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Catch the career you crave
Is there anyone who thinks they have the perfect job? Every few years a friend of mine takes the Law School Admissions Test thinking that law might be a better career for her. Another friend, at 36, just entered nursing school. After 10 years as a lawyer, she wants to be a nurse practitioner. They, like many other restless workers, are searching for the perfect job, the job that provides more than just a paycheck. In today's economic climate, where layoffs are common and no job feels secure, many people are re-evaluating their career choices and taking another look at those dreams deferred. But how do you make the decision to change your work life? This month we look at new books to help you approach career change head-on or relearn how to love the job you already have. |
REVIEWS BY SHARON SECOR
Career role models
Switching Careers: Career Changers Tell How -- and Why -- They Did It by Robert K. Otterbourg is the definitive guide if you are thinking about changing careers. Simply put, this is an awesome book filled with all the info you need to explore life outside your current profession. Don't keep this book to yourself though; share it with other friends and family who may be stuck in a job rut.
Otterbourg, who left a career in public relations to write books and a newspaper column, has organized this book brilliantly. As soon as you have a question like "Why should I switch careers?" or "How can I change careers and use my current skills?" he answers them, adding a few twists and turns you probably hadn't even considered. He helps you plan your strategy and find your mission in life while offering well-written interviews with people who have changed careers and who demonstrate his strategies. One great example is Phillip Berran, who went from New York City cop to NYU law school to medical school with an Army scholarship. He now combines all his skills for a career in pathology, a step on his way to becoming a medical coroner in the police department. Someday he'll solve crimes with medical knowledge. Otterbourg offers concrete chapters on changing careers in several specific areas, including becoming a clergyman, information technology guru, lawyer, health care worker, teacher or entrepreneur. Otterbourg can nudge you from the job rock you've been hiding under, and his inspiring stories will make you think, If that guy in this story can go from stockbroker to minister, then so can I!
Career Changers Tell How -- and Why -- They Did It By Robert K. Otterbourg
Overcome your fears
For many of us, myriad fears keep us in our present jobs: fear of failure, fear of financial upheaval, fear of tearing our families apart, even the fear of success. Do What You Love For the Rest of Your Life: A Practical Guide to Career Change and Personal Renewal by Bob Griffiths is the book you may need before you are ready to seriously plan for a career change. In this thoughtful and useful book, Griffiths shows how to take the simple steps you need to overcome the obstacles and fears that keep you from making a career change. He helps you develop a financial freedom plan, shows how to rework your resume and cover letters to make you stand out in the crowd, even helps you understand your role in your family and how making a career change can make your family happier and more financially stable in the long run.
Griffiths also candidly faces and explores the challenges many encounter in their career-changing roles. One woman who went to graduate school after years as a housewife felt confident and comfortable as she prepared for a chosen career, only to be stunned by her husband's resistance as she entered the workforce. Griffiths presents these truthful examples and offers ways to understand and avoid these roadblocks to personal renewal and become the person you want to be through your work.
A Practical Guide to Career Change and Personal Renewal By Bob Griffiths
Get out of your own way
The Practical Dreamer's Handbook: Finding the Time, Money, and Energy to Live the Life You Want to Live by Paul and Sarah Edwards is the answer to all those obstacles we place in our own way on the road to career change. This book is for anyone who knows what he or she wants to do and just doesn't seem to do it. Bills, family, time and energy are only a few of the obstacles we line up for ourselves. How to break the cycle of excuses and self-made obstacles is the goal of this spirited book. The Edwards, unlike Griffiths, assume you have a goal or career change in mind. They focus on giving you the skills you need to overcome the mental roadblocks we erect when we set out to achieve our dreams.
While this may sound like a feel-good sort of book, the Edwards are proof positive that their ideas and attitude can lead you to the work you'll love. Both contribute their own stories, as well as anecdotes from sports stars, writers, artists and business leaders. Sometimes you just need to read a book like this to remind yourself that the only hurdles in the path to success, truly, are the ones that you build yourself.
Finding the Time, Money, and Energy to Live the Life You Want to Live By Paul and Sarah Edwards
Finding satisfaction
Finally we have Reinvent Your Work: How to Rejuvenate, Revamp or Recreate Your Career by Felicia Zimmerman. Sometimes we just don't like our careers because, let's face it, the grass is always greener in the neighbor's yard. I know doctors who want to be lawyers, lawyers who want to be social workers and social workers who want a doctor's income. Are we ever really satisfied? Zimmerman says we can be. Her goal is to help every career become satisfying and fruitful in its own way. The key to realizing career happiness, says Zimmerman, is to recognize the challenges you have in your present position, to explore and meet them and then to find new challenges that make your career worthwhile and interesting. Constant rejuvenation and re-creation are the keys to career management and career happiness, she says.
Zimmerman would know. The author has steered her own career and those of many in Fortune 500 companies through reinvention journeys in her capacity as a corporate consultant. Her prologue, which focuses on her own career path, is a terrific introduction to the power of her methods and approach. This book is for anyone who knows they are in the right career, but needs to find ways to remind themselves that their work is just as important and meaningful as the next guy's.
How to Rejuvenate, Revamp or Recreate Your Career By Felicia Zimmerman
Briefly Noted
Work From the Inside Out by Nancy O'Hara is a thoughtful little book on our expectations of work. O'Hara asks what we do when our expectations for our careers and ourselves are not met. How do we deal with disappointment or unexpected failure? Continuing on the career path and learning to love our work is the focus of this convincing little book.
By Nancy O'Hara
What's Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age by Maggie Jackson is the natural follow-up to any book on career change. Many of us see working at home as the answer to our career prayers -- we'll file reports in our pajamas, feed the kids while faxing memos and conference call while the baby sleeps. The truth is, Jackson says, something is lost to us when the workplace is also our place of refuge. She's right. This thoughtful book is a must-read for anyone who has thought of working at home.
By Maggie Jackson
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