Six Steps To Job Search Success
Six Steps to Job Search Success is an extremely comprehensive text that addresses many of the intersecting and complex variables that go into an effective job search. Each chapter systematically covers content from narrowing your career interests, to cultivating a personal brand, and strategically communicating about one's self as a job candidate. The six step model that accounts for a systematic job search is a clear and concise way to understand the necessary steps to finding work. In particular, each chapter does an excellent job summarizing key take aways and action steps that can be taken to move forward in one's search. An interactive table of contents would've made the text easier to navigate since it is likely that a reader might want to jump from chapter to chapter or section to section. There is no index or glossary, which makes navigating the text more difficult.
The information in the text is implicitly geared towards a white-collar, upper-/middle-class job seeker in the United States. This is important for reads to keep in mind. There are assumptions made about access to technology, computer literacy, and professional dress that convey this bias. This book could've more clearly addressed cultural influences on job searching in much more detail. With that said, this is a great book for U.S. students who are in majors and institutions of higher education that are pursuing traditionally corporate career paths. This book could also be used as a resource for junior and early mid-career professionals that are seeking a job change or who have had a gap in their employment history. The challenges addressed in the textbook for these audiences follow current employment trends.
This text should be relevant for years to come. There is content about job searching that is timeless including, but not limited to topics such as: developing a personal marketing campaign, mentoring, maintaining professional relationships, negotiating. However, the Chapter 11 information about social media use in the job search, while a necessary chapter in today's day and age, is time sensitive in nature. New media platforms emerge each year that could heavily influence the effectiveness of this chapter.
The text is easy to read and practical. The language is geared towards a business professional audience.
The format of the text is highly consistent. In addition, the language of the textbook follows commonplace job search jargon and language in the career management industry.
The modular structure is excellent. Each chapter is clearly structured with subheadings, section numbers, and titles. It would be easy to assign various sub-sections. Each sub-section could easily stand alone if an instructor decided to assign certain sections and not entire chapters. Every chapter has learning objectives, key take aways ,and exercises at the end, which help to facilitate engagement with the text overall. There are also a number of tables throughout the textbook, which help to concisely summarize information and increase the ease of comprehension.
The overall structure, organization, and flow of the text is logical, sequential, and coherent. The authors present a six step model to job search success. Chapters 1-2 introduce the audience for this book, summarize the model, and define key concepts. Chapters 3-10 clearly take the reader through each phase of the model in a systematic way. Chapters 11-12 wrap up the text with relevant job search information that is future-oriented and practical (i.e. social media and thriving and succeed at work).
There are some issues with format. A number of visual images are shown throughout the book that take up the majority of space on the page. Then near the margins of the visual there is a narrow column of text that is awkwardly juxtaposed to the image. The columns of text truncate words so that one word is split up onto two lines. This is very challenging to read disrupts the overall visual appeal. Examples of this can be found in Chapter 2 pgs 57-58; Chapter 3 pgs 60; Chapter 4 pgs 93, 98, 104, 107-108, 113-114, and 117, Chapter 5 pgs 129, 143, 154, and 158 ; Chapter 6 on pgs 163, 176, 177, and 189; Chapter 7 pgs 195 and 211; Chapter 8 pgs 229, 259, and 263; Chapter 9 pgs 274 and 283; Chapter 10 pgs 309, and 336, Chapter 11 pgs 343-344, 346, 354, 356, 362, 366, and 368; Chapter 12 376; 397, and 407.
I did not see any issues with grammar. This is a well-written text.
While the book does talk about issues of cultural different in regards to relocation and international students, I do believe that there could be better framing around the job search strategies as specific to a Western cultural context. Job searching is highly influenced by cultural norms, which could be addressed in much more detail. The book does privilege upper-/middle-class job search practices.
This book would serve as a great resource for many different types of job seekers. It captures the complexity and challenges of the job search process.