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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not exactly unbiased, April 6, 2010
This review is from: The Laidoff Ninja (Paperback)
I am one of the co-authors of The Laidoff Ninja so this is not going to be a book review. Javed (the other author) and I put everything we know about surviving a layoff into The Laidoff Ninja. Therefore, I have to give it five stars since it was the best we could do. Were it not, we would still be working on it... see the logic?
Instead of a review, I would like to use this space to provide some background into the book. It is probably not obvious, but there is no other book like The Laidoff Ninja. If you take the time to read this, hopefully you will understand why.
There had been two schools of thought for people working in IT. You could try to find a "stable" company and stay there with the thought of retiring someday, or you could seek out the "cutting edge". I always did the later. While (to me) the work was more interesting, the majority of cutting-edge projects never make it to the market. Thus, I have worked on many projects that have been canceled; failed; or died from other natural causes. In the end, the result is the same. I was forced to find a new job.
Because of my frequency as a job hunter (and propensity toward hacking), over the years I have had the opportunity to master the latest job-searching tools and take them a little further then they were designed to go (in the book, we cover techniques for extracting information from LinkedIn and Facebook that you won't find anywhere else).
Conversely, my friends who had spent their careers as real "company men" never had the need (or desire) to keep up with the latest job-searching tools. When they were laid off (many being at the same company for 20+ years) they had no idea how to conduct a job search.
In an effort to help, Javed (The Laidoff Ninja's other author) and I built the Layoff Support Network Web site. It was our intent to create a social network specifically designed to provide information to job seekers. After hundreds of hours coding, we created the framework and began to add content. We found a number of career professionals who were willing to donate their time and contribute. We also began teaching free classes on modern job-searching tools and techniques. We offered these classes at libraries throughout New England.
In early 2009, it all hit home. I was laid off. My health plan coverage (as well as all benefits) ended that same day.
Armed with my job-hunting expertise, I was not worried. I had always found a new job quickly and had never even filed for unemployment. I was sure that I would find a new job in a month or so. Why should I be worried? I am a dedicated person and take pride in being knowledgeable in my field. Throughout my career, I have maintained all relevant certifications and even earned an MBA from a top-tier business school. Surely my qualifications would make my resume jump out from all the others ... right? Wrong! It turned out that there were many other smart people, also with master's degrees, competing for the few open positions in my field. Even worse were the thousands of other unqualified people who `muddied the water" by submitting their resumes for the same job.
I'm telling you this to emphasize two points. The job market is very difficult and you will need all the skills of a "job-hunting expert" to help you land a new job. Gaining the skills described in this book was a "life or death" situation for me. I am not a casual writer trying to make a buck. Some of these skills saved my house and family. The Laidoff Ninja is not just a book about job searching, it is a survival manual.
What about recent college graduates? Who is going to help them? Experienced workers are now settling for the few entry-level jobs that would have normally gone to recent college graduates. Who will help them?
If you are a recent college graduate, try to take some comfort in that YOUR problem is MY problem. My kid is a member of the Class of 2010. I have dedicated a lot of time trying to learn any technique that will help you enter the workforce (even invented a few). A great deal of information has been added to The Laidoff Ninja specifically for new college graduates. We have also started a new project called The New Grad Support Network. Check out ngsn.info to see how it is progressing.
In summary: The Laidoff Ninja is not just the ramblings of a "career expert" or even the tricks of two unemployed hackers. The Laidoff Ninja is the accumulated knowledge of hundreds of Layoff Support Network members. That is why there is no other book like The Laidoff Ninja.
BTW: The Layoff Support Network and The New Grad Support Network are totally funded by the book's authors. Proceeds from the book go towards funding the efforts.
Links to our stuff:
[...]
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you are looking for a white-collar job, you NEED this book, April 19, 2010
This review is from: The Laidoff Ninja (Paperback)
The authors are co-founders of "The Layoff Support Network", which is a collective knowledge-sharing site for people looking for jobs, and the authors say that the book distills the knowledge from the website collected over the past 2 years. The authors also started off by stating that this is not just a book about finding a job; this is also a book about surviving until finding a job. I think "The Laidoff Ninja" (henceforth, "LON") fare well on these claims.
The book is divided in seven main sections:
The pre-ramble is listed as section zero (0)--perhaps not surprising considering the two authors are techies: information security is their day job. Keep that in mind when we look at what they manage to extract out of LinkedIn.
One thing I liked about this book right out of the gate is what the authors (or their editor?) decided to call "Quick-shot" guides. Instead of traditional table of contents, they have provided a listing of topics they thought might be interesting to the following types of readers:
* Job seekers with work experience.
* Recent graduates with limited work experience.
* People who are feeling "cash strapped."
* People who are feeling overwhelmed and emotionally distraught.
Considering the last bullet, I was not really surprised to see a section titled "Ninja Psychiatry." The authors made it clear that they do not have any formal training in Psychiatry and are not licensed to practice psychology, psychiatry or any mental health-related profession. They then proceeded to dispense advice on feelings of Loss, Depression, Anxiety, Financial Worries and how to deal with rejection after interviews. The section ends with an admonition to say no to drugs, and encouragement to say yes to humor.
There are lots of "Guerrilla this" or "Ninja that" related to layoffs and job hunting, but I don't think I have come across any other book that addresses the mental aspects of being unemployed, and they have done a great job in this section.
The next section, "Survival" contains a chapter titled "Pull money out of your butt." Crude but effective, and while whole books have been written about making money on eBay, LON addresses this in a practical way.
Frankly, I was a bit surprised to see LON come out and suggest people should not commit crimes when they are desperate for money. I think this would be obvious to any rational person. But I guess the authors are aware, perhaps from their work with The Layoff Support Network, that desperate people will look at desperate measures, and felt the warning was needed.
There are some tips about maximizing your available financial resources by delaying payment on some utility bills. While legally OK, I question the morality of providing such advice to readers.
Part 4, "Getting a Job" is where the book begins to read like a traditional book, and there are some surprises and hidden gems there. The sections begin with a job-applications toolkit that recommends free email services, OpenOffice and other technological free-bees that would be required for a job-searcher. These are items that the typical ./ reader find amusingly basic, but would certainly be useful for seekers who have been out of the hunt for a while.
Part 5, "Finding opportunities" focuses heavily on LinkedIn. It contains a useful exercise where a job-seekers "needs and wants" are sorted in a "value sort" to determine what type of job would be suitable. But in the next breath, the authors suggest folding away the values-list and taking a job (any job) that will pay the bills. Given these lean times, I welcome this seeming contradiction: be picky if you can afford it; otherwise stuff your ego somewhere and get the job that will pay the bill. This is a refreshing departure from the usual feel-good advice.
The LinkedIn content is useful, but more so to a new user of LinkedIn. Experienced LinkedIn users may miss the nuggets buried among these basic facts.
Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are also covered. The well-known but often ignored warnings about being careful with what one posts on one's social networking profiles are posted here.
There is a scathing chapter on recruiters. While certain good qualities of recruiters are mentioned, it seems the authors generally believe that recruiters are uncaring commission-hounds that just want to place a candidate and don't care about individuals. The brutal honesty was refreshing, and I'd be curious whether other readers would agree or disagree with the authors.
If you consider that stress and anxiety for a jobless person comes from being, well, jobless, then Part 6, "Preparing for the battle" is the most important section in the book. It covers the basics like resumes, cover letters and elevator pitches, etc.
The next chapter is "Reconnaissance" and this is where the hacker background of the authors finally shows up. They show, with examples, how to find the name and email address of recruiters and HR people at practically any company. The theory being, if you can directly contact the HR people at a company, your resume will not be lost in the 1000 other resumes that people send in. There is just one problem with this theory being put into practice. The book assumes, and does not make abundantly clear, that without building up your network first to some reasonable degree this isn't easy to do. But after I have spent a few hours inviting people and joining groups as the book suggested, I was indeed able to pull up the names of some recruiters at Apple and Google. That accomplished, based on the techniques suggested in the LON, I was able to figure out their email addresses and email them. I hope spammers and marketing droids will not read this book and find out these techniques.
For example, I did not know that one could search Facebook by email and zero in on any individual. It is also a violation my social norms to approach strangers on Facebook about jobs, but the authors provided guidance and specific examples on how to do that, and also when to step back and look for alternatives.
A warning: some of the techniques, such as querying "whois" records may be a bit too technical for the average non-technical Joe. The authors did a good job of explaining the steps required to find out the email address format used by a particular company, so if this daunts you a bit stick to it and you will be able to follow along.
The book is a good value at 278 pages and the authors have not done any "white space tricks" to make it seem bigger. A laid-off person would probably appreciate the price/performance of this book.
Overall, "The Laidoff Ninja" is an extremely valuable resource on dealing with the mental stress and anguish that may come from being laid off. It presents creative and novel ways of finding jobs by leveraging social media. The book is a tool in itself that can help the reader survive and prepare for the battle that is a job-search, and do it in a highly effective way.
Summary: This book is an excellent value if you need help dealing with the stress of unemployment, or want an edge in reaching hiring managers or recruiters at potential employers. This book is not meant to teach you how to write your resume or cover letter. Will work for novice and experienced candidates alike, although the LinkedIn tricks would definitely favor a more technical reader. I highly recommend it.
The Laidoff Ninja
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Helpful, April 23, 2010
This review is from: The Laidoff Ninja (Paperback)
I am graduating from college this Spring and was looking for some relevant
information about searching for a job in the current economy. A friend of
mine had read the Laidoff Ninja and recommended it to me.
The Laidoff Ninja is the most "real world" source of information that I
have seen. I looked at other books and they seem to have been written by
people that are professional writers. The guys that wrote The Laidoff
Ninja run a website: The Layoff Support Network
([...]) and have been doing so for years. They seem
very committed to the topic.
The book is particularly relevant to students in that it warns of typical
college student "habits" that will keep us from finding a job. What
surprised me was the chapter in which the authors claim to know people
whose job it is to check out potential new hires on social networks. The
advice given on "covering your tracks" is worth the price of the book
alone. Even if you are not graduating this year, reading up on this stuff
now will save you a lot of pain in the future. I learned more relevant
information from this $[...] book then the $[...] text book I am studying now!
I think where this book differs from any others, is that the authors
present information specifically geared towards people trying to get a
"real job" for the first time. Every other employment-type book is geared
towards people that have already established a career path. Despite the
title, The Laidoff Ninja is not a book that is only for people that have
been laid off. It is definitely the best "entering the job market" book I
have seen. I would have given it five stars except that some of the
material regarding financial survival was not relevant to me. You may
find it very helpful.
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