What Not to Do When Seeking Employment

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Summary: What Not to do When Seeking Employment
Review: As a former executive recruiter with 14 years of expierence in matching people with job opportunities, I can tell you it is WHAT NOT TO DO that will keep the employer's interest level until an offer is received and accepted. Remember, if you are interviewing, they have already found an interest. It is now your job to make sure they don't lose it. What to do comes instinctively, but what not to do comes only from life experience and being on both sides of the hiring desk. Jay has done job seekers a big service by documenting these interview killers and sharing his experiences with the readers.

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Summary: Definitely a must read!
Review: Exceptional book based on real life experiences, both good, bad and in between. The author's advice is crisp, practical and stands to be effective for anyone seeking to increase their maketability. If you've ever wondered why you weren't getting interviews or job offers, you should without a doubt, read this book. Well done Mr. Crawford, I hope to never be "sitting on a curb in Cleveland".

Regards,
Craig Flanagan

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Summary: What not to do when seeking employment
Review: I was very impressed with the "life experiences" overview of this writer. I have already recommended this book as a must read for my children and would advise all parents to make this a graduation gift for both high school and college grads. It could be used as a reference each time a job search and interview is being done. What a great cost effective way to gain experience via someone elses years of employment and unemployment.
Well done Jay B. Crawford.

Rating:
Summary: What not to do when seeking employment
Review: I was very impressed with the "life experiences" overview of this writer. I have already recommended this book as a must read for my children and would advise all parents to make this a graduation gift for both high school and college grads. It could be used as a reference each time a job search and interview is being done. What a great cost effective way to gain experience via someone elses years of employment and unemployment.
Well done Jay B. Crawford.

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Summary: Avoid the landmines
Review: Job search books generally contain good advice on what to do to get a job. But, are you aware of the things not to do? This is where Jay B. Crawford brings his decades of experience as both a job seeker and a job placement expert to your rescue.

In this age of continual economic restructuring, job change is almost always inevitable and almost never voluntary. Job seekers diligently go about the process of finding a job, then wonder why they are still looking many months after they started. What went wrong? This is where people tend to remain clueless--and, consequently, jobless. Crawford tackles that problem head-on.

In the first chapter, he talks about his own career--one that would make a decent plot for a movie--and provides ample lessons that he summarizes with a listing of "Don'ts" at the end. He continues the pattern through each of the subsequent chapters, always summarizing the lessons learned with a list of "Don'ts" at the end of the chapter.

The next two chapters deal with the mindset you need to have and the pressures you face. The next two chapters discuss how to prepare for your job search and some options to explore while engaged in it. The next four chapters (6, 7, 8, and 9) get into the nitty gritty of conducting the search (cover letter and resume preparation, interviewing overview, telephone interviewing, and in-person interviewing, respectively). The tenth chapter addresses how to overcome a failing job campaign, and the eleventh chapter summarizes the book so you don't forget the most important concepts.

As Crawford relates his own experiences and the lessons learned therein, he frequently uses the experiene he's talking about as the basis for advice on how to keep the job you have. And it's pretty solid advice.

Crawford's style is that of a mentor. As I read this book, I felt like Jay Crawford was sitting across from me talking to me, with my best interests at heart. The text is crisp, entertaining, and energetic--all with a personal touch. Crawford strikes me as a man who doesn't speak unless he has something to say. And when he does say something, it's worth hearing.

If you're a wage-earner, this book should definitely be in your collection. But, I think it has more value than just that. If you are a parent, consider asking your child to read this book and talk with you about it (you could break that effort down into one chapter at a time, for younger children). You will both learn from that, plus have a meaningful exchange. And, your child will learn some valuable life lessons.

This book isn't about what tricks to perform to get an employer to hire you. It's about how to be a more desirable employee while conducting a job search, and how to avoid the common mistakes that could shut you out of the job you want.

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Summary: Review of :WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN SEEKING EMPLOYMENT"
Review: Review of WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN SEEKING EMPLOYMENT,
by Jay B. Crawford; Publisher: AuthorHouse.

The reviewer, having been unemployed, or 'underemployed', SEVERAL times within his forty year journey through the civilian - not counting a few years with Uncle Sam - side of the working world, has a special appreciation for this unique work.

The author's approach is different from the established norm, different from the 'run of the mill' self help books on the 'job search' topic. Considering all of the books, articles, words of wisdom that this reviewer has been exposed to over the past four decades, he has never seen such an unusual approach to the never-ending problem of 'all of a sudden, I'm out of a job'!

What do I do now'?

PANIC!!

The author describes actual situations - personal trauma - sustained throughout many years within the Security Profession, mistakes made, lessons learned - and tells readers what NOT to do while making one's way through - in this case a specific - but in other situations all professions - save a few.

The major benefit one should derive from this effort is a simple compendium of what job seekers shouldn't do when trying to advance within a profession, or when seeking another position within the same profession.

Telephonic interviews are a relatively new initial approach being utilized by search firms and employers in order to winnow the list of prospective hires down to a manageable number, and in the process save time and money. The book devotes an entire chapter to handling this approach.

The work is short but practical; just over one hundred pages in eleven chapters, but there are more than one hundred seventy-five "don'ts", ranging from the comical - "Don't worry about studying the night before a drug test", to the practical, "Don't dress casually", to the obvious "Don't wear sunglasses inside a building".

The reviewer, Thomas W. Leo, CPP, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point