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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
He just did it for the money: Statistics all wrong, April 24, 2010
This review is from: 150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs (Jist's Best Jobs) (Paperback)
I got this book out of the library to help my daughter decide on the best course of action. This book is laughable it is so wrong. The yearly job openings he lists for some fields are often not broken down but lumped together with a disclaimer, that if you don't read, may make you think that there are over 200,000 openings for foreign language teachers (guess it is all secondary education teachers, but then he got his information from some "source"). He lists job openings for librarians and social workers as being almost the same, but job growth is around 18% for social workers and around 4% for librarians. His projection on pay is also off for many jobs. Obviously he sits in an office gathering data from his sources instead of going out into the real world. Don't base any career decision on this book, please!!!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some useful information, but a pain to read!, October 15, 2010
This review is from: 150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs (Jist's Best Jobs) (Paperback)
I learned about this book from columnist Richard Prachter. He regularly recommends various business titles. Several of his recommendations were very good. This one had a lot of potential, but fell short. Jobs can be hard to find, regardless of the current state of the economy. Some people get jobs fairly easy, but don't keep them very long. Who else has had more trouble just getting the job? Once you have it, sometimes you stay at the party too long. Then here we go again! My main beefs with this book are regarding the format. There is a lot of repetition. Eliminating most of it could have cut this book by at least 100 pages. After awhile, I could almost recite the job duties of many similar positions. Why not just lump those categories together?Doing double columns for the job descriptions made reading this book an even bigger chore. Another problem is that some information is constantly changing. This book could get updated practically on a daily basis. We've also seen the problem of people training for a position that's hot now. In a few years, we could have too many available candidates. It's almost certain that this book will be revised in the future. Why not spend less time on those overlapping surveys? Those could have been put as sidebars. There have been countless books on finding a job. Their effectiveness is a very mixed bag. I would like some subjects get more attention. Most books focus entirely on resumes. Some jobs require applications. What if you can't avoid Human Resources? Why not make blind ads illegal? We're told to find out stuff about a company. Yet we don't even know its name. Tell us more about legitimate work-at-home opportunities. Sometimes I've thought about writing a book on how NOT to get a job. That one would be 100% effective.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Tool for "Recession-Era" Career Counseling, June 30, 2010
This review is from: 150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs (Jist's Best Jobs) (Paperback)
I am a college counselor, career counselor, and learning disabilities specialist at a "4-year prep" community college. I have found this book to be very user-friendly and an excellent resource as I counsel and advise students, especially when the present job market is so discouraging. Many other counselors in my department are now borrowing this book and/or buying a copy themselves. This book specifically highlights those jobs that are the most promising during our Great Recession (ie. since 2008 to present), which is also vital information for students who are trying to determine a college major for a future job. This book is the best I have found for up-to-date info to guide students in these rough economic times. In addition, the book is appropriately researched and linked into the annual government job "outlook" reports (which are referenced as footnotes, etc.). [Note: this does not mean a person can skip doing the important and necessary career research for their own local market and personal circumstances - no book can do this. This book is a great first step in recession-era career exploration.]
In this book, the same 150 "best" jobs are listed in many different rankings(per your focus)such as: by salary, by education-required, by most openings, by # of positions, by geographic location, by Holland's career codes, etc. I especially like how the author has at the back of the book, a complete write up of each of the 150 jobs (in alphabetical order) giving more details on the jobs, such as typical job descriptions, skills and education required, most-likely employers, least-likely employers, geographic location with the most openings, etc. Both students and counselors really like the concise but complete, easy-to-understand, concrete info that can be discovered within just 15 minutes! Very well organized, great Table of Contents, plus detailed Index.
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