• Seven-Step Implementation Process:
  1. Determine current career stage (Explore, Build, or Deploy).
  2. Draft a shortlist of long-term visions and roles.
  3. Clarify the immediate decision and generate a long list of potential next steps via working backward and forward.
  4. Narrow the list to 5–10 promising options using career capital and personal fit criteria.
  5. Formulate the initial A-B-Z plan.
  6. Identify key uncertainties and investigate them.
  7. Execute the plan and set a future review date.