by Michael Petras ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 27, 2011
A powerful tool from a seasoned professional.
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Tactics and encouragement for a new kind of job seeker.
Petras makes a point of addressing different types of job seekers in his book, and with good reason. These are the people who may never have been unemployed before, have been out of work for a long time, have lost not just their job but their confidence and self-esteem, or have been let go late in their careers. All of them need new job search strategies that they can put to work in a competitive environment, and that’s what Petras delivers. A professional career adviser and executive recruiter who formerly held sales-management positions, Petras tells a number of true stories, including his, to demonstrate that even good, qualified people can lose their jobs. But he doesn’t encourage wallowing in self-pity; he guides job seekers through a self-analytical objective process of “soothing the pain” and then moving on. After a bit of morale-building, Petras shares specifics for how best to conduct a job search, including “ten simple habits of highly successful job seekers” and “fourteen potent truths and myths about popular job search methods” that should open some eyes and help job seekers reorder their priorities. But he doesn’t stop there; Petras offers advice for “how to make a lasting first impression in 30 seconds” and shows, in black and white, “the power of a well written resume.” His counsel on making cold calls and breaking through the administrative screen using a technique he calls “pattern interrupt,” clearly honed during his sales days, is very useful. Petras also spends considerable time discussing how to use social networking effectively, with particular emphasis on LinkedIn, qualities that make this book particularly relevant to the modern-day job seeker. Petras may not be able to promise that a job seeker will land a position using the tactics and advice he shares here, but with this well written, straight shooting book in hand, an individual looking for a job should have a much better chance of getting that call that might lead to a job offer.
A powerful tool from a seasoned professional.Pub Date: April 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456544782
Page Count: 139
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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