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Career Cowards Guide to Job Searching: Sensible Strategies for Overcoming Job Search Fears

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In the current economic environment, I think everyone is somewhat of a "Career Coward."

I have worked with Katy Piotrowski one-on-one for a decade, and her coaching has led me to grow my professional skills far more than I could have on my own. I now run my own business, and it has grown and become quite successful. These books cover the information and career strategies that I have followed, and found to be quite useful.

There are few "quick, get rich" solutions to managing your career. Not many people get lucky and have the perfect job just turn up. Most of us, like me, have to slog through figuring out what they want to do, and how to go about it, and how to keep the enthusiasm going when you get stuck and things aren't moving forward. These books are for the person who wants to make the stressful "slogging" part more fun and productive. (And for those optimistic people who like to jump off the career high dive, they probably wouldn't buy a book with "Career Coward" in the title, anyway!)

For me, changing careers and building my business wasn't easy and didn't happen overnight, but has been a rewarding challenge. I am a step-by-step person, and while that may be "cowardly" at times, I think it is also practical for most people to do career changes in manageable steps and not to take huge career risks that could backfire.

Katy Piotrowski's ways of encouraging me to look realistically for manageable steps to take along the way, and to seek and find real opportunities, have been invaluable to me! I recommend this book, and all the books in the series.

Security, the one thing hat will keep someone in a job that they despise with all of their being. "The Career Coward's Guide to Job Searching: Sensible Strategies for Overcoming Job Search Fears" is a guide designed for those in such a situation who want to move on with their careers without the insane risk usually associated with such methods. Encouraging and insightful, it's an ideal manual for the timid to get the courage they need, making "The Career Coward's Guide to Job Searching" an essential addition.

Piotrowski has a knack for making the daunting seem do-able and she also gives readers solid advice. As an HR professional, I often find the advice that career gurus offer can run counter to what works in the real world. Fear not, job seekers will not drive the HR pro nuts by taking the advice offered in this book. Piotrowski is up to date with current market trends and her emphasis on networking and tapping into positions that are not even posted is invaluable to job searchers.

This is a must read for any job searcher. In times like these this book gives great suggestions for making yourself standout in such a desperate job market. Katy also gives great advice for those who need to overcome their fears when reaching out to potential employers. I never realized how many parts of my job search I was missing out on until I read this book. Thanks to Katy my job search is now on the right path. I can't recommend this book enough!

This book -as well as the others in the series- are a great tool for job searchers. This series provides you with lots of practical examples that could be used as templates for either resumes, cover letters, or to help you prepare for interviews and handling tough questions.

To give you an example: using this book I was able to create a profesional looking resume and cover letter in about 60 minutes.

Like the other titles in this series, this book is wonderfully readable and the advice is extremely smart and do-able. In particular, I found the strategy to divide your job searching efforts among directly approaching a company, answering job ads/posts and networking to be helpful. Oftentimes, I find myself spending most of my time answering ads and not much else.

I guess, the most important point I'm taking away from reading this guide is that there is so much more I can do to take control over the job search process. So even though I'm always going to be a little bit of a career coward, the tools I've been equipped with now, makes the whole job search thing a lot less scary.

Katie's book offers sensible, doable strategies for finding just the right job. The format is fun and definitely not boring like so many how to books. Finding a job is selling yourself to a potential employer once we determine that we would really like to work there. I highly recommend this book to anyone facing the dreaded job search.

Easy to read format allows you to develop your own plan and implement it to help manage your career. Katy gives some very effective advise for making the most of your time and effort. I highly recommend it along with the rest of the Career Coward's series.