(Part 2) Top products from r/jobs

A lot of people have been recommending the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.

I'll recommend that book. That book is about how to do social networking right.

It's not going to Business Networking Events (TM) and eating bad hotel food while engaging in a phoniness contest.

It's about just building relationships with people, and cultivating friends who'll help you out when you're in a spot. This, BTW involves being a Good Guy Greg who'll help others in a spot, and making yourself available for such things.

Some of Ferrazzi's tips:

• Cultivate generosity. Not just being able to give in an act of generosity, but being able to graciously accept generosity. The second part is something I find really hard.
  
• Develop your network ALL THE TIME. Not just when you're job hunting. When you begin the job hunt, you want a network already in place that will help you out.
  
• Don't be phony. Really, networking is just being sociable. Look for the kinds of people you like hanging out with, and hang with them. If you fake it, it won't work.
  
• Jerks get flushed out of social networks, so follow the Law of Wheaton.
  
• Give, don't just ask. Like I said, Ferrazzi says the key to success is generosity. Doing volunteer work, say for charities, is a damned good way to jumpstart a social network. Also, if someone is doing something generous for you, accept graciously. Don't keep score on favors. Just pay it forward.
  
• Follow-up. Don't be too obnoxious about it, but when you make contacts, keep in touch with them. I have a hard time with that part.
  
• Share your passions. Don't just go to the Business Networking Phony Luncheon. Go to something you love, and are passionate about. Like sci-fi? Go to sci-fi conventions. Like sports? Go watch or play your sportsball game of choice, and find friends who do likewise.

> A useful asset would seem to be someone the company couldn't afford to turn away. An unpaid intern is use a valuable resource to exploit. How do you reconcile these ideas?

Both the company and the employee should be useful assets to each other. (Or, if you're more cynical about it, both the company and employee will be mutually exploiting each other.)

One of the top-selling business books - Good to Great says that the best leaders "Confront the brutal facts, but never give up hope." It's talking about CEOs, but you can apply it to new grads just entering the job market. Brutal facts for a new grad:

• You have less experience and fewer tangible skills than anybody else on the job market.
  
• You lack a track record or any public information about your past accomplishments. It's hard to convince a hiring manager to trust you when you have no data.
  
• You lack connections and a network of people that have worked with you before.
  
• You often lack a conceptual framework for what professional success in the working world looks like or what employers are looking for.
  
  Balancing that, you do have some assets:
  
  
• First and foremost, you have time. When you're a new grad, your whole working life is ahead of you. Many companies hire new grads specifically because they hope that they will get a long, fruitful career out of them.
  
• You're often willing to work very hard and try new things.
  
• You have few commitments as a young 20-something, meaning that you have freedom to take bold career moves like relocating, or the ability to work extra hours to complete a project.
  
• If you completed a 4-year degree, you have demonstrated the ability to show persistence and follow through on something challenge.
  
• You hopefully have decent social skills and experience hanging out with other people.
  
• You often have better technology skills than older people, and are more in touch with recent cultural developments than them.
  
  If you want to approach your career strategically, you should leverage the assets you have to convince other people to give you the assets you need. You do this by giving them what they want and asking for things in return. So pretty much all of the advice that the OP gave is about highlighting the assets you have:
  
  
• When you request a face-to-face meeting with a hiring manager, you have a chance to demonstrate social skills and ability to work with people.
  
• When you do this politely but repeatedly, you show persistence.
  
• When you go for the hiring manager instead of HR, you show that you are thinking of what others need and not what you need.
  
• When you talk face-to-face and offer to shadow the team, you demonstrate time and flexibility.
  
  In return, you should be looking to acquire the assets that you don't have, so that you are not so disadvantaged in your next job hunt. For example:
  
  
• By entering the workforce, you learn tangible skills that you can apply to a future employer.
  
• You get the brand name of your previous employer, which makes future ones more inclined to trust you.
  
• You can build a network of people that are personally acquainted with your skills, all of whom have their own networks of personal contacts.
  
  The OP suggested going blue-chip, which is the traditional advice. I personally didn't - I worked for a couple startups, founded my own, and then ended up at Google, relying much more heavily on skill development than the brand name. It doesn't actually matter - your actual career path will depend heavily on the opportunities that are available to you. (I wasn't looking to end up at Google, for example, but they said "yes" and I figured it was an opportunity worth taking.) The important thing is that you very honestly take stock of what you lack as an employee and then take the steps to acquire that, using all the resources you have available to you.

Kudos to you for wanting to expand your horizons, and specifically looking at areas that companies and business owners often care about. It's good to read up on them, but to be honest they probably won't sink in unless you're dealing with those topics on a weekly or monthly basis. That said, if you need a resource, check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Day-MBA-4th-Step---Step/dp/0062199579

Instead of trying to read it cover to cover, go have coffee with your boss or someone in finance. Try to see what the higher uppers care about this year. They may say profit, but is it revenue or cost? Or maybe it's market share? If your company is publicly traded, take a look at the income statements and then look up stuff you don't understand in the book or online. Pay attention to free cash flow, if a company is on the decline, the free cash flow can indicate how dire the situation is.

Ultimately what's most beneficial is to develop a good financial intuition: knowing what the company cares about, and knowing the implications to your department or your job.

If you haven't yet, try reading "What Color is your Parachute". It offers lots of career changing advice, guidance on finding out what sort of work you'd really like to do, and also tons of great resources that you can pursue, including some lesser known job hunting sources like job search groups, which I'd never heard of before. It also just sorta gets you into a more optimistic mindset, I think.

Another one I would recommend would be "Never Eat Alone", which is about meeting and cultivating a great network. As we all know, an awesome network can be a huge asset.

Crossing his name off the list actively highlights the fact that he's not bringing anything, and makes him look extra miserly.
There's no problem being friendly with people in work, I have some good strong friendships from companies I've worked for in the past.
While k's reaction was way, way over the top I agree you shouldn't have put his name down.
Keep your head up, work hard and be aware of the fact that there are certain types of people who will drain energy from you, toxic people who will make your life miserable if you're not aware of them or their tactics.

Also, check out the book Games People Play , it's a good read and will help you better manage relationships like this.

Edit: Take a look at this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis

For writing positions, probably a little early (I'm a writer myself). You'll probably have to wait until the second semester to lock down a job.

That being said, it's NOT to early to start building relationships and meeting the right people so that when the time comes you'll have tons of options.

Definitely take the video interview to get some practice!

I'd actually recommend reading this book called "Figure Your Sh*t Out: The Post Grad's Guide to Success in the Real World." Has a ton of great tips on networking and stuff that helped me build my network senior year, and by the time I graduated a had a few job offers to choose from. The trick is to start building relationships with people now who could hire you once you graduate.

Here's the link btw: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL448KZ/

Hope that helps!

if i asked you to make some =if fuctions, filter, conditional formatting, or format the cells to a particular way, could you do all of those?

I see a lot of people say they "know" microsoft office but they just know the absolute basics for everything. buy this textbook to actually learn many functions that businesses actually want you to know. I used this exact same book at a tech school and it literally was self taught. The book pretty much teaches you everything. Buy it used and get office for like $120 or whatever if you don't have it.

Don't put "Excel skills on resume." In your objective or summary field (whatever you call it) just put "intermediate/advanced knowledge of Microsoft office applications." then when they ask you in the interview what extent that this is, explain to them that you can do various things that matter to them. most companies don't care that you know how to make a pie chart. they care that you know how to use it as a data entry tool.

Hey OP, I'm currently reading a book and I'm sure you'd like it. Like you, I'm a generous person, but that can lead to making you look soft and having other people take advantage of you. If you can, try to get a hold of this book and read it, you won't regret it.


https://www.amazon.ca/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986

I read this book Shop Class as Soulcraft than you may be interested in. It touches on a lot of the issues you mention and I recommend reading it to help sort out exactly what kind of work it is that you want to do.

www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/books/review/Fukuyama-t.html

www.amazon.com/Shop-Class-Soulcraft-Inquiry-Value/dp/0143117467

Start with Secrets to Winning Office Politics.

I also like Dealing With People You Can't Stand.

Do not read these at work!

48 Laws of Power may be worth a read. I feel like I handle the office politics better after reading it.

Head to a book store or your local library for a book on interview questions and answers. Any good book on job hunting will have a section on interview questions, but there are entire books devoted to the subject. Example: http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Frequently-Interview-Questions-Second/dp/0071741453/

That being said, some websites simply aren't going to be enough. Codeacademy is awesome, but don't expect to learn algorithms from it; you probably would want to pick up a copy of CLRS and do the MIT course

If you already are familiar with programming I really like C++ for Java Programmers http://www.amazon.com/C-Java-Programmers-Mark-Weiss/dp/013919424X generally I usually just put C instead of C++ in my resume since I've never programmed in C++ outside of college.

Someone on here suggested a book called 60 Seconds & You’re Hired and I thought it was gonna be so cheesy and clickbaity but it really helped me with my next interview for those behavioral questions that are designed to throw you off.

It’s really worth a read.

I work near a large federal base (FAA). I had a Masters in a writing intensive major and they needed a tech writer ASAP.

Make sure to read:

Pocket Guide to Technical Communication (5th Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0135063965/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_5FUDCbRHGVHD1

It gave me enough back ground info to pass a writing test.

Recommended reading

the course was 12 weeks

we used this book

you can self study if you're that sort of person

I passed on the first try for i guess four months?

Read this.