Next book

THE 20-MINUTE NETWORKING MEETING - PROFESSIONAL EDITION

LEARN TO NETWORK. GET A JOB.

A straight-talking, highly supportive networking manual.

A quick, concentrated how-to guide designed to maximize the efficiency of job searches.

Management consultants and debut authors Perez and Ballinger aim to help unemployed people crack the mysteries of “the invisible job market,” which consists of job openings that aren’t publicly announced. Companies fill these quietly and internally, they say, through private recommendations or referrals: “a whopping 70% of all jobs are obtained through people you know!” Hence the overwhelming importance of networking, which the authors say is “more than important. It is vital. It is the lifeblood of your job search and, in the big picture, your career.” As the book’s title indicates, one of the key elements of successful networking is brevity, and Perez and Ballinger lay out strategies to help job seekers streamline their approaches. They illustrate their recommendations—such as avoiding passivity during the interview process or finding an “evangelist” willing to sing your praises to potential employers—with fictional interludes that show how they might play out in real-life situations (or not, if the character chooses not to heed their wisdom). Some of the advice can be off-puttingly blunt (“Save the irrelevant chitchat,” and the like). However, at other times, the authors assure readers that networking is “not about being slick and smooth” but rather about forging personal relationships through quick, meaningful encounters over stretches of time. It adds up to a well-rounded approach that touches on elements of business relationships that other job-search guides often overlook, particularly in a section on following up with contacts. All of this advice will give job seekers, especially new ones, a great deal to think about.

A straight-talking, highly supportive networking manual.

Pub Date: March 18, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-9859106-4-8

Page Count: 182

Publisher: Career Innovations Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2017

Categories:
Next book

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

Categories:
Next book

I AM OZZY

An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.

The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.

Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.

An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.

Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009

Close Quickview