Internship opportunities at 80,000 Hours

Note: This blog post was written in 2014. 80,000 Hours no longer offers internships, and the Centre for Effective Altruism now offers very few.

We are looking for interns to join our Graduate Volunteer Scheme, which involves a period of 6-10 months of work in our Oxford-based office (although we are also interested in students who want to intern with us over the summer, and sometimes consider 2-3 month placements). We have roles in research, outreach, operations, fundraising, tech and design. Taking up a Graduate Volunteer position is a great way to gain experience for your future career, as well as meet a diverse range of interesting and highly motivated people, and do a lot of good.

As a Graduate Volunteer, there are lots of different areas to work on, and there’s plenty of flexibility to adjust the role so it plays to your strengths and development aims. We make it our responsibility to ensure your time here allows you to grow as much as possible, as well as just being lots of fun! Many interns say the experience was a significant boost to their career, and we introduced several to the people who set them up with their current jobs. You can see why past interns have found the Graduate Volunteer Scheme a great experience at the bottom of this post.

The scheme has proved very popular with our current interns, with a stimulating and dedicated atmosphere in the office and a lively and welcoming community outside office hours. Perhaps the strongest evidence of this is that many have extended their stays repeatedly. Once you have applied, we are happy to connect you with a current intern to discuss what it’s like to work with us. Read more about why working at 80,000 Hours is an excellent experience.

We’re looking for hardworking individuals with a strong desire for personal development who are deeply interested in making the world a better place in an effective way. Find out more.

We can often provide accommodation in a house with other volunteers and staff, free lunch, and expenses of up to £8 a day based on financial need, especially for longer-term interns. As you would play an important role for a significant period, we would make sure you weren’t left out of pocket.

If you would be interested in interning with us, please let us know via this form. Note: applications have now closed.

What would you work on?

In research and outreach, you’d work with Ben and Roman to write blog posts on topics like: how can we compare research and earning to give careers, how much influence do people at the World Bank have, and what traits are required to succeed as an entrepreneur? Outreach involves promoting our findings and coaching through the media and online.

In fundraising, you’d work with Rob Wiblin to find potential donors, prepare materials and write grants.

Operations is in charge of helping everything run smoothly, including recruitment, looking after new staff and managing the budget.

In tech and design, you’d be in charge of making the website engaging, beautiful and easy to use. You might also help make infographics or posters.

It’s possible to combine several of these roles. If you have more questions, get in touch with [email protected].

Why being a Graduate Volunteer is a great experience

Be part of something incredibly exciting

We want to completely change the way people think about their careers, which we find to be an unbelievably exciting and motivating project.

“It’s really exciting to be at the forefront of research on how to do the most good with your career. It’s such an important and neglected area of research, and all our findings are immediately applicable and decision relevant to real people’s lives.”
– Roman Duda, Head of Coaching

Do work that’s important, challenging and varied

Everyone wants a job they love, as well as one that makes a difference. Job satisfaction seems to come from challenge, contribution, and variety. Working on the fundamentally interesting, neglected and important question: “how can we help people choose the best careers?” turns out to be a pretty good way to achieve these things!

“One of my favorite parts of working for 80,000 Hours was that there was always something new. I got a lot of choice in what I was working on and there was a lot of task diversity. I got to see my projects to completion and had a high degree of autonomy.”
– Xio Kikauka, former intern

Work with incredible people

Everyone who works for us is talented, dedicated and ambitious, and there’s a wide community of awesome people in Oxford for you to meet. When I asked people in the office for what they most liked about working here, “great people” came up the most. We also work closely with academics at the University of Oxford: we share offices with the Future of Humanity Institute and are affiliated with the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, based in the same building. Our careers coaching program is attracting some of the most inspiring and interesting young people in the world.

““The best thing about working for CEA is definitely the people. I have never before met such an intelligent, motivated and interesting team with a genuine desire to change the world for the better.”
– Stephanie Crampin, intern

Become the most impressive person you can

Helping you to fulfil your potential to make a huge difference is one of the most important things we can do, so we make personal development a priority. We’ll tailor your work so you can develop the skills you want, as well as explicitly setting aside time each week to work on personal development and self improvement.

Everyone really wants to help everyone else on the team, as we all care deeply about enabling each other to reach our highest potential, so that we can all improve the world as much as possible.”
– Roman Duda, Head of Coaching

Find exciting future job opportunities

One of our interns in 2012 founded Animal Charity Evaluators with our help. Two former interns found their current jobs through people they met at 80,000 Hours.

It’s also just a ton of fun! The team is very sociable and we do lots of things together besides work: weekly dinners and pub trips, movie nights, and much more.

Finally, there’s no better place to try and figure out your own career path. We can’t emphasise this one enough – it’s something we’ve found so valuable. One of the best ways to figure out the answers to your questions is to discuss them with other people who are thinking about the same issues. You’ll be in an environment surrounded by other people who are ambitious about making a difference with the careers, giving you ample opportunity to do this. We give each other constant feedback and advice on future career plans, and also offer formal careers advice to everyone who works with us.

“I genuinely don’t think there’s a better place in the world to work if you want to figure out what to do with your own career. The time I’ve spent working for 80,000 Hours this past year has been invaluable and made me realise there are so many more exciting possibilities available to me than I originally thought.”
– Jess Whittlestone, former intern