YOURSELF TEN YEARS FROM NOW: A Career Planning Book

Unlike Splaver (below), the Kleins at least have a point to make, however familiar: the longer you stay in school the better job you'll get when you start working. And in contrast to Splaver's platitudinous ""essential requisites for promotion are adaptability, congeniality, courtesy, and cheerfulness,"" the Kleins point out that workers no longer have the chance to climb many rungs up the ladder--the idea now being to start higher by preparing longer. Also welcome is the Kleins' skepticism about career education, at the community college as well as the high school level. However, their attempt to apply the findings of sociologists to advice for young people often results in patronizing simplifications (if your dad's an editor your parents have different lifestyles and expectations for you than if he's an auto mechanic with the same salary) or sheer mush (""The fact that your parents are about 25 years older than you can make some of their advice obsolete. . . . But it can also make it very sound""). Also, just as they caution creative types to play it safe with regular jobs and Saturday hobbies, they make an unbecoming show of being non-judgmental while obviously advocating the late-entry, high-status, traditional occupations. ""The system isn't fair,"" acknowledge the Kleins, and ""we're not saying that you ought to want to"" make out in it. But they offer a modicum of soft advice on doing just that, and none at all on bucking it.