MARYLAND CAREERS
BOOKS AND OTHER RESOURCES FOR JOBSEEKERS
MANAGEMENT. If you plan to emphasize your management skills in your job interviews, you'll need to be up-to-date. Most management texts do an adequate job of describing the latest innovations, but with rare exceptions they do so in a framework first suggested in 1916 by Henri Fayol. Very few managers nowadays allocate specific effort to planning, organizing, leading and controlling, but that's the way most management texts are still divided up.
A refreshing exception is "Beyond Total Quality Management," by Bounds, Yorks, Adams and Ranney (817 pp, 1995, McGraw-Hill). These authors organize their ideas around three managerial roles:
- Assuring continuous improvement
- Organizing to improve cross-functional systems
- Enhancing customer value.
If it's been a while since you've seen a management text, this book is a good way to get up to date while you get used to the new century. It's not cheap, but you may be able to find it in the library or through a used book source such as Amazon.com or Addall.com.
Business magazines publish articles and book reviews on the latest management concepts.
TopCAREER CHANGE is the title of a recent book by David P. Helfand (318 pp, 1995, VGM/NTC Publishing Group, Chicago). This author begins by considering a variety of circumstances, some of them stressful, leading to a decision to investigate a new career. He then describes two methods of self-assessment:
- Paper-and-pencil tests such as the Strong Interest Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
- Analysis of significant life experiences. (Helfand doesn't mention this, but selected life experiences can produce vivid, informative material for job interviews.)
Top
SELECTING AN EMPLOYER.
When you're changing careers, your first employer should emphasize training
and development. How do you locate these great places to work?
Your first employer should emphasize training and development,
but how about later ones? Of course, they should emphasize it, too, but
at some point after you become well-established in your new career, you
may have an opportunity to help revive an organization that hasn't given
training and development enough attention. If you have been active in the
ASTD, you'll be better prepared to exploit such an opportunity. Of course,
you should also be active in at least one association in your industry
or profession.
MANAGING YOUR CAREER "My American Journey," by Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico (640 p., 1995, Random House) is inspiring for many reasons. It's also a classic on career management. Powell recounts how he:
- Discovered early a productive use for his talents and resolved to excel;
- Identified role models;
- Analyzed every experience for the lessons it contained;
- Kept records of his accomplishments;
- Stayed in touch with former co-workers;
- Cultivated mentors; at least one was younger.
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERSHIP is a worthwhile career option, and "How To Buy A Great Business With No Cash Down" by Arnold S. Goldstein (292 p., 1989, Wiley) describes many techniques that can be adapted by key employees seeking to gradually take over a business so the owner can retire on schedule. In one example (p. 200), the buyer arranged to purchase (at a preset price) five percent of the stock each year for ten years, paying for it out of salary and dividends. At the end of this period, the buyer had enough equity to collateralize the loan needed to buy the remaining half of the business, and the seller benefited in many ways as well. Goldstein is an attorney with extensive experience structuring the purchase of small businesses. He emphasizes the need to evaluate your employer's business in the same hard-nosed way you would evaluate any other potential purchase.
"In Business for Yourself," by Bruce Williams (262 p., Scarborough House, 1991) delves into the nuts and bolts of owning a small business. The author has owned several businesses hmself and has also been a small-town mayor. This is the same Bruce Williams who advises small business owners on talk radio. The style is conversational; in the book Williams sounds like he does on the radio. The advice is practical. Willliams exposes some popular fallacies: starting part-time (the competition will be full-time); buying a job (your capital could earn more elsewhere); and many others. He devotes a full chapter to matching your skills to the type of business. A valuable book.
"Marketing Without Advertising," by Michael Phillips and Salli Rasberry (2nd ed., Nolo Press, 1997) reminds us that although advertising is pervasive and conspicuous, it cannot be your primary means of getting and keeping customers. In the foreword, the publisher says, "The best way to succeed in business is to run such a wonderful operation that your loyal and satisfied customers will brag about your goods and services far and wide." There's a chapter in the second edition about marketing on the Internet. Read this book before you write the marketing section of your business plan.
TopJOB STRATEGIES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, by Melanie Astaire Witt (292 pp., Peterson's Guides, Princeton, 1992), contains much good generic job search advice adapted to the special challenges facing the disabled.
For me, the centerpiece is the chapter on disclosure. For some disabilities (requiring use of a wheelchair, for example) disclosure is inevitable, and the only question is when and how. For others, it's a close call, and Witt gives good common-sense advice. I borrowed a bit of it when advising a client whose health had been restored by replacement of a major organ. I asked if his ability to do the job he sought would be affected (in other words would any accomodation be required). I also asked if he required more time off for checkups than his vacations would cover. He said "No" to both questions. So I asked, "Do you want to be remembered as the guy with the transplant, or as the one who can do the job?" Witt takes up much more complex issues, of course, in her chapter.
There's another chapter on the Americans with Disabilities Act, and this leads to my only reservation. The Act was new when the book was written, and it would be wise now to consult a counselor specializing in job search for the disabled in order to be fully up to date.
HIRING. One of the evergreen truisms taught to every jobseeker is “The person who gets hired isn’t the one who’s best at doing the job--it’s the one who’s best at seeking a job.”
In the second edition of "Hire With your Head," (334p., Wiley, 2002) Lou Adler, a recruiter of many years experience, says regretfully that it’s true, but it shouldn’t be. He said the same thing in the first edition. Too many hires don’t work out, a loss for both the employer and the job seeker. Job seekers should read his book in case they encounter an employer who has read it. Some of the ideas have already appeared on this website in the article Resumes and Interviews. Employers should read his book in order to improve their dismal accuracy--Adler says "There is nothing more important to your success than hiring great people. Nothing." If you disagree with this, you won’t like the book.
Adler recommends a five step system, which he calls the POWER Staffing System:
The book is filed with detailed guidance on how to accomplish these steps, including record-keeping forms.
If you agree with Adler about the importance of hiring great people, you may wonder about the attention the subject gets in management books. True to form, Peter Drucker was a pioneer, with an excellent chapter on MBO in the Practice of Management (1954) and one on selection in “The Effective Executive” (1967). My favorite text devotes seven pages to a solid discussion of the traditional method that Adler overturns. Management professors who agree with Adler about the importance of hiring great people should create a module on the subject and require students to purchase Adler's book. Everyone should study it.