The Career Adventurer's Fieldbook

Work has changed.

Employment has changed.

Careers have changed.

• On average most people have been with their current employer for just 3.5 years.
• Between the ages of 18 and 32, the average worker has 8.6 different jobs.
• 40% of interviewees in a recent survey said they would change their career straight away given the chance.
• 50% of us will be self–employed by the year 2010.

What do these statistics tell us? It tells us that the world of work and how we understand our role within it is undergoing a major shift. A typical career is no longer a long hard slog through the ranks of a single organization. It is a series of career adventures: a journey towards career enlightenment. It is a search for the perfect fit between you and your work.

The Career Adventurer’s Fieldbook helps you through this journey, where career and life become intertwined. Stephen Coomber, Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer guide the career adventurer to base camp (acquiring the right level of knowledge and skills), then to your first destination (making sure you are hired by the organization you have selected, including insider tips about how employers select employees). It is packed with information, techniques, and advice from people who have dared to pursue their career aspirations. Some of them have reached the summit of those aspirations, while others are still striving. But what unites them all is their conviction that there should be more to working life than brain numbing, soul withering tedium.

• Introduction
• One: The Great Adventure — Why it starts with you
1. First, think
• Buy a drum
• It's never too late
2. Who are you?
• Ask and you will find
• Adventure 1
• The appliance of science
• Adventure 2
3. Skills sorting
• Understanding skills
• Adventure 3
4. What do you value?
• Making sense of values
• Adventure 4
5. What do you love to do?
• Making sense of what you love
• Adventure 5
• Retracting your steps
• Adventure 6
• Two: Reconnaisance & Research — Mapping uncharted territory
1. Striking out for base camp
• Plan then plan again
• Don't rule anything out
2. Finding your Everest
• An organization fit for you
• Uncovering what you need to know
• Adventure 7
3. Are you fitting comfortably?
• Questions of culture
• Culture clues
• Inside information
4. Networking
• You already have a network
• Adventure 8
• Professional networking
• Networks of influence
• The next step: the infoview
• Adventure 9
• Netting the big fish
6. Traditional methods for jobseekers
• Scanning the jobs ads
• Living with the middlemen
• Three: Opening Doors — Making your first move
1. Resume writing
• The door opening resume
• Career adventurer's resume
• What does the recruiter want?
• Preparing t write
2. The covering letter
• Writing the letter
• The writing process
3. The interview
• Interviewing styles
• Interview formats
• Rules of engagement
• Adventure 10
• Ask the right questions
• Give the interviewer what they want
• Techniques to succeed
4. Coping with psychometric tests & assessment centers
• Types of tests
• Taking the tests
• Team assessment
5. Show me the money
• The art of negotiation
• The counter-offer
• The job offer
• Four: Thriving in the Job jungle — How the world of work can work for you
1. Settling into work
• Hand-holding
• The first 100 days
2. Mentoring
• Why have a mentor?
• What does a mentor do?
• What type of mentoring program?
• Finding a mentor
3. Office politics
• Strategies for dealing with office politics
4. Getting along
• Getting along with your boss
• Getting along with your co-workers (and everyone else)
• Emotional skills
5. Performance appraisals
• Help yourself
• Choose your weapon
• Coming at you from all angles
6. Balancing life & work
• Beware burnout
• Changing expectations
• Happy campers
• Flexible working practices
• Five: Moving Up, Moving On — Knowing when to stay and when to say goodbye
1. All change
2. Taking stock
• Adventure 11
• Career change
3. Life-long learning
• Training and education
• Back to school
4. Exit stage left
• The specter of downsizing
• Living with uncertainty
• Avoiding the axe
• Mind the gap
• Dealing with downsizing
• Redundancy survival tips
• Keeping your head above water
• Networking: your best bet
• Adventure 12
• Six: The Road Less Travelled — Living the life of the free agent
1. Free enterprise
• The rise of the free agent
• SoHo, so you?
• Entrepreneurial role models
• Keeping good company
2. Have you got the right stuff?
• Energy and enthusiasm
• More than money
• Communicating the essence
• Maximizing technology
• Failing persistently
• Constant learning
• The human touch
3. Building your business
• Seven steps to self-employment
• Adventure 13
• Great entrepreneurs
• Adventure 14
4. The entrepreneur within
• Intrapreneuring
• Seven: Windowing Down? — Retiring to a new adventure
1. Last stop, all off
• A silver rebellion
2. Part-time retirement
3. Phased retirement
• Retirement myths
• Adventure 15
4. Gray power
5. Enjoying old age
• Health
6. Retirement financial planning
• Planning for retirement
7. You are what you leave behind
• Afterword

Some of my favorite authors. Worth reading, even if it grows boring fast.