L
ooking for a career change? Join the millions of others in their quest to change their careers. Perhaps you want to start your own business and escape the corporate world or transition into another job role. Career change happens to the best of us. It is not uncommon to go through multiple job roles in your career in today’s world. We live in a very differnt society than our forefathers during the manufacturing craze and industrial revolution. There are options, there are opportunities.
Best Books on Career Change: THE LIST
1. Lose the Resume, Land the Job |
2. You Can Do Anything |
3. Do Over |
4. Up Is Not the Only Way |
5. Finding Your Element |
6. The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention |
7. The Million-Dollar Race |
8. Great Work, Great Career |
9. Career Comeback |
10. Escape from Corporate America |
11. Strategies for Successful Career Change |
12. Rethinking Work |
13. What Color Is Your Parachute? |
14. Surviving a Layoff |
15. The Truth About You |
16. The Impact Code |
17. Take The Leap |
18. The Pathfinde |
19. The BROCHURE Strategy |
20. Invaluable |
21. Talen Unlocked |
22. ARISE |
23. Get A Life, Not a Job |
24. Mission: Career Transition |
25. Lifeboat |
26. It’s About Damn Time |
27. I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This |
28. Working From Home |
29. Power Moves |
30. Crossing the Unknown Sea |
31. Americanah |
32. Are You Ready To Change The World |
33. Think Outside The Box |
34. Designing Your Life |
1. Lose the Resume, Land the Job | By Gary Burnison
Lose the resume and land that coveted job.
Gone are the days of polishing up your resume and sending it out at random. At every level today, you need to “lose the resume” in order to land the right job. In other words, you have to learn to tell a story about yourself that speaks to your competencies, purpose, passion, and values. Lose the Resume, Land the Job shares the new rules of engagement: How you must think, act, and present yourself so you can win.
Based on inner exploration drawn from the IP of the world’s largest executive recruiting firm, the book gleans insights and stories (the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly) from Korn Ferry recruiters across the globe who work with thousands of candidates each day. It helps you gain a deeper perspective on who you are, what you’re passionate about, the cultures in which you fit, the kind of bosses you should work for, and where you can bring the most value to organizations.
• Includes assessments, questionnaires, and other tools
• Candid advice for young professionals through middle managers
• Offers trusted guidance from the same firm that has shown 8 million executives how to achieve their career goals, and that puts a professional in new job every three minutes
• Helps you build a plan for the future so you can contribute more to the next employer
Getting a job and, more importantly, building a career has never been more complex. Lose the Resume, Land the Job helps you score the positions that align with your passion and match your attributes ― and that will put you on a trajectory toward bigger and better things.
“Your résumé should concisely and compellingly illustrate one major message point: This is how I made things better for my employer while I was there.”“The often-quoted statistic is that people form an impression about others within seven seconds. But it may be even shorter than that.”“The best time to find a new job is when you have a job.”“Be honest and transparent about who you are, your background, your current job and responsibilities, and your current compensation. Never lie or exaggerate.”
2. You Can Do Anything | By George Anders
In a tech-dominated world, the most needed degrees are the most surprising: the liberal arts.
Did you take the right classes in college? Will your major help you get the right job offers? For more than a decade, the national spotlight has focused on science and engineering as the only reliable choice for finding a successful post-grad career. Our destinies have been reduced to a caricature: learn to write computer code or end up behind a counter, pouring coffee. Quietly, though, a different path to success has been taking shape.
In You Can Do Anything, George Anders explains the remarkable power of a liberal arts education – and the ways it can open the door to thousands of cutting-edge jobs every week.
The key insight: curiosity, creativity, and empathy aren’t unruly traits that must be reined in. You can be yourself, as an English major, and thrive in sales. You can segue from anthropology into the booming new field of user research; from classics into management consulting, and from philosophy into high-stakes investing. At any stage of your career, you can bring a humanist’s grace to our rapidly evolving high-tech future. And if you know how to attack the job market, your opportunities will be vast.
In this book, you will learn why resume-writing is fading in importance and why “telling your story” is taking its place. You will learn how to create jobs that don’t exist yet, and to translate your campus achievements into a new style of expression that will make employers’ eyes light up. You will discover why people who start in eccentric first jobs – and then make their own luck – so often race ahead of peers whose post-college hunt focuses only on security and starting pay. You will be ready for anything.
3. Do Over | By Jon Acuff
When you don’t like your job, Sunday isn’t really a weekend day. It’s just pre-Monday. But what if you could call a Do Over and actually look forward to Monday?
Starting on the first day you got paid to scoop ice cream or restock shelves, you’ve had the chance to develop the four elements all great careers have in common: relationships, skills, character, and hustle. You already have each of those, to one degree or another.
Now it’s time to amplify them and apply them in a new way, so you can call a Do Over on your career, at any age. You’ll need a Do Over because you’ll eventually face at least one of these major transitions:
• You’ll hit a Career Ceiling and get stuck, requiring sharp skills to free yourself.
• You’ll experience a Career Bump and unexpectedly lose your job, requiring strong relationships to survive.
• You’ll make a Career Jump to a new role, requiring solid character to push through uncertainty and chaos.
• You’ll get a surprise Career Opportunity, requiring dedicated hustle to take advantage of it.
Jon Acuff’s unique approach will give you the resources to reinvent your work, get unstuck, and get the job you’ve always wanted!
Quotes from Do Over: Make Today the First Day of Your New Career;
“Though we often prefer to blame others or the economy or a boss who doesn’t ‘get us,’ the reality is that a better job begins with building a better you.”
“There’s also a difference between a foe and an idiot. An idiot is consistently a jerk to everyone. A foe is someone focused on your untimely demise.”
“Generosity breeds loyalty. You will go to bat for people who have shown you generosity. Your employees will work harder. Your clients will return more often.”
“Attitude is a decision. And it’s a decision we have to make every day, sometimes every hour if that particular day is especially whack.”
4. Up Is Not the Only Way | By Beverly Kaye, Lindy Williams and Lynn Cowart
Up Was Never for Everyone!
Move up or move out. When those two options appear to be the only ones, dissatisfaction grows and engagement suffers. In decades of studying careers around the globe, Beverly Kaye, Lindy Williams, and Lynn Cowart have found that, in fact, there are more options. And rethinking career mobility can lead you to them!
The authors show how managers, coaches, and employees can partner to determine what’s best and what’s next. Keep the same job but discover new ways to learn and grow? Explore moving to a position that could be a better fit? Step back without getting derailed? This book encourages readers to take a “kaleidoscope” view—to be open to ever-shifting patterns of opportunities and possibilities—so they can create a unique, personalized path to a truly rewarding career.
Quotes from Up Is Not the Only Way: Rethinking Career Mobility;
“When people learn and grow and realize their potential, everyone wins. Growth is a basic human need.”
“We need to change the conversation. We need to see the current job as fertile soil for career growth.”
“Managers, coaches and mentors provide support through conversations; sharing stories; listening to individuals describe their interests, skills, and values; reacting to plans; [and] offering feedback and connections.”
“Concerns about unhealthy work-life balance, stress or frustration are flags indicating that the time is ripe for a conversation.”
“Some growth opportunities may not be available inside the organization. When that is the case, be open and honest about it.”
5. Finding Your Element | By Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica
Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk video and groundbreaking book, The Element, introduced readers to a new concept of self-fulfillment through the convergence of natural talents and personal passions. The Element has inspired readers all over the world and has created for Robinson an intensely devoted following. Now comes the long-awaited companion, the practical guide that helps people find their own Element. Among the questions that this new book answers are:
• How do I find out what my talents and passions are?
• What if I love something I’m not good at?
• What if I’m good at something I don’t love?
• What if I can’t make a living from my Element?
• How do I do help my children find their Element?
Finding Your Element comes at a critical time as concerns about the economy, education and the environment continue to grow. The need to connect to our personal talents and passions has never been greater. As Robinson writes in his introduction, wherever you are, whatever you do, and no matter how old you are, if you’re searching for your Element, this book is for you.
Quotes from Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life;
“Finding your Element means being open to new experiences and to exploring new paths and possibilities in yourself and in the world around you.”
“One of the clearest ways of knowing that you are not in your Element is if your spirit is constantly heavy.”
“If you open yourself to new experiences, the odds improve exponentially of one of those experiences changing your world in a profoundly positive way.”
“Finding your Element depends on having the opportunities to discover what you’re really capable of…do all you can to create those opportunities and to explore new avenues of possibility in yourself and in the world around you.”
6. The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention | By Pamela Mitchell
Today, career reinvention is the new-and only-form of job security.
Until recently, most people expected to have one career with maybe two or three job changes in a lifetime. Now, experts advise us to expect seven or eight jobs with multiple industry changes. If you want to survive, you need the ability to transfer and repurpose your skills in a completely new direction.
In The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention, Pamela Mitchell shows you how your knowledge, experience, and skill sets can be adapted to a wide spectrum of industries and jobs, and provides the tools to help you navigate the full art of career change.
With ten clear, insightful, and practical “laws,” you can:
*Market your skills to anyone
*Transition seamlessly from one industry to another
*Find fulfillment in a career that fits you
From finding a vision to creating your action plan, The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention walks you through your own path to a new career, with success stories, workbook exercises, and actionable steps to start your new life today.
Quotes from The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy;
“Career invention is a life skill.”
“The trick is to find a workable intersection of career interests and lifestyle; getting the most of what you want in both arenas is a recipe for satisfaction.”
“While job functions are local, valuable only within select slices of the professional world, skills are global.”
“Reinvention is a mix of elements you can control and elements you can’t.”
7. The Million-Dollar Race | By Kirk Hallowell
Do you want to land your next mid- to senior-level management position? Get ready for the race of a lifetime!
An outstanding resume and superior interview skills are just the beginning. You will need to set yourself apart from hundreds or even thousands of other well-qualified applicants. Social networking and web-based data mining have leveled the playing field and fundamentally changed the way companies source and hire candidates. Learn how companies use the latest technologies from a professional who has designed and implemented job candidate selection programs for dozens of organizations–from startups to elite Fortune 500 firms.
The right training and tactics will position you for success as you build your personal online presence and run your own customized job-hunting and networking campaign. Whether it’s finding a position that enhances your career or increasing your compensation package, The Million-Dollar Race prepares you to compete and win in this remarkably tough job market. You will
– Understand the new science of job selection
– Discover dream opportunities that may save you months of time in your search
– Know exactly what kind of company you want to work for
– Elevate your performance on each hurdle of the race with a few key strategies
– Prepare for the questions you ll be asked and avoid traps that destroy interviews
– Recharge your job campaign even if you hit a slump
– Get what you deserve when you negotiate a job offer
There are many obstacles ahead, but with the right preparation and inside information, you can beat the competition. The race begins now.
Quotes from The Million-Dollar Race: An Insider’s Guide to Winning Your Dream Job;
“Being out of work can be a frightening experience.”
“A successful hiring decision must work for both the organization and the candidate.”
“Job candidates can access tens of thousands of job searches instantaneously using advanced search techniques.”
“The job search and selection process can be a significant and extended challenge for many people.”
“There is no limit to the value that will come from spending focused time on defining your ideal job.”
8. Great Work, Great Career | By Stephen R. Covey and Jennifer Colosimo
In one economic earthquake after another, it s hard to keep your footing. Still, there s a positive side to these risky times. You can secure a great future for yourself if you welcome this wild, demanding new world with passion for the opportunities it presents.
You don’t want just a job, you want a great job. Great Work, Great Career can help you get that great job and, beyond that, build a great career. You will learn how to:
*Create your own career opportunities and make a real difference in a great job you choose.
*Define your unique strengths and the exact market need you can fulfill.
*Build relationships with key support people.
*Create a resume that works for you rather than sitting in a pile somewhere.
*Never suffer through a job interview again.
The most respected business thinker of our time, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, and his associate Jennifer Colosimo offer this complete handbook for anyone seeking a job or a more fulfilling career.
Great Work, Great Career provides steps and tools for becoming indispensable in the work you choose.
Quotes from Great Work, Great Career: How to Create Your Ultimate Job and Make an Extraordinary Contribution;
“Anybody can have a great career. It doesn’t matter what your line of work is.”
“People who are only looking for a job have résumés. People who are looking to make a great career have Contribution Statements.”
“The landscape has never been greener. The volatile, burned-over economy of the new century provides opportunities no one ever dreamed of.”
“A great career requires…the desire and skill to contribute, and a character worthy of trust and loyalty.”
“A great career is all about solving great problems, meeting great challenges and making great contributions.”
9. Career Comeback | By Lisa Johnson Mandell
Unfortunately, getting older can be a career killer. That’s what entertainment journalist Lisa Johnson Mandell discovered when she sent out a resume that made her sound like an aged veteran. Her new career makeover guide-expanded from the Wall Street Journal article about revamping her “older” image to land her dream job-acknowledges that experience matters, but looking and acting up-to-date matter just as much.
Mandell provides ten strategies for putting a youthful spin on resumes, Web pages, and personal presentation. Looking young and staying technologically current is crucial to competing in an increasingly tough job market. Career Comeback offers the ultimate makeover to-do list: From “botoxing” your resume by deleting dates and early jobs, tech-savvy tricks for starting and improving your website or blog and online networking, to updating your wardrobe, Mandell shares the secrets that will get mid-career job seekers noticed and on the payroll.
Quotes from Career Comeback;
“You have all sorts of talents, skills and experience working for you – or against you, as the case may be.”
“Take a good long look at your life, evaluate where you are and how you got there, reassess your strengths and your values, and figure out how to combine them to move forward.”
“Accept what you can’t change and adapt to what you can. Flexibility is a wonderful thing.”
“Take the wheel and start driving your own life rather than letting someone from your past drive for you.”
10. Escape from Corporate America | By Pamela Skilings
Does your corporate career leave you stressed out, burned out, or just plain bummed out? You’re not alone. The good news is that there’s a way out–and you’re holding it. Written by career expert and corporate escapee Pamela Skillings, Escape from Corporate America inspires the cubicle-bound and the corner-office-cornered to break free and create the career of their dreams–without going broke. With no-nonsense advice and unflagging humor, Skillings shows you how to
• assess your job’s “suck” factor–from terminal boredom to boss from hell
• identify your true calling–brainstorm fantasy careers and test-drive your dream jobs
• develop your Escape Plan–set goals, figure out your timing, and evaluate your finances and health insurance options
• find jobs that don’t bite–entrepreneurial corporate environments, energetic start-ups, the nonprofit sector, and flexible work options
• be your own boss–explore entrepreneurship and freelancing, assemble an advisory team, and start a business while you collect a paycheck
• follow your creative dreams–learn how to make time for your artistic passion and develop a plan to quit your day job
• overcome any obstacle–deal with fear, doubt, negative people, and other bumps along the road
Plus, Skillings shares success stories from dozens of corporate escape artists, including celebrity TV chef Andrea Beaman, Cranium CEO Richard Tait, and many others.
Quotes from Escape from Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of Your Dreams;
“You don’t have to stay stuck in a job you hate, and you don’t have to starve to find work that you love.”
“Today entrepreneurial ventures include everything from one-woman eBay weekend businesses to multimillion-dollar, venture-capital-backed start-ups.”
“If you are truly unhappy in your corporate job, you owe it to yourself to make a change.”
“Today work is more personal than ever before. Who you are is what you do.”
11. Rethinking Work | By Cliff Hakim
On any given day, more than 4 million Americans job search online. And regardless of age or profession – from Boomers to Gen-Ys – today’s financially encumbered and emotionally conflicted workers are looking for more than money as they pursue something new, better, different.
Rethinking Work delivers the perfect antidote to the bookshelves full of advice on how to write a killer resume and dress for success, instead offering a proven formula for thriving amid the inevitable change and tumult that is driving the demand for constant innovation, flexibility, and creativity. In other words, author Cliff Hakim says it’s time to stop being victims of these career shifts and make our jobs begin to work for us!
12. What Color Is Your Parachute? | By Richard Nelson Bolles
With more than 10 million copies sold in 28 countries, the world’s most popular job-search book is updated for 2019, tailoring Richard Bolles’s long-trusted guidance with up-to-the-minute information and advice for today’s job-hunters and career-changers.
In today’s complex job-market, the time-tested advice of What Color Is Your Parachute? is needed more than ever. Recent grads facing a changing economic landscape, workers laid off mid-career, and people searching for an inspiring work-life change all look to career guru Richard N. Bolles for support, encouragement, and advice on which job-hunt strategies work—and which don’t. This revised edition combines classic elements like the famed Flower Exercise with updated tips on social media and search tactics. Bolles demystifies the entire job-search process, from writing resumes to interviewing to networking, expertly guiding job-hunters toward their dream job.
13. Surviving a Layoff | By Lita Epstein
Being laid off is a traumatic event. Downsized workers must face decisions about reorganizing their lives and their finances, while grappling with the emotional grief of losing a job. This book is a practical guide to dealing with the tough questions a layoff poses. Using a week-to-week timeline, the book offers advice on such topics as: coping with grief and anger after a downsizing; reorganizing life after a layoff; how to launch a job search; balancing the job search with family and personal time; explaining a layoff to family and friends; and more. This book will show downsized workers how to reorganize schedules, set financial and organizational priorities, and go for their next job with confidence and enthusiasm.
14. The Truth About You | By Marcus Buckingham
An Experience to Revolutionize Your Life from Marcus Buckingham – the World’s Leading Expert on Career Success!
Want to know what you are supposed to do with your life? The Truth About You is an experience to unlock life’s toughest questions. The process this revolutionary toolkit teaches will create higher satisfaction and performance in life and work. This cutting-edge product includes:
Enhanced DVD. A high-energy film reveals how and why you must discover and prioritize your strengths and includes access to a wealth of downloadable resources, including five bonus Strength Tip videos.
Interactive Book. With insightful exercises and tried-and-true life wisdom no one else will tell you, the book takes you to the location of your most powerful and unchanging talents.
ReMemo Pad. Designed for a life on-the-go, the ReMemo Pad becomes your companion to complete the task of revealing your strengths using your everyday experiences.
Perfect for high school and college students, young professionals, and people simply wanting to revitalize their career, The Truth About You helps you develop the kind of clarity and passion that drives a successful and satisfying future. Marcus Buckingham will help you discover the real truth, the truth about you . . . it will be your secret to success.
15. The Impact Code | By Nigel Risner
“The future of Britain’s self-esteem is safe in Nigel’s Hands. He has an awesome presence which touches and transforms people’s lives.”
―Jack Canfield, Co-author, New York Times #1 bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series
“I believe that Nigel Risner is the best speaker in the world. He excites, he challenges and most of all, impacts the lives of thousands of people to take action.”
―David Taylor, Author of The Naked Leader
“YOU made the difference Nigel and Wow!”
―Kriss Akabussi MBE, The Akabussi Company
“Not another self-help book?” I hear you cry. Well, for once no, definitely not just another self help book. You’ve probably tried, and more than likely been disappointed, by self-help books in the past. Why is that and why is this one different?
Well here’s the truth; the fault doesn’t lie in the books you have read before, it lies with you. Only you can make a difference. It wasn’t the books that failed to make an impact, it was you. Get over it.
The Impact Code is a beautifully simple approach to life. So simple you will wonder why it never occurred to you to do it before. So, it’s time to get off your butt and start living for yourself, for your dreams and for your life. Nigel Risner’s approach is direct, sincere and devastatingly honest. If you follow the code, you will see and feel a difference in your life and the life of everyone around you. Your life is waiting for you to get started. All you have to do is crack the IMPACT Code and the world will, quite literally, be yours. The choice is yours; it always has been.
16. Take The Leap | By Sara Bliss
The ultimate road map for landing your dream job, packed with true inspiring stories from more than sixty people who made profound changes in their lives and careers, plus practical advice from experts. “If you are ready to go for the life and the job you really want, Take the Leap is the go-to book for anyone making a career change” (Bobbi Brown).
Take the Leap features inspiration and advice from game changers, rule breakers, and side hustlers who once stood where you are now, wondering if they should take a risk. They went from production assistant to million-dollar screenplay writer; attorney to surf instructor; mom to DJ; hairdresser to firefighter; real estate agent to award-winning chef.
Do you want to go for that career you’ve always dreamed about? Launch a new company? Become a tech mogul? Live a life of adventure? Save the world? You’ll find wisdom from successful mentors like creative visionary and writer Simon Doonan, entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran, NFL player turned artist/activist Aaron Maybin, and wellness and beauty guru Bobbi Brown.
Whether you watch Shark Tank religiously and think I could have thought of that, or harbor daydreams about traveling the globe in style, your wildest career dream is represented in this empowering guidebook. Take the Leap serves as the reminder we all need: don’t settle—go after whatever it is that you truly want.
17. The Pathfinder | By Nicholas Lore
This classic bestseller is THE career-design bible for midlife career-changers and college students alike.
Based on breakthrough techniques developed by Rockport Institute, an innovative and award-winning career consulting and coaching network that has changed the lives of 18,000 one-on-one clients since 1981. This book coaches you through the methodology commended by President Clinton, and taught at Stanford. The Pathfinder offers invaluable advice and more than 50 self-tests and diagnostic tools that will help you choose an entirely new career–or view a current job from a new, more positive perspective. You’ll learn:
Whether you’re a seasoned professional in search of a career change or a beginner just entering the working world, you want to make the right choices from the beginning. No matter where you are in your journey, if you want work to be more of a dance than a drag, The Pathfinder will expertly coach you through the process of designing a career you will love.
18. The BROCHURE Strategy | By Bruce R. Matza
You are about to learn a unique networking approach to a successful career change that gets you in front of decision-makers. The BROCHURE Strategy is for anyone in a position of leadership looking for a new career direction. Here is a proven job search process that does not depend on resumes and cover letters. It can lead to new employment opportunities as well as open doors to becoming a consulting adviser and specialist.The BROCHURE Strategy is a proactive, self-motivating process that allows you to present all your skills, qualities and values to a prospective company. You will be in total control of your future career search.
19. Invaluable | By Maya Grossman
Do you have audacious career goals and no idea how to take the first step? Despite having earned a degree or two, have you found it hard to transition from theory to practice and make things happen in the “real world”? If so, you are not alone.
You were not provided with the proper skills to reach success―until now.
In this engaging and practical career development book, marketing expert and career coach Maya Grossman uncovers the 10 soft skills that every professional needs to master to evolve from a “typical” to an “invaluable” employee―the top talent every company wants to attract and retain.
You will learn how to develop an owner’s mindset, optimize for impact, become a master influencer, and create your own career opportunities―to skyrocket your career.
This book is a simple, step-by-step career guide, infused with real life stories and actionable exercises, so you can easily learn and apply the 10 soft skills to grow your career. Maya shares the tried-and-true career advice and the strategies that helped her receive 10 promotions in 15 years, work for companies like Google and Microsoft, and become a VP-level executive.
If you want to accomplish more than you ever thought possible and accelerate your career development, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. It will help you position yourself at the top, deliver staggering results, future-proof your career, and get the job, promotion, or raise you want and deserve.
Do you have what it takes?
Invaluable employees are not born, they are made. The ability to succeed is not an innate talent. It’s a mindset and a lifestyle anyone can adopt.
Whether you are making the first steps in your career or just feeling stuck in place, you have the ability to become an exceptional performer and skyrocket your career.
ANYONE, yes, anyone can become an invaluable employee!
What you’ll learn in this book
– How to find a career you love or find passion in your current job
– How to design a career roadmap and find your career path
– Proven actionable steps to develop the soft skills you need to grow your career
– Strategies to accelerate your career development and deliver staggering results
– Practical career advice
And much, much more…
The 10 soft skills this book covers
– Develop an Owner Mentality
– Become a Lifelong Learner
– Focus on Making an Impact
– Be an Opportunity Digger
– Become a Fixer
– Become a Master Influencer
– Master the Art of Managing Up and Across
– Extreme Accountability
– Become a Planner (create your career path)
– Develop the Habit of Tracking Your Success
Who is this book for
– Young professionals
– Students and graduates
– Ambitious individuals who want to build a fulfilling career
– Employees who feel stuck with getting mediocre results at work and want to become a top performer
– Career changers
Additional resources included in Invaluable: Master the 10 Skills You Need to Skyrocket Your Career
The book includes links to download these resources:
– Career Path Design toolkit
– Career development tracker
– Maya’s top career advice
If you want to lead a successful and fulfilling career, this book is for you. It’s a step-by-step practical guide for the soft skills, tools and strategies you need in order to position yourself as an invaluable employee, stand out at your job and future-proof your career.
20. Talen Unlocked | By Giannis Athanasiou
During these difficult times, people’s struggle to find a fulfilling career has increased the incidence of mental health problems.
NOT anymore!
Do you feel overwhelmed in your current occupation? Have you changed jobs, but have yet to find fulfillment? Would you like to settle down in a career you would love for life? “Talent Unlocked” shows you the path to the career of your dreams.
This simple but detailed guide will help you change careers and land a job tailored to you. Amongst many things, “Talent Unlocked” teaches:
- How everyone in the world possesses talents according to the theory of multiple intelligences
- How to avoid common misconceptions, which hinder your efforts to discover your talents
- How to discover your talents by implementing the 4 principles of talent identification
- How to cultivate and grow your talents to make a successful career change
- How to maximize your talents to find the career which suits you best, landing the much coveted ‘dream job’
“Talent Unlocked“ is a thoroughly researched guide, which focuses on a unique and unusual approach: don’t search for a job you think you’ll love. USE your talents to CREATE a passionate career, one you will LOVE to pursue instead!
Click on the ‘Buy now with 1-Click’ button to change your working life, NOW!
21. Get A Life, Not a Job | By Paula Caligiuri
You can design your own career, so you love what you do! You only have one life: why settle for anything less? Whether you’re an entrepreneur or working within a company, Get a Life, Not a Job shows how you can make it happen for yourself. You’ll learn how to move towards a fulfilling career that offers greater work-life balance, financial security, and personal control over your future — and more sheer pleasure and inspiration from the work you do. You’ll learn how to allocate more time to roles you enjoy, and shed roles you can’t stand… identify career choices you’ll be passionate about, and build your skills and abilities to match them… improve your career without leaving your employer, and make your position more resistant to downsizing… define a mix of several stimulating and liberating wealth-building activities that keep your life engaged and balanced… keep personal relationships healthy while you pursue work you’ll love. This book doesn’t just teach you powerful career techniques: it profiles people in all walks of life who’ve used these them to build truly inspiring careers. With greater workplace uncertainty than ever, you can no longer afford to let anyone else control your destiny — or to maintain outdated “psychological contracts” with your employer. You need to take control of your own career and future. With this book’s help, you can do just that — and make work more fulfilling than you ever dreamt possible.
22. Mission: Career Transition | By Alison Pentz Bouwmeester, Hon. Susan M. Gordon, and Paul H. Bouwmeester
Where do the spies, diplomats, soldiers, and FBI agents go when their formal service ends? For most of us, full retirement is not an immediate reality. The decision to leave or retire from government is hard! Deciding what to do next is even harder. Author and Career Coach Alison P. Bouwmeester served for 28 years as a senior leader in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations. After retiring from the CIA, she spent nearly a decade as a senior business executive in the defense contracting industry, rising to Vice President for Business Development. In 2018, Alison became a Certified Professional Career Coach and founded Futurity to coach others through successful career transitions as someone who has “walked the walk”. In this book, dozens of former intelligence, diplomatic, military and national security professionals share candid comments, valuable tips and sage advice. Considering a job change? Pondering a second career? Thinking about potential retirement? This is your guide!
23. Lifeboat | By Maggie Craddock
Today’s hardworking professionals are navigating sudden waves of financial stress, management shakeups, and downsizing. Using the experiences of Titanic survivors as a powerful metaphor, executive coach Maggie Craddock offers lessons for a transformative approach to our professional lives, one that recognizes that “every man for himself” doesn’t work long-term. Lifeboat is organized as a series of key questions we all need to ask ourselves when facing unexpected career disruption or difficult changes at our existing jobs. These questions help readers clarify their authentic priorities, assess the group energy that guides a particular workplace, and identify the type of job that will help them reach their true potential.
24. I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This | By Julie Jansen
The quintessential guide to kick-starting your career, fully revised and updated for the ever-changing modern job market.
Despite a recovering economy, many Americans are still losing their jobs, while many who do have jobs are overworked, maxed out, and miserable. In this fully revised and updated edition of I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This, career coach Julie Jansen shows how anyone—whether you’re unhappy with your job, or without one—can implement a real and satisfying transformation.
Changing careers, conducting a job search, or starting a business is more complicated than ever before. Jansen has updated her classic guide to address the unique challenges of today’s job market, from the ever-more important world of social media to new ways of funding your own endeavors online. Filled with quizzes, personality assessments, and real-life examples, this guide helps you identify the type of work you’re best suited for and provides the know-how—and the inspiration—for transforming an uncertain time into an opportunity for meaningful change.
25. Working From Home | By Karen Mangia
Master the delicate art of working from home with this comprehensive resource.
Working from Home: Making the New Normal Work for You provides readers with a detailed strategy on how to turn working from home into a powerful career choice. Author and Salesforce executive Karen Mangia teaches readers how to:
- Build the future of work in any kind of space: ideas for your home office that fit anywhere
- Create personalized time management routines designed specifically for remote productivity, impact, and balance―even while wearing your sweatpants
- Deal with Zoom fatigue, burnout, and isolation, via untapped new strategies for connection and team-building, even when the team is remote
- Discover how to deliver powerful virtual presentations and build career impact online, with expert communication strategies designed for an online world
Working from Home explains in detail how to turn even the smallest of living spaces into the ideal remote work environment. It comprehensively explores how you can make yourself vital to any organization without ever setting foot in an office building. Because success isn’t a location: you can move your career forward from anywhere, if you know how to do it. This book will show you how to embrace the new normal and make sure your career doesn’t miss a beat.
Full of concrete strategies and practical advice, Working from Home is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how to find that elusive work/life balance when working remote. With guidance on how to create a work-from-home culture designed for success, it’s a perfect choice for early-in-career professionals, sales leaders, team managers, and business executives looking for fresh ideas on the future of work.
26. Power Moves | By Lauren McGoodwin
From the founder of the influential website Career Contessa, an invaluable career resource for women feeling stuck or unfulfilled that combines actionable advice, learning tools to make impactful life changes, and an in-depth discussion of how to build a meaningful career on your terms.
With her popular website Career Contessa, Lauren McGoodwin built an audience of ambitious, professional, millennial women who thought they did everything right―they got the degree, the internship, and even the promotion―but still wondered why they felt stuck and unfulfilled. The first site of its kind to focus on the unique, complex aspects of women’s careers, Career Contessa offers women the smart advice they deserve, in a voice that resonates.
Drawing on the insights and lessons developed from Career Contessa, Power Moves is the essential handbook that helps professional women truly feel understood so they can bypass perfection and planning and head straight to evolving. McGoodwin addresses young professionals’ number-one concern: career transitions and growth, and engages them with specific goals, including:
- What is a Power Move and why they matter
- Cutting out comparison, shame, and self-loathing
- How to abandon the elusive “dream job”
- Embracing your inner questioner, your inner quester, and your inner-quitter
- Making money moves and taking control of your financial future
- Tuning out from the noise and tuning into your voice
Power Moves is filled with the information, guidance, advice, and essential tools, (including helpful graphics) that can help women take decisive, bold steps without self-doubt and fear, Power Moves shows women how to build a successful career on their own terms.
27. Crossing the Unknown Sea | By David Whyte
Crossing the Unknown Sea is about reuniting the imagination with our day to day lives. It shows how poetry and practicality, far from being mutually exclusive, reinforce each other to give every aspect of our lives meaning and direction. For anyone who wants to deepen their connection to their life’s work—or find out what their life’s work is—this book can help navigate the way.
Whyte encourages readers to take risks at work that will enhance their personal growth, and shows how burnout can actually be beneficial and used to renew professional interest. He asserts that too many people blindly trudge through a mediocre work life because so many “busy” tasks prevent significant reflection and analysis of job satisfaction. People often turn to spiritual practice or religion to nurture their souls, but overlook how work can actually be our greatest opportunity for discovery and growth. Crossing the Unknown Sea combines poetry, gifted storytelling and Whyte’s personal experience to reveal work’s potential to fulfill us and bring us closer to ultimate freedom and happiness.
28. Americanah | By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
From the award-winning, bestselling author of We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow Sun—the story of two Nigerians making their way in the U.S. and the UK, raising universal questions of race, belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for identity and a home.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time.
Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.
29. Are You Ready To Change The World | By S A James
This book is about changing the world, being a rebel and having a go. It’s about how we recognise the need for shifts and summon the courage to make those changes, starting at the smallest level and eventually revolutionising the very way we lead our teams, our companies and our world. I’ve often had people, in work and in life, tell me it seemed I was trying to change the world. I would get ahead of them and, sometimes, myself with wild ideas, and they’d encourage me to slow down, break it down so they could understand where my brain was headed. This would frustrate me when I was younger, but not so much now. Now I’m proud to think big — and changing the world seems a great place to start. Hence the title for this book.As one of Australia’s leading female technologists, I’ve spent my career looking to the future. I’ve helped more than 40 companies adjust to the information revolution of the last 20 years. I’ve supported business leaders looking for ways to survive the turmoil of the digital age and position their companies for growth and prosperity, with an ever-watchful eye toward what’s next. Along the way, I’ve learned a little something about leadership, about what society needs to achieve to be, not only successful, but sustainable. It’s clear to me now, as reports about climate change, geopolitical turmoil and global pandemic fill our daily news feeds, that the future is no longer a given. Change at all levels must happen to ensure we even have a tomorrow, let alone the bright one we have the potential to create if we combine good leadership with the amazing technologies in development right now. It’s my hope that the insights I provide here, based on my personal experiences and many years working in the field, will help prepare and inspire you to face the challenges the present demands.
30. Think Outside The Box | By Cassandra Gaisford
Stress Management in Crazy Times. Surviving and Thriving in a Changing World.
There’s no doubt modern life has become more and more stressful. Constant change and upheaval is becoming harder for most people to handle. The pressures of work, relationships, families, the fast pace of life and increasing demands on your time can leave you in a state of turmoil. However, there is a cure—thinking differently, creatively, or from a new perspective.
In Think Outside The Box best-selling author, award-winning artist and holistic therapist Cassandra Gaisford (BCA, Dip Psych) reveals dozens of lateral, creative, and inspired ways to manage stress, change careers, and overcome obstacles to success.
Based on positive psychology, research, and professional achievements gained by successfully helping corporate executives, teenagers, extraordinary artists, authors, frazzled employees and creative entrepreneurs and people from all walks of life, destress and succeed more.
This book offers practical, lateral solutions to achieving happiness and success in your life.
In Think Outside The Box you’ll discover:
- Why resilience thinking is an antidote for stress
- How to gain instant stress relief
- How to make a career change in your 40s, 50s and beyond
- Practical methods for managing common and extraordinary obstacles and barriers to success
- How to empower your business and personal life
- How to rediscover joy and love life again
Gaisford provides a fresh approach to living in crazy times. From contemporary quick-fixes for those combating the pressures of modern life, to soothing rituals and long-term solutions for a better life. This quintessential lifestyle guide reassures you that joy is within your reach, and shows you how to reclaim your, happiness, health, close relationships, career—and sanity.
If you feel despondent or discouraged…
If your relationships are suffering
If you find the challenges of life overwhelming…
If you’d love to change careers if you only knew what to do…
If you’d love to stress less and live more…
…then Think Ou Side The Box is exactly the right book for you—because it will show you that these challenges are a critical part of your success. The secret is knowing how to use unconventional, creative thinking and problem solving to enhance your decisions, turn your world around and achieve your goals.
Expanding upon the ground-breaking work in Gaisford’s previous bestsellers The Art of Success, Mid-Life Career Rescue, and How to Find Your Passion and Purpose Gaisford explores the tension every person faces in an effort to blend an inspired life with a practical path to success. Being stressed, stuck or stagnant isn’t a disadvantage; rather, it is a powerful tool to be harnessed to transform your life and elevate your success.
31. Designing Your Life | By Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage.
Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve.
In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.
Final Thoughts on the Best Books on Career Change
Martha Stewart once worked as a stockbroker before she started her catering business. Walt Disney was a laborer in advertising before he founded the Walt Disney company. Although, a career change can be from one job role to another, it can also be from a corporate job role to entrepreneurship.
Happy reading!
Do you see a book that you think should be on the list? Let us know your feedback here.
Meet Maurice, a staff editor at Bigger Investing. He’s an accomplished entrepreneur who owns multiple successful websites and a thriving merch shop. When he’s not busy with work, Maurice indulges in his passion for kayaking, climbing, and his family. As a savvy investor, Maurice loves putting his money to work and seeking out new opportunities. With his expertise and passion for finance, he’s dedicated to helping readers achieve their financial goals through Bigger Investing.