Customer Reviews

Test-Drive Your Dream Job: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love

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As a retired professor of Counseling Psychology I spent many years teaching vocational development to M.S. and Ph.D. students. My own dissertation and the first 12 years of my research was about vocational development. Brian's book is the best how-to book on the market! Not just in changing vocations but the process of choosing a career for beginners. If I were still teaching, his book would be one of my required texts. It is so clear and well laid out with all the essential how-to's it would be must reading. The anecdotal cases make the whole process vivid and real for the reader and searcher. The whole idea is fantastic for those who always wanted to try something different. At age 70 I am not inclined to try a new vocation. But, I did try a vacation experience with Brian's company that was fantastic.

We live in FL and summer in WI. I found a VocationVaction just down the road from our WI residence - Sword Making at Albion Swords! I spent two days learning how to make and making my own 15th century sword! My mentor and I had a lot of common background and I got to learn how they make museum quality medieval swords. Brian's company isn't just for wanting to change vocations but also for those who always wanted to try something.

This book is one of the best how-to books I have seen and there are a lot of them in the popular psychology genre.

Inspirational, educational, entertaining, great testimonials and stories. Terrific fast read for anyone contemplating career change or needing inspiration to make change in their lives. I have read many books about career change and this was one of the best and most inspirational out there! Great step by step process that can be easily followed----but the stories are what make it real and achievable. Great insight into how to go about finding a mentor - which I feel is one of the most important steps before actually making a career change! A must read...

In 2004 Brian Kurth launched an innovative company he called Vocation Vacations. The company helps people who are considering career changes to "test-drive" the dream job before signing on the bottom line to commit to a new life. Test-Drive Your Dream Job is the story of how his new venture came about and also the stories of others who have tried his vocation vacations with varying results.

Kurth's plan to start this type of business came as the result of fantasizing while making a 90-minute commute to work each day in Chicago. He was daydreaming about all of the kinds of jobs he wished he had rather than the one he was headed to. While waiting in traffic he thought up the name Vocation Vacations, and almost on a whim, registered the domain name. Eight years later he started his new company.

The book describes the vocations/jobs that some of his clients have tried out. They have been as diverse as opening a bakery to becoming a dog trainer. Some have blossomed into successful careers. Others have discovered that the realities of their dream job were more like a nightmare. So trying out the career move saved some real agony in the long run.

While interesting in part, I found the book a bit simplistic. Kurth seems to think he is giving readers all of the tools they would need to leave an unsatisfying job and move into a "career for which they feel a deep sense of passion and purpose." But nearly all of his examples are well-educated members of the corporate world who are bored with the day-to-day work.

He tends to romanticize the "joys" of small business ownership, but assumes a lifestyle that doesn't have multiple financial responsibilities.

I just couldn't take his methodology seriously. And the book dragged on too long for a light look at how to find the perfect job.

Armchair Interviews says: Heed the reviewer's comments.

TEST DRIVE YOUR DREAM JOB

There are hundreds (thousands?) of career development and self-help books out there, but not enough that offer something new and fresh - and include a clear plan. This is one of the best books I have read in this genre. The individual stories are inspiring and relatable.

Brian Kurth has come up with a brilliant road map for going from making a living to making a life. This book is user-friendly - he isn't talking down to us, he's been there himself.

Most of us approach a career change with the same joy we have for say, root canal and Kurth generously provides us with a plan that could and should be stimulating, interesting and dare I say - FUN? This innovative approach of "test-driving" one's dream job makes so much sense. It takes the information interview to a whole new level.

I was always taught that "you need good information to make a good decision" and this book totally tells you how to get that information you will need - from assessing your own needs and goals, to what a particular job might entail.

Truly one of the best resources out there. I'm glad it's in paperback - because I'm not willing to part with my copy and I know several friends who I need to buy this for!

Test-Drive Your Dream Job is one of the most enjoyable business how-to books I've read. Brian Kurth relates his personal experiences of creating his own dream job (creating Vocation Vacations) and is honest about the pitfalls such a change can take. Certainly Kurth would probably love to get new clients from his book but advertising doesn't seem to be the main point behind the book. Kurth's enthusiasm is for helping people find the perfect job no matter where one is in life or career.

Test-Drive Your Dream Job at 256 pages is the perfect length to read through in one or two sittings. The basic idea behind the book is the importance of finding a mentor and then "test-driving" the new job with a mentor's guidance. As it happens, that's exactly the service that Vocation Vacations offers but one could easily follow the steps of the book without hiring Kurth's company.

There are many check lists and how-to scenarios to help readers through the process of finding a mentor. There are sample letters, emails and telephone scripts to help readers make it through the process of researching the dream job, finding prospective mentors, hooking up a with a mentor and following through with the test-drive.

Changing jobs isn't easy and Kurth relates his own experience on how the process of setting up Vocation Vacations paid on his personal life. Before jumping into a new career, take the time to consider the ramifications: how will the bills be paid, how does your family feel about it, what happens if the new career doesn't work out?

Test Drive Your Dream Job: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love

As a professional life and career coach, I have a mantra that runs through my coaching practice, "Connect Your Passion and Pursue Your Creative Spirit!"

This mantra is clearly offered in Test-Drive Your Dream Job: A Step-by Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love by Brian Kurth.

This book is a must read for anyone who is contemplating or currently on a journey of professional discovery to connect or re-connect their passion and creative spirit.

Test-Drive Your Dream Job is filled with true life stories of individuals who were willing to break the cycle of doing what they had always done, to explore their gifts and talents and pursue the things they love most.

Test-Drive Your Dream Job, offers readers hands-on advice and guidance and a process for not just dreaming about, but actually creating, the career and lifestyle they have always desired, or identifying those things they may not want to pursue.

I recommend you discover, connect and Test-Drive Your Dream Job ...one step at a time.

Will Wiebe
Certified Professional Life & Career Coach

As a financial advisor, I can't tell you how beneficial Brian's book has been to our client's. Our clients who have been laid off or are burned out from what they have done for multiple years, need a refreshing way to look at the next chapter of their life. With many of us living 30 years or more in retirement, we will need to find alternative ways to create income. Brian's book gives a fresh, new outlook on retirement and what that looks like for baby boomers. The book helps people find their passion and by doing what they are passionate about not only creates that new spark in their life but also extends their wealth by deferring what needs to be drawn from their retirement or other accounts.

Kurth has a forward thinking "out of the box" concept about "retirement" that is refreshing to me as a financial advisor and as an individual contemplating my own longevity.

Thanks Brian!!

Rebecca D. Turner Wealth Strategy Advisors

I loved this book. Made you feel that it was okay to want another occupation and that it was safe to give it a try no matter how far you take the search. It shows you how other people have found and reached their goals. It also showed how some people believed that they wanted a certain occupation but after actually doing the work with a mentor realized that it was not for them. Brian's idea of test driving a job is wonderful and I think it helps open the door for those of us who seek new work.

As someone who writes about careers for a living, new books land in my mailbox every week. This one -- from 2008 - is a standout. It's a beautiful story of how Kurth went through his own career transition and created VocationVacations, a visionary company that sends people on mini trips to test out a dream career. It's also a well-written guide loaded with practical information for anyone who wants to set up a Vocation Vacation without using Kurth's company. I had lots of questions before reading the book and the book answered every one of them, as well as many I hadn't even thought of. I'll be recommending this widely.

Sometimes the simplest ideas are just the best. Millions of people dream every day about working in a different profession. Without knowing how a potentially radically different such a new career would be, few take the economic risk and switch. The solution? A test-drive of a few days or weeks where you learn the "ins and outs" of your dream job, then taking all the facts and lessons learned into account to finally make a decision. While Kurth's book is mainly written for people who are employed and use a test-drive during their vacation days, the concept of test-riding something new is absolutely crucial for people in transition as well. I compare a test-drive to a call option on a stock (here: on a new career). If the stock goes up (here: things work out during the test-drive), you make the purchase (here: start a new career), if not, just continue your current path. For people in transition today, test-driving a career as teacher, consultant, self-employed person, or maybe working in a charity is a simple way of figuring out whether you should bet the next years on your idea or not. The same idea applies to checking out a different location before moving, if your home town is hard hit by the economy. For many people who are stuck in this bad economy, taking an "option" approach might be a good way of thinking outside their industry, location, etc. Kurth's book, well written, full of examples, and supported by his own personal story, is a great read.