PATHS TO POWER: A Woman's Guide from First Job to Top Executive

A strange succession of topics--and like the book itself, more defensible theoretically than practically. The problem is that few if any women are likely to use one guide throughout a lifetime of advancement up the corporate ladder, from first job interview after college or motherhood, through supervisory work, through the various levels of management; most readers will be lucky to find two chapters that fit their particular situation. Worse still, most of the individual chapters are sketchy enough to leave the beginner flat, the experienced woman yawning. There are not nearly enough specifics about resumÉ writing or interviewing, and some of this professor's (Business and Economics, Univ. of New Hampshire) translations of general competencies to the world of business are overly optimistic: it may be that a woman who knows how to organize a car pool can supervise a typing pool as well--but how does one convince skeptical employers of this? or gain the training necessary to effect a smooth transition? As for management styles, very little is spelled out beyond the woman's need to discover who she is, what she wants from others, and what she gives to others--a huge conceptual field that any two women are bound to interpret differently. So: much ado, but ultimately about almost nothing.