50 Plus!: Critical Career Decisions for the Rest of Your Life

Rating:
Summary: Helpful and encouraging
Review: "50 Plus, Critical Career Decisions for the Rest of Your Life," while written for those in their fifth decade, presents sound practical advice for persons of any age. Particularly helpful are the chapters devoted to how to move up in your profession, how to do your own public relations, and how to determine when it is time to change your job. In this, the author's third book offering advice to persons in specific age groups (the first was the well received "The Critical 14 years of Your Professional Life"), he devotes more time to the tactics, strategies, rewards, and pitfalls of striking out on your own than he did in his previous volumes. Throughout this latest work Dilenscneider not only tells the reader "how to do it," but his consistently upbeat approach also leaves one with the feeling that "it can be done."

Rating:
Summary: Helpful Advice for Any Age
Review: Mr. Dilenschneider has written a fine book based on his own experiences and those of his friends and network that is mostly as applicable to 30 year olds as to 50+ year olds.

He's at his best when he's describing his own successful experiences in the public relations field. The sections on how to leave your current job, get a new job, how to become a consultant, how to get clients and how to handle public relations are spot on. They are worth the price of the book. However, if you are not interested in those sections, you will probably be disappointed in this book.

I particularly recommend chapter 9 "Bridging the Generation Gap" for its fine material on how to stay up-to-date with and relevant to younger people, regardless of what your relationship is with them (whether boss, subordinate or child).

Some of the book didn't quite work for me, such as the "dress for success" advice from two of Mr. Dilenschneider's haberdashers. As a result, I almost stopped reading the book before I got to chapter 5, when the helpful advice began to kick in.

If you want to understand the heart of the 50+ perspective in the book, you really only need to read chapter 9. If you think you are going to have age-related job issues, then other chapters come into play. As a result, I suggest that you check this out at the library before purchasing it.

After you finish, think about how your life can be filled with expanding choices and potential . . . while you feel excited and rewarded by how you spend your time. Then, spend some time exchanging ideas with others who are younger and older than you to see what their perspectives are.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: This book should be #1 for anyone in the market for a job, not just those looking for a career change. After 6 months of trying, I nailed a job on my first interview after reading this book. The advice is totally relevant to this economy's job market, and I especially appreciated the tips on getting and maintaining positive control of interviews and meetings. I can't imagine there's a better book out there.