Search Amazon.com for "career help," and your results will include a list of 168 titles ranging from Zen and the Art of Making a Living to Bounceback Self-Marketing and much more. Help for the frustrated, frazzled, and fired has never been more readily available ... or more overwhelming.
That's why Fast Company has compiled the following "best of" index -- recommended titles from four of the nation's most highly regarded career counselors, headhunters, recruiters, and free-agent advocates.
Founding partner
The Inventure Group
The best career books adopt an "inside out" approach to finding the right work. First, look inside yourself. Second, look out for tremendous new opportunities headed your way. Here are a few of my favorites.
How to Find the Work You Love
by Laurance G. Boldt
(Arkana, 1996)
This thin self-help manual provides an elegantly simple approach to defining what you want from life and work. Clear your mind to consider the author's provocative, introspective questions, and you will likely walk away with new insights and ideas to rebuild your career.
Free to Succeed: Designing the Life You Want in the New Free Agent Economy
by Barbara B. Reinhold
(Plume, 2001)
A convenient tool for job searchers at every stage of the game, this book provides a fast, easy look at how to join Free Agent Nation. Reinhold, career coach for Monster.com and director of Smith College's career center, helps readers identify their personality type and then suggests complementary types of independent work.
We Are All Self-Employed: The New Social Contract for Working in a Changed World
by Cliff Hakim
(Berrett-Koehler, 1994)
Redeployed? Downsized? Outright canned? This book argues that a job seeker must view himself as "self-employed" to regain control of his career -- and to steer it in a more desirable direction. Become your own boss today.
Downshifting: How to Work Less and Enjoy Life More
by John D. Drake
(Berrett-Koehler, 2001)
Hard times can bring soft landings -- as you jump from the top rung of the career ladder to achieve greater balance and satisfaction in your life. Author Drake says that down times are the best times to find meaning and purpose -- and then make the leap to a more fulfilling line of work. Geronimo!
What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers
by Richard Nelson Bolles
(Ten Speed Press, 2000)
This perennial classic still asks the right questions and provokes readers to take charge of their lives. Use the gritty exercises to hone your job-searching skills, and consider the inspirational text a source of career stimulation.
Richard Leider is a founding partner of the Inventure Group, a Minneapolis-based training firm that helps individuals, leaders, and teams discover the power of purpose. His own books include Repacking Your Bags (Berrett-Koehler, 1995, with David A. Shapiro), The Power of Purpose (Berrett-Koehler, 1997), and Whistle While You Work (Berrett-Koehler, 1995, with David A. Shapiro).
Headhunter, author, and Web host
Ask the Headhunter
The last thing job-hunters need is lots of career books. What they really need is perspective, so they can develop and communicate their value. That said, here is my list, with a personal favorite at the top!
Ask the Headhunter
by Nick Corcodilos
(Penguin/Plume, 1997)
The first thing any job-hunter needs is a solid debunking of America's employment system. It's an enormous racket that will waste your time as long as you let it. And you need to learn that to get hired, you need to demonstrate how you will produce profit for a company. That's a tall order, but it's imperative. This book gets you to profitability quickly.
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