“You have 80,000 Hours in your career. Choose how you spend that time well, and you can have a hugely positive impact on the world.”

A powerful motto of 80000hours.org, a brilliant website that can help you figure out how you can match your skills to a career with impact. It will help you find a job which will allow you to do the most good in the world.

80,000 Hours started in 2011 by Oxford University student Will MacAskill, who was looking for such advice himself, without much luck. Knowing there must be many like him, he saw a gap he felt the urge to fill. After his initial idea presentation, a quarter of the audience completely changed what they were planning to do with their lives, so he along with friend Benjamin Todd, decided to start an organisation to help more people have impact driven careers.

Working closely with academics from Oxford University, they continually conduct in-depth research into how you can make the biggest difference possible with your career.

I took a quick quiz on the site to see what sort of jobs would be best for me to make an impact and was pleased to see the results were mostly jobs I can closely relate to:

• Working in a think tank
• Helping foundations decide where to make donations
• Programme manager in an international organisation

Should you want more specific advice, they have a decision tool and career guide that can help narrow down options. And what’s more, everything they offer is free! Apart from this book, however all profits from the book are donated to charities.

They are a non-profit funded by individual donors. They do not accept any corporate sponsorship or advertising fees, so their advice is entirely independent and therefore credible. So far they have raised $800,000 in funding.

All in all, it’s an impressive and useful resource, clearly built and managed by a team who genuinely want to make a difference, and help others make a difference too.

If you have even a glimmer of thought in your mind that wants to make a difference (which you definitely do or you wouldn’t be on this site), I highly recommend checking it out. You can also find them here on Facebook and Twitter. If you know anyone else who can benefit from this site, please share!

#startwithsomething