Dancing Naked: Breaking Through the Emotional Limits That Keep You from the Job You Want

Rating:
Summary: Career Hunters need to Dance Naked!
Review: An excellent addition to books on careers. The book has a whole section on career identity. This is useful as most of us identify ourselves by our career identity rather than our personal characteristics, family background or origins from the part of the world we come from. Another section deals with managing emotions in the context of career change. Ultimately, it is indeed a book not only for career counsellors but also for any career hunter or someone who has been affected by redundancies! Some very useful and helpful ideas to re-invent yourself and your career. A book that fills a void in career counselling! Thank you, Prof. Chope.

Rating:
Summary: Great for Employers, too!
Review: This book is aimed at employees who are interested in changing their career or their job, depending on age and circumstance. As an employer, I purchased this book from Amazon to learn how "new" employees were thinking. I learned a lot from the employee's viewpoint, but found many of the chapters extremely thought provoking and useful for employers.

The last part of the book is primarily great advice, but the first part of the book I could not put down as it taught me quite a bit. In fact, I have passed it on to some business owners I know as I found the information very useful. The book is also very well written and easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: Beating a path to your own door
Review: This job search book helped me understand why the job market of today feels so stressful -- one reason being that lots of people are changing jobs (I love the term "portfolio career") or, like I did in my 40's, starting a second career. So it helps to have a tool like this to take your pulse and remind you that it's not you, it's THEM -- you're just reacting normally to a crazy world -- and then guide you with ways to cope. The author doesn't make yet another approach at explaining how to prepare resumes and write letters. Instead, Robert Chope addresses the emotions that come up when you're looking for a job or considering a career, which can be scary and confusing. For instance, maybe you want to make a change but doing that would go against a parent's or partner's desires. Maybe just the idea of a job quest makes you nervous or suddenly need a nap. This book addresses situations like that and many many others: fear, anger, uncertainty, indecisiveness, and the book reminds us too that physical well being is important. The rules, exercises, examples, suggestions, and lists of resources are helpful and goal directed, and most of all the positive, encouraging tone is energizing. If you're stumped, Chope's book will help you find your way.