Rites of Passage at $100,000 to $1 Million+: Your Insider's Lifetime Guide to Executive Job-Changing and Faster Career Progress in the 21st Century [Hardcover]

John Lucht (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2001

Unrevised since 1993, this #1 bestseller in its field is totally rewritten for a new era. The Internet is now a central theme!Every year since it first appeared in 1988, John Lucht's Rites of Passage at $100,000+ has been America's bestselling executive career guide. With the mushrooming importance of the Internet, Lucht rips apart his revered classic to bring it startlingly into the twenty-first century! Lucht's New Thinking merges his adroit handling of top executive recruiters (selected and honored in Rites for the past decade) with the incredible communicating power of the Internet. Add to the mix a brand-new $350,000 Internet site, RiteSite.com, which Lucht will open on the pub date of Rites to help readers use the principles in Rites, and you have a unique publishing event that befits a new technology and a new millennium. The last rewrite and relaunch of Rites in '93 attracted media attention and was a major sales success. Expect far more excitement and even bigger sales this time!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

John Lucht, an executive recruiter during the past three decades for some of America's top corporations, knows what it takes to snag a new six-figure job. Rites of Passage at $100,000 to $1 Million+ is his newly revised guide to the ins and outs of a search for a job that ends in success. It promises a "comprehensive cram course in accelerating your career"--a contemporary corporate equivalent of the traditional initiation into adulthood from which it takes its title--updated for the cyber-age. And it delivers, with Lucht offering inside tips on the basic routes to a new executive-level position: personal contacts (i.e., "ask for a reference instead of a job"); networking ("never fail to get into the office of anyone whose name is mentioned to you, never depart with less than three new names"); executive recruiters ("understand their hidden financial arrangements"); direct mail ("write to the CEO or a person two levels above your target job"); and the Internet ("insert plenty of the right 'keywords' so that the computer will find your resume"). Extensive online references are also included throughout, and the material is presented in a way that's easy to understand and implement. --Howard Rothman

Review

"John Lucht's book is about as complete as any book on this far-ranging subject possibly could be." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This book is for anyone looking to change jobs, get a job or sit pretty!" --Daily News

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 643 pages
• Publisher: Viceroy Press; 2 nd edition (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942785304
• ISBN-13: 978-0942785302
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Business & Investing > Job Hunting & Careers > Job Hunting

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Helpful Than a Parachute, October 25, 2001

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rites of Passage at $100,000 to $1 Million+: Your Insider's Lifetime Guide to Executive Job-Changing and Faster Career Progress in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

First published in 1988 and then continuously updated since (for obvious reasons), this book really does provide what its subtitle promises: "The insider's lifetime guide to executive job-changing and faster career progress." Lucht organizes his material within 20 chapters which are sequenced in logical order, from "The Person in Charge" which explains how to manage one's career from college to retirement to "Expand Your Career by Expanding Yourself" in which Lucht provides excellent advice on how to establish and then nourish a wide and deep network of contacts. The reader is also provided with three appendices: "Behind the Scenes with the retainer Executive Recruiter", "Outstanding Retainer Executive Recruiters", and . "Sources of Information for a Job Search." The greatest value of the book is derived from Lucht"s advice, not from any sources to which he refers his reader, valuable though they certainly are. The key is to know which information is needed, why, and how to use it most effectively. I wish this book were available after I completed my formal education. I also regret that I was unaware of Lucht's insights and suggestions when making several major career decisions of my own. For those who are contacted by a recruiter or for others who fear that their career is lacking focus and direction, Lucht can be an invaluable advisor.

Many of us play golf, a game which has quite specific rules as well as generally accepted etiquette. Managing a career is really no different but many people do not know -- or least understand -- the rules and etiquette. Most professional golfers have a "swing doctor." I view Lucht as serving essentially the same purpose for business executives. Professional golfers vary in terms of their size, strength, "tournament tested" competition, athleticism, judgment, self-control, and commitment. The same is true of business executives. Therefore, it remains for each reader to complete a rigorous self-audit. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Set bold but realistic career objectives. Then select an appropriate combination of ideas, strategies, and tactics from among the abundance of material which Lucht so generously shares. This is not a "job-hunting manual." Rather, a comprehensive and cohesive guide to nourishing one's career by nourishing, in the process, one's self.

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What you need to know about Executive Job Changing, January 18, 2002

By 

"stnedwards" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rites of Passage at $100,000 to $1 Million+: Your Insider's Lifetime Guide to Executive Job-Changing and Faster Career Progress in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

After 10 months of being an unemployed executive, I stumbled across this book. I wish someone had told me the 2 truths I am about to tell you! If you are an executive, do not -under any circumstances- contact a recruiter without reading this book. Secondly, do not -under any circumstances- post your resume on the Web without studying the chapter about the Internet. Let's face it, as an execuitve, it's sometimes feasible to sneak by pretending to know more than you do. But when it comes to getting your next job, what you don't know is detrimental. And all of the typical "get a better job" books don't cater to executives. Trust me, the time to get educated about the world of recruiting and executive level job changing is while you are still employed. And the place to get educated is Rites of Passage. Then just when you think you've gotten all possible benefit from the book, it's time to visit Lucht's Website, RiteSite.com for more. P.S. If you hadn't guessed, I credit using Rites of Passage and the Recruiter lists I downloaded from it's Website with helping me land my new job!

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lucht's Book Delivers Helpful Advice Overall, June 22, 1999

By 

Francis DeSalvo ([e-mail]) (Mt. Laurel, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rites of Passage at $100,000 +: The Insider's Lifetime Guide to Executive Job-Changing and Faster Career Progress (Hardcover)

"Rites of Passage" provides an insider's advice on how to navigate through the often uncertain waters of job-changing at the executive level. It should be distinctly understood that the book is intended for higher-level executives -- much of the advice in the book is unsuitable for lower and mid management career changes. I especially liked the well-developed idea that an executive should avoid being presented to a company with a price tag on her head (the recruiter's fee), and should attempt to make herself known directly, without "representation". This is a novel idea that makes sense after you read the book, and this one idea alone is worth the read.

Lucht details an effective plan to go directly to company decision makers for the top jobs. The plan is not presented as a faddish, magic wand technique, but as a no-nonsense "elbow grease" way to get noticed.

There are some problems with the book. First, job changing at all levels is in flux these days, largely because of -- you guessed it -- the Internet. You get the idea that Mr. Lucht was caught off guard by this new big thing. He devotes only a couple of pages, stuck disjointedly in the middle of the book, to online recruitment and job-posting, and nothing at all to how technology will affect the industry.

I would have preferred a more thorough going-over of the world of contingency recruiters, but since they find jobs for lower level managers, Mr. Lucht gives the contingency recruiters a light touch.

The book is odd typographically. For some reason, text in parenthesis is in a font that appears to be several sizes smaller than the regular text, giving the reader the impression that the typesetter just discovered font menus in Microsoft Word. The text often switches between bold and regular and italic, sometimes on the same page. My eyeballs at times were crying "enough already!"

Overall, however, I would recommend the book because it contains some powerful ideas, along with an understanding of the motivations and limitations of executive recruiters. "Rites of Passage" leaves you with the impression that you just got good advice on executive job hunting from a distinguished uncle, without having to feed him dinner.