Thursday 21 June 2012

Career Book Review - Have You Punched in Yet?

Looking to get a job and eventually move up in the world? Do you need to get experience or perhaps, just get a job even if it is a step down for you; under-employment? If so, wow, there is a great book I read mostly for fun, but as I read I felt I was there, and got a much better understanding of what the front-line employees in the US go through. The book I'd like to recommend to you is:

"Punching In - The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front Line Employee," by Alex Frankel, Collins Publishers, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY (2007), pp 223, ISBN: 978-0-06-084966-5.

An interesting article to read which immediately made my memory recall upon reading this book was one I read in Quality Progress, an industry trade journal in November of 2007, beginning on page 55 titled; "Turning the Tables: Six Questions to Ask Your Interviewer," writer by Joe Conklin. In that article he suggests how to turn difficult questions during the hiring procedure into conversations which uplift your intellectual status, thus your value, while allowing you gain pre-employment intelligence.

The author of this book writes in a similar genre as the author of "Nickled and Dimed" but at a higher level of employment, namely rather than working at places like a 24hr. Waffle House, Walmart, or Gas Station mini-mart - the author of "Punching In" worked for UPS, Starbucks, Whole Foods, and sold iPods at the Apple Store, and also entered the well-known manager program for Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Have you ever wondered the secret of how corporations turn their workforces into brand loyalists, and absolutely an army of productivity? Well, read this book, and learn about how to win in your career for both the company, the team, and yourself. This book is written extremely well, and the writer is pretty funny, and shows off his writing style with great stories. He also writes for Wired Magazine, so perhaps you've seen his pieces there.

Seriously, you have to read this book, it will totally enlighten you, and give you a better understanding of what it's like to work in a big corporation on the front-lines, companies with 1,000s of outlets and a specific way of doing things. As you read you will laugh, frown, and be disturbed, but you will definitely learns something, many things you probably didn't know and it will give you a much better understanding of the reality of jobs in America, especially at the retail level, you will be amazed.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes it's hard to write 20,000 articles; http://www.bloggingcontent.net/

Note: All of Lance Winslow's articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers.


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Saturday 2 June 2012

The Complete Guide to Environmental Careers - Book Review

I just finished reading "The Complete Guide to Environmental Careers in the 21st Century." As an author and consultant in the green work field, I try to read everything I can get my hands on that is related to green issues. I would rate this book as average at best, it is a good book, but it does not stand out among the many books on this topic.

The book highlights 10 major fields that are in the environmental realm. The authors provide very helpful information like salary ranges, what a "day in the life" looks like and what educational paths you should take to prepare yourself for these careers. The book also offers some really good advice on interviewing and writing your resume and other things that will help you during the job search phase.

The book is a bit dated, as it was written over 5 years ago. It was interesting though to read the predictions and trends and see where they were right and see where they were wrong. They severely underestimated the growth of the green collar industry and hardly touched on the subject of alternative energy and sustainable energy.

In closing, I think this book was average and I would rate it a 6 out of 10. I would not recommend it at all and the reason is because it does not talk about what is relevant right now. I would suggest you look for a book that specifically focuses on the green collar industry or the growing green jobs movement

Dan Keller is the CEO of the popular Green Jobs [http://www.greenjobscene.com/] site and also runs a site that focuses on jobs for teens


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