Career Guide: How to Do Good With Your Work

Want a meaningful career that helps others? Wondering how to choose the right job for you? Thinking about making a career change to something more purposeful?

We offer free research-based advice to help you find a career that’s good for you and good for the world.

Why read this guide?

There are all sorts of ways to use your career to help others – probably more than you initially think.

Imagine spending your career mitigating the effects of climate change through research. Or leveraging creative skills to advocate for animal welfare. Or applying social science to tackle big picture problems – like democratizing healthcare or preventing catastrophic risks.

With a diverse range of opportunities, we think it’s possible to find an interesting job that makes a real difference – but this won’t happen by accident. 

Just as you might spend a lot of time researching the best possible product before making a big purchase, it’s easily worth spending several hours thinking about how you’re going to spend your time and energy throughout your career.

That’s why we created this guide – to help you figure out what careers would be best for you, while taking your social impact into account. Here are a few highlights:

  • Learn how to compare your career options and choose between jobs.
  • Gain tools to that help you find exceptional and impactful opportunities.
  • Discover important causes where you can make a meaningful difference.
  • Add structure, direction, and clarity to your career planning.

So dive in, and let’s find the best ways you can use your career for good.

What’s in the guide?

Our guide aims to answer three key questions: what it looks like to make an impact, how to take your social impact into account with career decisions, and how to apply the ideas to your own decision-making.

It’s intended to take you step-by-step through what you need to know, from start to finish. You can read it at your own pace, take breaks when you want to, and revisit previous parts if it helps.

Our approach to career advice 

Help others at scale 

There are all sorts of ways to help the world, but just as some charities are 100x more effective than others, some jobs can make a much bigger difference than others. When thinking about helping others with your career, we think it’s worth figuring out the best ways to increase your positive impact. In the guide, we aim to understand how we can strategize our careers to achieve vastly more impact. 

Rely on evidence 

The advice we give isn’t solely based on intuition; it’s based on the best data and evidence we can find. Our content is written with the help of industry experts from multiple fields, along with in-depth reviews of the best research and evidence we can find. There’s rarely perfect evidence, so we’ll be careful in noting our level of confidence in our claims and sharing what evidence we base them on.

Focus on tools over conclusions

Our goal is to give you the tools to make informed decisions, rather than giving specific answers or recommendations. Ultimately, career decisions are complex. There’s no single best career for everyone, and the guide isn’t meant to replace your own judgment. Instead, we aim to sharpen your intuition so you can feel confident in coming to your own conclusions.

Who are we?

Probably Good is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people find careers that are good for them and good for the world. All our resources are completely free of charge.