A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market [Paperback]

Katharine Hansen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

This empowering and accessible guide shows career rookies how to get a foot in the door-and then kick it wide open. The revised second edition emphasizes the importance of contemporary social networking, such as discussion groups and forums, online portfolios, and blogging. Featuring a list of networking hot spots, confidence-building advice for the shy or intimidated, and a comprehensive guide to informational interviewing, A FOOT IN THE DOOR reveals proven strategies that will help those seeking their first real-world job land the position they've been looking for.

 

A concrete and practical guide to the nuts and bolts of networking, using a step-by-step approach geared to recent grads and young career changers.

Helps young professionals identify who they should connect with. Katharine Hansen's books have sold 145,000 copies.

Reviews"Extensive chapters on informational interviewing and Internet networking make this a must-have book for job seekers and others trying to connect with people in the workplace." —Amy Lindgren, Syndicated Career Columnist"You name it, if it deals with networking, on any level, Katharine Hansen's book covers it. ...This is a book I wish I had written. It will help you."—Marvin Walberg, Scrips Howard News Service Syndicated Career ColumnistStrand Media Group's "Something You Should Know" air date TBA

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

KATHARINE HANSEN, PHD, has authored some of the most widely used job-hunting resources on the market, including DYNAMIC COVER LETTERS (100,000 copies sold). She is an instructor of business communication and the creative director for Quintessential Careers, which receives one million unique website visitors monthly and has been awarded a Forbes.com Best of the Web award. She lives in DeLand, Florida.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; Revised edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580088929
• ISBN-13: 978-1580088923
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Quintessential Careers' Creative Director Katharine Hansen is an author and instructor, in addition to being a career expert. Her books include Dynamic Cover Letters (more than 100,000 copies sold) and Write Your Way to a Higher GPA, written with Dr. Randall S. Hansen, as well as Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates (12,000+ copies sold) and most recently, A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market, all published by Ten Speed Press.

Katharine (Kathy) has completed a rigorous credentialing process to become a Master Resume Writer, as approved by Career Masters Institute (CMI).



Katharine also holds the Career Masters Institute's Credentialed Career Master (CCM) designation.


In her sixth year as lecturer in business communication at Stetson University, DeLand, FL, Katharine has taught the writing of resumes and cover letters and critiqued the job-search correspondence of countless college students. Katharine also is editor of QuintZine, a free career and job-hunting newsletter filled with timely and topical tips for springboarding careers.

Katharine is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in organizational communication from Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, OH.

Katharine was writer-editor at numerous newspapers, magazines and nonprofit organizations, and she served as speechwriter for the first woman elected to the Florida Cabinet. Katharine, who earned her bachelor of arts degree in humanities from Stetson University, lives in DeLand with her writing partner, Randall, and children, Mary and John.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coulda Saved Me a Lot of Early Career Money!!, October 3, 2002

By 

Darrell W. Gurney, CPC, JCTC, CCMC, RScP - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (Paperback)

At age 24, with a degree in Finance and International Business and one year working for a major accounting firm in London, I came to Los Angeles with dreams of landing a financial position in the entertainment industry. Smart enough to know that THE FRONT DOOR was being used by everyone, I invested a couple grand with a career coaching firm that taught me how to get in THE BACK DOOR. Within a couple months, I met with 7 CFOs of the top studios and landed a job with MGM/UA. TOO BAD I didn't have Katharine Hansen's "A Foot In The Door" then!

Now, as a 15-year recruiting veteran, career coach, and careers author, I teach this backdoor method myself. For both beginners in the job market, or beginners to the idea of informational interviewing and backdoor job search (which many of my 40-50 year-old clients are), this is a great career manual. Katharine walks the uninitiated through the entire philosophy, psychology, and practical steps of non-lemming job finding--doing it differently. Since 80% of all jobs are filled BEFORE being advertised, the technique of tapping the "hidden job market" as Katharine describes is crucial to long-term career management. Plus, experts say we are moving away from the traditional "permanent job," so knowledge of formalized networking will be a REQUIRED SKILL in tomorrow's economy.

I did well in college because 4 months earlier I found a little book called "How to Make Straight A's in College by Beating the System". "A Foot In The Door" is the same type of book to read after college and before any career change...because this is about beating the job search system.

Thanks for spelling it all out Katharine!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful Examples and Encouragement, August 30, 2011

By 

Jane Freese "FreeseTag" (Henderson, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (Paperback)

The socially savvy may not need this book, but those of us who are rather shy, or at least reluctant to risk annoying people, need a push. This book is the gentle nudge nonassertive types need to venture out and take a social risk.

Very few jobs are obtained through the job websites such as Monster. Recently, a job in Las Vegas for a part-time museum greeter drew over 600 applications! By law, government and publically supported organizations must advertise, but that doesn't prevent them hiring from within, which they usually do.

Where do you find jobs? Through people you know. So, the more people you meet, the more people you know and the more people you know, the more people can know you. Like the old saying says, "It's not what you know, but who you know. "

Networking sounds rather mercenary, but actually it is just friends and acquaintances. I think Katharine Hansen has written the best book yet on how to network from scratch. How do you go about breaking the ice? What do you write? How do you find people who can help you? What do you say? How do you make yourself impressive and memorable to someone you've just met? With specific examples, A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way Into the Hidden Job Market will show you how.

Thanks to her, I now spend more time out of the house being socially productive and less time at the lonely computer spinning my wheels.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, June 18, 2002

By 

Yer Momma (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (Paperback)

Everything in here is good for the college grad. If you've done any networking before then you are past this book.