Thank you to @Hugh P, @Sam Smith 🔸,  @Jian Xin Lim🔹 and @Kevin Xia 🔸  for reviewing this post!

I recently applied, and was successfully accepted into Probably Good 1-1 Career Advising. I was pretty sceptical of the value of these programs (I explain why later on), and mainly applied because my friend encouraged me to, and I thought that I might as well, as I was in need of some help with my career planning.

However, after having my career advising call with Probably Good, I found it to be extremely useful and I'll list the reasons why I was sceptical and why it's worth your time below.

Why it's worth your time

It is an incredibly effective use of time

In less than an hour in my Probably Good call, my advisor:

• suggested a super interesting idea (about data science consultancy for non-profits) which I had not considered properly before,
• pitched a different way of thinking that was actually quite obvious looking back (but I just didn't think of),
• and also connected me with a bunch of highly relevant people.

The first two points would probably just not have occurred to me on my own, and although I could've done the third one by myself, I think it would've taken a lot longer, and having someone who already knows a lot of relevant, highly skilled people, is extremely useful and will save you a lot of time. 

It's okay if you don't learn anything new

This definitely wasn't the case for me, but I think even if your advisor can't provide any new knowledge, or new connections, they can definitely help with structuring your thoughts and providing ideas on how to direct your next steps, and honestly, even talking out your ideas to someone can be super useful too.

Also, the increase in motivation to actually do these next steps was hugely beneficial as well! (Although I've only just had my call.)

Why I was sceptical

"I just need to do more research"

I found myself feeling this way a lot – I would tell myself that the reason my career plans weren't very good was that I just needed to put some more effort in, do some more rabbit-holing, make more documents, etc. And although this could be true, it can be hard to find a starting point, or get a sense of what your next steps are, and to find the time to actually do the research. Here, the structural support and motivational push of the call were extremely useful to overcome this initial barrier. 

I was put off by having to make applications and high rejection rates

In addition to being sceptical, I also found it pretty boring filling in the documents required for before the call (asking for my current thoughts on my career plans). I think this could've also been down to having to fill in a lot of applications post-EAG.

Although there is a lot of repetition across applications, I actually found it really useful to fill in the reflection document provided by Probably Good, as not only did it provide a structure for the meeting, but within the meeting it also allowed me to consider options I had missed out, as I had the obvious ones written down. Additionally, it was just good to have everything in my brain written on one sheet.

I also thought that the rejection rates were too high as I had been rejected from career advising before, but I think having a strong application and a friend who can review it really helps too.

Proof in the stats

See Animal Advocacy Careers' 2024 report here.

They estimated that their work added $830,000 of value to the animal advocacy movement in 2024, and that this probably wouldn't have been possible without them. 1-1 Career advising was among their most cost-effective programs, proving particularly useful in helping people counterfactually get jobs.

Additionally, 80,000 Hours has also provided successful career advising.

Final thoughts

If you find yourself in a similar situation - that is, feeling sceptical of the value of career advising and wanting to have a better career plan , then I'd really recommend these programs, they definitely helped me and others a lot (from the AAC report). They took me from unmotivated to having a clearer plan with next steps and the motivation to act on them. 

As well as Probably Good, I also got accepted into Magnify Mentoring - this is a 6 month program, so I will follow up after / during this and write a post about how my motivation and goals structure is going!