A business psychologist who advises companies on hiring decisions offers valuable insights into how older workers can find a job.
The anemic job market seems to be a boon for self-help books targeting the job seeker. Losing a job is not just damaging to the ego, says Laser: “With so much of our identity tied to our jobs—for better or worse—being unemployed is a devastating event and one that should not be minimized even by those who seek to define their lives with a broader sense of purpose.” Laser directly addresses “the obvious ageism” that he says is hidden in large layoffs. Securing a position, he says, is difficult for those over 40 and “almost impossible” for those over 50. He begins with a reality check on a job seeker’s “Three A’s”: age, appearance and attitude. He offers insightful advice about all three, concluding that attitude is perhaps most important because of today’s “new reality” in the job market. The author acknowledges that older workers will be quietly discriminated against, and that persistence and positive thinking will be necessary to prevail. Finding a job, says Laser, is full-time work, although he suggests that the job seeker make his or her time productive by also considering part-time employment or volunteer work since they could lead to other opportunities “to showcase your skills in front of prospective employers and key contact people.” Laser’s profession is helping employers evaluate candidates, so readers are likely to find his perspective on “what employers are really looking for” to be worth the price of the book. He makes the somewhat stunning admission that “if you look good and talk a good game, you have a better chance of being hired than someone who is not so attractive or gifted with his or her words.” At least job seekers will understand what they are up against. Laser includes the expected information about resumes, references and interviewing found in other books in this category, but the real value of this book is Laser’s unvarnished viewpoint on what older job seekers can do to make themselves appealing to employers.
Pub Date: July 30, 2011
ISBN: 978-1462880959
Page Count: 167
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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