“Strangers calling: the value of warm responses to cold outreach” by Sam Anschell

Tl;dr: I think responding to cold outreach (Linkedin DMs, emails) is a high-leverage way to help someone pursue an impactful career. Spending 15 minutes on Zoom or 5 minutes to share resources in writing can: Introduce someone to job boards, career advising and other professional development resources (EA Anywhere Slack, EA Virtual Programs, EA Opportunities Board, Effective Thesis, High Impact Professionals, etc.) that they hadn’t previously been aware of.  More people hear about EA from personal contacts than from any other single source. Rethink Priorities’ recent surveys suggest that only ~1% of the American general public is aware of EA. Your response may be the reason someone discovers EA career resources, or you may significantly speed up their discovery of these resources.  Support a job-seeker's motivation to continue putting themselves out there for impactful roles. Strengthen the reputation/practices of your team, organization, or the EA movement to be more inclusive and welcoming. Answer someone's questions and help them learn about new areas of work. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ My sense is that some EAs are reluctant to answer cold messages, especially if they come from someone between jobs, in school, or working at a “non-EA” org. Someone reaching out in this position [...] ---Outline:(04:31) Advice for sending cold messages(06:09) Advice for responding to outreach(07:55) Doesn't it make sense for the professionals at 80k/Probably Good/Animal Advocacy Careers to manage career advising?(08:28) I find it draining to talk to strangers, especially if they're going to ask for a favor.(09:19) I'm really busy. --- First published: November 4th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WgNXmrL4ax44bMmjq/strangers-calling-the-value-of-warm-responses-to-cold --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.