DIG THIS GIG

Quirky career counseling directed at the clueless 20-something.

Dodd abandoned her job as a PA on a hit TV show in Los Angeles and headed for the beaches of Sydney, Australia. There, in the dingy, shoebox-sized room she shared with two friends, she contemplated, along with every other young adult she knew, her dream gig and how to achieve it in the recession-era job market. With this book, the author provides a series of “over-a-beer” conversations that profile the actual career misadventures of 20-somethings active in the workforce, set against the backdrop of success stories of industry leaders like Jeffrey Sachs and Dan Rather. Each chapter targets a specific career field, from "Entertainment Gigs" to "Green Gigs." Some of the accounts are decidedly more successful than others, as explored in “Derailed Gigs.” The author opens each section with a basic overview of the field and ends with a postscript that provides 20/20 hindsight. Among others, there's advice from an urban planner, a yacht stewardess and a genetics counselor, who opines, "Nobody understands what a genetics counselor is." Perfectly suited for the well-traveled recent graduate of an Ivy League institution with a trust fund to fall back on, but not recommended for average young adults slinging coffee and dreaming of a gig they will dig.