Employment Books

Maureen's book is excellent. A well-written resource with over 100 sample resumes and cover letters to use as a guide. I use it quite often in my freelance writing business Write On! Creative Writing Services.

Now in an updated and expanded second edition, Jim Dalton's A Field Guide On The Hiring Process is a kind of "user manual" for both employees and employers. Aspiring job seekers will learn how to assemble and implement an effective job search; use easy-to-follow principles for preparing an effective resume; and make the job interview the key to getting hired. Employers will learn how to determine the best person for the job; utilize interviewing techniques that will both simplify and standardize the hiring process; and implement easy-to-use strategies to insure hiring the best talent available for any company position. A Field Guide On The Hiring Process is an outstanding addition to any personal, professional, employment center, and community library jobs/careers reference collection.

I found this book to be very intelligently written and quite appropriate for today's children and families. The view through the eyes of a daughter helping her father with something traditionally so patriarchal and 'grown up' was refreshing. Ms Maslac is also very clever and charming in her word choices and phrases. I think all parents- single or coupled- would enjoy sharing this book with their child. It is pro female- pro family- pro education- non religious- non fantasy- non political.

This book has everything: sample resumes, insider's info on selection process, great advice on winning interviews, even a list of Academic and Professional Associations.

Collaboratively edited by National Bureau of Economic Research associates David Card (Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley) and Rebecca M. Blank (Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, University of Michigan), Finding Jobs: Work And Welfare Reform is a hard-hitting and documented examination of the nationally vital issue of how "welfare-to-work" transitional programs have affected both individual families and the nation at large. A carefully descriptive and scholarly assessed inquiry of the low-skill labor market in changing economic climates, including a projected climate of recession, Finding Jobs gives the good, the bad, and the ugly facts about welfare reform. Touting earned income tax credits, scrutinizing the costs of changing the welfare system, and written with the goal of finding ways to lower overall poverty, Finding Jobs is a highly recommended social and economic treatise, and essential reading for policy makers, social issue activists, and academia concerned with the American economy in general, and the impact of contemporary welfare reforms in particular.

This book speaks directly to the 3 real impediments so many dedicated professionals face when they lose their job -- depression/self-recrimination, bitterness and loss of perspective.

The book also gives practical job search tips, especially (but not limited to) for higher level professionals.

What Color is Your Parachute is an outstanding guide to job hunting but not much help until a job-seeker gets past the problems above. Buy both books.

Don't let the 1988 date deter your interest. This book is as current today as when it was written. Not only does it expertly cover every aspect of firemen's oral interviews, it has unique illustrations! Gene Mahoney guides you through step-by-step information and tips, giving you knowledge and confidence.

"You can hardly breathe....You are sitting in a meeting...and so they talk, and every word they say seems to diminish the supply of fresh air, and fresh ideas....Your brain begins to go numb...the corporate institution encourages this insane situation."

I was looking for a book on public relations and stumbled across Michael Gill and Sheila Patterson's introduction to becoming an entrepreneur in Fired Up! Before I left the parking lot, I had already done the one thing every reader never admits to-I read the last two chapters first and took "The Ultimate Test." Sigh...I passed the test. I was ready to leave my executive position of 15 years and go out on my own. I had had enough of being told to do those things that I felt inside were headed in an unexciting, unrewarding, and basically wrong direction.

Having discussed this with my beau, we decided the time was now. We would do this together. Following the guidelines on writing a business plan, we painstakingly conducted the required market research and found that our idea was indeed unique. Next step-we rented office space, away from both our homes, and moved in there together. We interviewed several corporate attorneys and chose one, and did the same for an accountant and a banker. Next, we tested our idea and it worked.

Like a cookbook, we pursued each suggestion as if we were on the path to the holy grail. Not one failed us. Having developed our unique selling proposition, we gleefully learned that we had become the front-runners. That's not to say that we didn't suffer through some of the "Detours to Disaster" described, such as saying out loud "We can do that" when we really didn't want to and should not have...and such a project took us off-course for a while, but we returned to our road plan, a bit more weary and a bit more hardened to the life of an entrepreneur.

As Gill and Patterson stress, there is nothing like working for yourself. Read this book and glean the lessons of successes and failures, and accept the fact that you will be telling your own stories of both. Follow each step included in this guide and you will have no reason to fail. I've purchased several copies of this book and gave them to my friends, with express direction to read during their corporate meetings.

Before you decide that working for yourself is the next step, please read the appendix ("Eleven Steps You Can Take Right Now Before You Leave Your Job")-it will save you the heartache of emotional and financial destitude if this lifestyle is not for you. And you will have made your own decision to move from fearful employee to fired up entrepreneur!

As for the joy of sex-well, better saved for another book review!

Please ignore the review above. This Texas hillbilly posts the SAME REVIEW for every textbook he "reads." This person should stick to what he knows: he's a big fan of the Lethal Weapon series.

Immigrant high school students (most in their first three years in the US) interview and photograph adults from their own communities, then translate and edit their interviews to make this beautiful book. Each published interview is given one page, with black and white photographs (also taken by students) on the pages beside the interviews. The reading passages are brief, but their honesty and intimacy are clearly derived from much longer interviews. The main theme of the interviews is the contrast between the adults' expectations about immigration and the reality they have found in New York, with an emphasis on employment. The range of stories makes the book fascinating and provides new insights into the current immigrant experience. The sacrifices of the immigrants are stunning. The immigrants come from many countries, with varied educational backgrounds, and both positive and negative experiences in New York. I'm an English as a Second Language teacher, and we are using this book as a model for student writing in my own classes.