Official Review: How To NOT Get A Job: 10 Pitfalls to Kee...
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- Latest Review: "How To NOT Get A Job" by Charlene Holsendorff
Official Review: How To NOT Get A Job: 10 Pitfalls to Kee...
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "How To NOT Get A Job: 10 Pitfalls to Keep You Unemployed (Forever!)" by Charlene Holsendorff.]
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How to NOT Get a Job: 10 Pitfalls to Keep You Unemployed (Forever!) is a self-published pamphlet by Charlene Holsendorff. Holsendorff is a Pennsylvania-based training and development professional with a specialization in career management. Her business, Ever After Communications, facilitates her public speaking and personal coaching ventures. She is currently pursuing professional certification. Additional information about her can be found at her career blog slicingbananas.com.
How to NOT Get a Job is an outgrowth of the author’s previous writings, workshops, and webcasts. (FYI: Several of the components of this pamphlet are currently available online at EzineArticles.com.) While it remains an open question as to whether the English-speaking world needs more advice manuals devoted to job searching strategies, Holsendorff thankfully has taken the path less travelled by producing a work devoted thematically to how not to succeed. Though ultimately the difference between how to and how not to may amount to mere hair-splitting, readers ought to be grateful for any well-executed mechanism that steers them clear of what otherwise might amount to an adventure in run-of-the-mill rhetoric.
As suggested by its subtitle, the pamphlet is divided into ten sections, each devoted to a separate common job-search pitfall. Altogether Holsendorff intends to address matters such as “anemic” self-marketing, “tepid” resumes, ineffective communications, and unproductive job interviews. Each section is brief, none exceeding two full pages in length. To the average intelligent, educated, mature reader, some pitfalls would seem to need no elaboration beyond the section title itself--e.g., Pitfall #4: Wacky Email Address. Yet the very inclusion of these more elementary job-search fundamentals suggests a steeper learning curve for a percentage of America’s unemployed than lay observers might have supposed. Other pitfalls range into more subtle territory--e.g., Pitfall #10: Not Asking for the Job. The pamphlet concludes with a list of “Pitfall Cures” summarizing advice offered throughout the work.
If the goal of a document this brief is to successfully encapsulate a given message then Holsendorff has certainly achieved that goal. The pamphlet is well written and its subject matter clearly articulated. One cannot but have confidence that Holsendorff possesses a command of her topic. What’s more, hers is a friendly (but not overly casual) delivery that makes for pleasant reading. True, there is a sprinkling of bizspeak (e.g., leveraging relationships), but not nearly enough to alarm those who suffer corporate jargon intolerance. Readers with a more delicate sensibility will likely recoil after repeatedly being told they are a “product” being shopped for by employers, but such is the uncolored message Holsendorff wishes to communicate.
If there is any fault to be found here it is one of omission. Holsendorff is at her best in sections 4 and 6, wherein her own insights are buttressed with the findings of a third-party study and survey (respectively). The remaining eight sections do not cite external sources and are therefore less authoritative by comparison (not to mention less compelling since they lack that selfsame intriguing value-added content). It is an all the more noticeable absence since seven of the pamphlet’s ten sections fall short of being even a full page and a half in length. This much white space in a full-length book is natural, of course, but in a 28-page document it is bound to fasten readers’ attention to the glaring absence of text.
In the section on “wimpy” brand messaging, the author urges job-seekers to assert their true value to employers by conveying their wow. With a little more well-tempered wow of her own added to the mix, Holsendorff can assuredly transform her already fine pamphlet into an excellent piece of writing.
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
***
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How to NOT Get a Job is an outgrowth of the author’s previous writings, workshops, and webcasts. (FYI: Several of the components of this pamphlet are currently available online at EzineArticles.com.) While it remains an open question as to whether the English-speaking world needs more advice manuals devoted to job searching strategies, Holsendorff thankfully has taken the path less travelled by producing a work devoted thematically to how not to succeed. Though ultimately the difference between how to and how not to may amount to mere hair-splitting, readers ought to be grateful for any well-executed mechanism that steers them clear of what otherwise might amount to an adventure in run-of-the-mill rhetoric.
As suggested by its subtitle, the pamphlet is divided into ten sections, each devoted to a separate common job-search pitfall. Altogether Holsendorff intends to address matters such as “anemic” self-marketing, “tepid” resumes, ineffective communications, and unproductive job interviews. Each section is brief, none exceeding two full pages in length. To the average intelligent, educated, mature reader, some pitfalls would seem to need no elaboration beyond the section title itself--e.g., Pitfall #4: Wacky Email Address. Yet the very inclusion of these more elementary job-search fundamentals suggests a steeper learning curve for a percentage of America’s unemployed than lay observers might have supposed. Other pitfalls range into more subtle territory--e.g., Pitfall #10: Not Asking for the Job. The pamphlet concludes with a list of “Pitfall Cures” summarizing advice offered throughout the work.
If the goal of a document this brief is to successfully encapsulate a given message then Holsendorff has certainly achieved that goal. The pamphlet is well written and its subject matter clearly articulated. One cannot but have confidence that Holsendorff possesses a command of her topic. What’s more, hers is a friendly (but not overly casual) delivery that makes for pleasant reading. True, there is a sprinkling of bizspeak (e.g., leveraging relationships), but not nearly enough to alarm those who suffer corporate jargon intolerance. Readers with a more delicate sensibility will likely recoil after repeatedly being told they are a “product” being shopped for by employers, but such is the uncolored message Holsendorff wishes to communicate.
If there is any fault to be found here it is one of omission. Holsendorff is at her best in sections 4 and 6, wherein her own insights are buttressed with the findings of a third-party study and survey (respectively). The remaining eight sections do not cite external sources and are therefore less authoritative by comparison (not to mention less compelling since they lack that selfsame intriguing value-added content). It is an all the more noticeable absence since seven of the pamphlet’s ten sections fall short of being even a full page and a half in length. This much white space in a full-length book is natural, of course, but in a 28-page document it is bound to fasten readers’ attention to the glaring absence of text.
In the section on “wimpy” brand messaging, the author urges job-seekers to assert their true value to employers by conveying their wow. With a little more well-tempered wow of her own added to the mix, Holsendorff can assuredly transform her already fine pamphlet into an excellent piece of writing.
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
***
Buy "How To NOT Get A Job: 10 Pitfalls to Keep You Unemployed (Forever!)" on Amazon
Latest Review: "How To NOT Get A Job" by Charlene Holsendorff
