by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Mar 11, 2010 | Book Reviews, Career Skills
For the most part, pending and recent graduates do not know how to search for a job.
There’s a strong need for quick, easy-to-digest information about entry-level job searching.
So @heatherhuhman wrote ‘#ENTRYLEVELtweet’ to fulfill that need.
I wish I could say I was creative enough to have come up with the comments above, all of which are under 140 characters. But I am not.
Heather Huhman, however, is. And she’s created a simple, effective book, chock full of job search advice for the Twitter generation, all delivered in snippets of 140 characters or less.
Readers will easily digest the practical wisdom doled out in the book, on subjects including identifying your “unique you,” developing career tools, networking, applying for internships and entry-level jobs, accepting and rejecting offers, and succeeding on the job.
Huhman, Founder and President of Come Recommended, is an expert on helping students and recent college graduates pursue their dream careers. Besides her website, she has nearly 9,000 followers on Twitter, is a career expert for the CAREEREALISM Twitter Advice Project, the job search expert for Campus Calm, a contributor to One Day, One Job, One Day, One Internship, Intern Advocate and Personal Branding Blog and author of the e-books Relocating for an Entry-Level Job: Why You Probably Have to & How to Do It (2010) and Gen Y Meets the Workforce: Launching Your Career During Economic Uncertainty (2008).
My favorite tweet: Individuals in your life love you dearly and give you advice with the best intentions. But they’re probably wrong.
#EntryLevelTweet is powerful in its simplicity, and makes for an easy read. It would also make a great gift for upcoming graduates and entry level job seekers you know.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 2, 2009 | Book Reviews
How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What's Left of Your Career
Have you ever thought to yourself “Success is too hard!”?
Jason Seiden has the answer for all those beleaguered by their search for success: Stop trying. Fail instead.
How to Self Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Career outlines 14 ways to destroy your career, whether you are in your first job or “retiring in place” in senior management. Divided into four sections: Taking Down Your Career, Kicking Your Career When It’s Down, Laying Waste to Your Personal Environment, and Mastering the Self-Destruction Process, the book offers many pearls of wisdom for those who’ve finally had it with being successful and are ready to just give up. Some that I found particularly good:
- Take advantage of casual Fridays….”The unpressed, only-worn-once-since-you-washed-it-last Banana Republic uniform is still the most subtle yet effective way to keep yourself off everyone’s ‘next in line for the presidency’ radars.”
- Develop Champagne Tastes and an entitlement complex….“This will maximize the number of things you want but cannot afford and will heighten the feelings of inadequacy you experience when you repeatedly don’t get them.”
- Stay humble…. “At worst, you’ll get a personal note from the CEO admiring your work ethic, reminding you of the fond days when he worked under you and wishing you well now that your red Swingline has been confiscated and you’ve been laid off.”
To balance things out, Seiden ends each chapter with advice for those who don’t have the courage to fail. Some sage advice I could relate to:
- Be prepared to meet with a client or with your CEO at any moment. …“if you want the interaction to go well, appearances matter.”
- Embrace your inner grunt….“Escort your ego to the curb and give it a good kick in the ass so it doesn’t come back. Return to the office and relish your role as low man on the totem pole. How low? Let’s put it this way: all the people you work with were told they were special too. So, chance are, you are of average specialness, which means you’re not special at all.”
- Work hard? Yes, and have fun, too. If you’re not having fun, you’re not engaging others. If you’re not engaging others, you’re not building the network you’ll need to achieve your big dreams. If you’re not having fun, you’re wasting your potential and slowly turning into a pessimist who will try to convince others to abandon thier dreams the same as you abandoned yours.”
With a unique mix of humor and wisdom, Jason Seiden has created an engaging and thought-provoking guidebook for failing (or succeeding) in today’s workplace. The cover price for this book is $12.95 and you can learn more about Seiden at www.howtoselfdestruct.com and at his blog, www.seidenleadership.com.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Sep 25, 2009 | Book Reviews
Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields
In Career Renegade former lawyer and self-proclaimed “serial lifestyle entrepreneur” Johnathan Fields take us through his personal journey from being a high-powered Manhattan attorney to owning his own yoga studio to becoming a speaker, writer and business coach.
I stumbled upon this book during a recent trip to our local Barnes and Noble, where I had gone with my almost 4-year-old son, Brendan, to play with the train table and buy a book for bedtime reading. After B inflicted some serious train-crashing on poor Thomas the Tank Engine and friends, he chose Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, and we headed up front to see if I could find a book that would help me in developing a business plan for my coaching practice
The title screamed out at me, and the subtitle, “How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love,” hooked me in. I skimmed the table of contents. Fields divides the book into four parts
- What Makes You Come Alive? explores the connection between personal passion and finding a career you will love.
- What Kind of Renegade Will You Be? introduces Career Renegade paths, and provides a lot of interesting ideas for finding and filling needs for information and stuff, teaching what you know and planning and protecting your vision.
- How to Master Your Passion and Build a Worldwide Following helps readers explore their personal readiness to build a reputation and a following, and provides some great ideas on ways to market ideas and use social media tools to build a community around your vision.
- Let the Revolution Begin engages readers in determining how ready they are to build a “Career Renegade” mindset and build support among family and friends.
As someone currently engaged in redefining my life and career, and seeking to help others do the same, I found Career Renegade to be a very enjoyable and engaging read, and it really helped me solidify my own commitment to this big change I’m planning that will take me away from the security of my current position working for a university. Fields’ practical information and the steps he takes the reader through to imagine their journey are powerful. I especially like his advice about weighing the security of a job against the costs of inaction. This helped me to not only explore my motivations, but to confront my fears about taking such a huge step.
If you are exploring ways to take control of your career, and need some inspiration to overcome your fears, as well as some practical advice to get you up and running, Career Renegade is the book you are looking for. Now that you know this, feel free to spend more time at the train table. Just take it easy on Thomas and his friends. They get enough of the rough stuff from the kids.
