The Career Center has received a huge influx of new books. Several of our newest titles touch on the theme of finding satisfaction in your career – be it from identifying your passion, changing careers, or even just learning to be a little bit more authentic. Enjoy!
How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do: Born for This
by Chris Guillebeau
Guillebeau offers a practical guide for finding the perfect job at the “intersection of joy, money, and flow”, either within a traditional company (by making a job work for you) or by striking out on your own. Guillebeau shares stories of real people, along with tools and exercises, to guide the reader through career options and discover (or shape) a job perfectly suited to you. Each chapter covers a different tactic for achieving an objective, such as: choosing the winning ticket to your career lottery, having both money and life, mastering the right skills, becoming indispensable, and so on.
50 Ways to Get a Job: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Work on Your Terms
by Dev Aujla
Aujla, CEO of the recruiting firm Catalog, spent three years with a team researching and experimenting with different methods for getting a job and talked with thousands of people. In this book Aujla outlines a “better way” to manage the job search process. Emphasis is placed on finding not just any job, but one that “feels natural, rejuvenates you, and isn’t motivated by stress or fear”. Chapters cover how to start, finding your purpose, how to cope with feeling overwhelmed, learning new skills, networking, what to do when stuck, applying for jobs, and interviewing.
Harvard Business Review Guide to Changing Your Career
by Harvard Business Review
Considering a change of career can be confusing and frightening. Perhaps you feel stuck or frustrated in your current career, you have discovered a new passion, or you simply feel ready for something new. This book tackles directly different challenges involved in preparing for a change in career. Chapters are by a different writer (or writers) and are organized into sections that address: understanding what is going on, understanding and imagining what you want to do, recognizing when a career change is right for you, how to investigate a new career path – and perhaps reevaluate your current one – and how to be motivated for a career change or having at least two careers at the same time.
The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate
by Fran Hauser
Hauser addresses the challenges women sometimes experience in the workplace: how to be successful without sacrificing their values or hiding who they are. Chapter titles capture well the both-and balance that Frauser offers women who know what they want and wish to advance their careers: Be ambitious and likeable, Speak up assertively and nicely, Give feedback directly and kindly, and so on. The book focuses on how to reclaim being “nice” while being a strong leader who projects confidence.
You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education
by George Anders
Anders challenges those who are tempted to think their liberal arts education does not lead to good paying, successful careers when the national spotlight focuses so heavily on science and engineering. A liberal arts education – along with other skills and experiences gained along the way – cultivates traits such as curiosity, creativity, and empathy. Anders helps readers (with a liberal arts education) appreciate the strengths they already have, the new needs and opportunities there are, how to recognize and cultivate allies among employers and classmates, and finally how to tell their story – an especially valuable skill that can grab the attention of a potential employer and/or create new job and career opportunities. That liberal arts education is increasingly useful in ways that can be surprising.
If you’d like to check out any of these books, you may place a hold on them through the East Baton Rouge Parish Library website.
Written by Richard Wright