Career Development All-in-One For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyle))

Any books that provide guidance on your career should be taken with a pinch of salt. No book has all the answers. The trouble is I haven't come across a comprehensive book that tries to do cover key career development topics. This Dummies Guide to Career Development makes a valiant attempt in covering key areas..The book is split into seven sections - negotation, leadership, project management, time management, business writing , presentations and the most interesting section - mindfulness. Some people may say this book states the obvious but it is in practice that you realise these obvious points are not practised. The book starts off with Mindfulness that is a clever tactic to help you apply mindfulness to all the other subject areas. Time Management made me laugh that in reality, time management is a dream we constantly chase. The only way I can practice time management is to delegate tasks to others. However, there are some good ideas in the chapter.The negotiation section is almost a primer to another book called 'Winning New Business for Dummies'. Out of the two, the latter goes into considerabe depth regarding negotiation.The business writing section is invaluable. The book proides some good pointers and has examples of poor business writing. I see it everyday at work and just shake my head in disbelief.The presentation section is a must. I've seen so many presenters fail because they ignore two key things - engaging their audience and tailoring the message to them without bombarding with information. I go a step further in haing one maximum of three slides. This section should be read in conjunction with the business writing section as they complement one another.The leadership section is almost a condensed version of the institute of leaderhip and management syllabus. You won't become a high flyer overnight but the guidance is sound.The project management section I have left last. This is only a must read if you are involved in delivering projects otherwise you can skip this section or give it a quick glance.The book does promote incorporation of the material into your personal life. I think time management will be the one that is the most important., I'm not sure about project managing your family will work but negotiations could in some cases with key decision making.I personally think that anyone wanting to pursue a career in management or a supervisory role should put this book near the top of their list. For those currently in management who feel there is room for improvement should take a look at this book. It's a useful reference book that even seasoned career orientated people can learn a thing or two from it.

I am so pleased that I requested this wonderful book, courtesy of Wiley ‘Dummies’ series and Vine. For someone whose career is more or les set and is now more winding down towards retirement, I was wondering how useful such a book would be.It is advertised as 7 books in one and, to be fair, there are 7 major sections. If it were up to me then, I think, I would advertise it as a seven-part programme and I think I’d also start revising some of the time-honoured icons such as the sore finger with a bow on the end and update these. Semantics aside, I quite enjoyed the first ‘book’ about mindfulness and I think this is something that we all either do or need to do in whatever field of experience our daily lives places us. Project management and Leadership, books 2 and 3, were rather less successful as I felt that successful leaders already have these skills in abundance and I wasn’t convinced that reading about them would necessarily change or empower someone who did not have them. Time Management, book 4, things were livening up again and my reading rate and interest accelerated.Books 5, 6 and 7 were absolutely fabulous and I found even in my set-in-my-ways stance, there was a lot to learn. Some years a go, as a junior partner, I wrote a report that was circulated round all the other doctors. I found a copy of this some days later left in the office by my office manager who’d circled 20, 30 or 40 errors in bright red ink. I was ashamed and determined to do better. So began my hobby of writing and although it’s still a work in progress, I realise there is still much to learn. Similarly with presentations, at our doctors’ meetings we regularly have to do a RCA root cause analysis of any problems. The presentations get trotted out each month and they are all the same. I wanted something different and refreshing and did a Powerpoint based on Rumsfeldt’s three rules of what we know/don’t know. Likewise with negotiation: I am negotiating with my patients all day long but I accept there is still more to learn. This book has reinforced and redoubled my desire to improve and to take on new skills.My daughter graduated last year and was lucky to get a job in an IT startup more or less straight away. This is a fabulous opportunity with a good basic salary, commission, trips to the head office in San Diego and shares in the business. Unfortunately, she has been very unsettled there and prefers the support side of the business to the selling. She has been there almost a year and is unsure whether to hang on or to look for something else. Many of the problems she is having, like negotiation, use of emails, communication and presentation (of herself!) are covered in this book. When she arrives home this weekend I will suggest that she borrows this fabulous book as I believe it will help her with her decisions and self-awareness and hopefully crystallise some of her thoughts around her future strategy.I suspect that this book will be of use to a great many regardless of what stage in their careers they find themselves. Many Thanks for a great read. Five stars.

Bumper Dummies edition that covers all bases and in the doorstop league of books, is pretty good value all told considering the content you get here. Delivered with the usual Dummies flair for clear but detailed and always relevant info, relayed in a lively and accessible way with plenty of key points and tips along the way, this is a very useful guide to understanding all the angles of career development. Good stuff.

This is a useful guide book for anyone setting out on a new career or if they are in the process of changing the direction of their career. Being in the Dummies series, it follows the well-known format and is written clearly with helpful diagrams and illustrations throughout. It is broken down into general sections like Time Management, Project Management and Mindfulness – all key areas to consider when reevaluating your career choices or just trying to get down that road at a quicker pace. Students who are on the cusp of leaving education and heading out into the big wide world of work will find this particularly useful as it breaks down each area of challenges into pragmatic chunks. Throughout the book it encourages a mind-set that is focused on self-discipline and working towards goal-orientated outcomes. If this is a style of thinking/working that doesn’t come easily to you, then this is a concise handbook to help you retrain yourself.

Excellent product...would buy again and again!

This book is a MUST to have!!!!

There’s something for everyone in this book, well assuming you’re employed anyway. Heck even if you’re not employed, there are some things in here which could help you in everyday life of in a job search. This book is clear concise and easy to understand. If you like an idea the book contains step by step directions on how to implement it.I will go into a bit of detail about book 1 as it seems to be a major focus, probably because it has so many applications. The first book is dedicated to teaching you mindfulness, and although it takes over a page for them to finally get to their definition, once they do the first book leaves you with a full understanding of ways to improve yours. Basically it helps you take time to be aware of what is going on around you and what you yourself are doing and its effects on both you and those around you.Some of the other books include Project management, which I had no real use for. Leadership which is a nice section and anyone who is a leader or striving to be one will find ideas in here that are easy to put into practice. It even has a section dealing with different cultures which has a lot of handy info even if you never leave the US. Time management is book 4 and it focuses on planning. It shows simple step by step ways to improve organization and time management.Now Book 5 is Business Writing. I have been told my business writing is pretty good (don’t judge by how I write reviews- it’s totally different.), and it starts off describing how I write “Plan. Draft, Edit”; except mine is more Plan, Draft, Edit, wait a day and Edit again. I find the day between the find writing and taking a second look allows you to give your work a fresh view and you often pick up things you had missed when I was intently focused on the initial writing. I found this book was packed with great info, there was thoughts in there that can be useful no matter how well you think you write. I particularly liked the parts about creating a person writing guide, and the most common errors…Holy moly I make some!Book 6 was about presentations, and like the projects section I had no real use for it, still worth having in case I am ever forced to participate in doing one. Last but not least was book 7 about Negotiation…basically about sales. Nice, to the point, and plenty of step by step instructions and easy to implement ideas on how to make the sale. I liked this section a lot and I’ve done quite a bit of selling, in one form or another, for decades.

This career guide contains seven books. It is about the size of a city phone book, and not too heavy. There is a conscious effort to address technology issues. I like the books in this series because they are well organized and plainspoken. This means the material can be repetitive at times, but the information imparted is good, which is the bottom line.The first book introduces psychological principles to make the case for mindfulness at the individual and organizational level to improve focus, productivity and creativity. There is an interesting chapter on mindfulness and technology.The second book, project management, addresses the skills needed to run a project successfully. The ideas presented are reasonable, sensible and illustrated with graphics, from definitions and setting goals to communications.Book three, on leadership, leaves behind a few of the principles of the book on mindfulness, and would be most useful for those in big organizations. In a smaller setting this approach would be overkill and maybe set you apart in a negative way.Book four is one I enjoyed because I am an organization nerd: time management. Heady stuff :^) It is a no-nonsense approach to time, equal parts theory and practical advice, and for both workplace and personal situations. There is a chapter on managing email.Book five goes after business writing. This book adopts a mindfulness attitude and puts an investment in procedures that will take time but also pay dividends. Chapters address style as well as substance, and there is a chapter on email.Book six is about presentations, with material on content, platform skills, style and successful conclusions. There is no discussion of specific software.Book seven, on negotiation, is useful information for anyone, at work or outside of it. Chapters look at creating goals, talk and closing the deal. It is sensible and includes bits of information about a variety of topics, such as the peculiar requirements of negotiating over the phone or internationally, or a physical space that would be conducive to the negotiating process. If you are lucky enough to have a mentor, this is the kind of common sense advice you'd hope for; if, like most of us, you have limited or no access to a mentor, or if there are gaps in your knowledge, this comprehensive guide would be quite useful. It is well written and covers a lot of material, though. not all sections will be useful to all readers.The book concludes with a very good index.

This is a good compilation of minibooks. They all have enough information to be helpful but not too much to be overwhelming. I think some references for further information on the topics would be useful, though. This book is also useful for new graduates as well as those who have worked for a while and are looking for ways to possibly move up.