Guide to Your Career, 5th Edition (Career Guides) (Paperback)

by Princeton Review (Author) "I remember to this day the panic I felt when graduating college over thirty years ago, realizing I didn't have a clue about how to..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Professionals Read, You'll Have Contact (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This is an emotionally intelligent guide to career planning--an original, genuinely helpful handbook to planning your life."--Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence -- Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"This is an emotionally intelligent guide to career planning--an original, genuinely helpful handbook to planning your life."--Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Review; 5th edition (April 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375763996
• ISBN-13: 978-0375763991
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,008,485 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty insightful, May 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Guide to Your Career, 4th Edition: How to Turn Your Interests into a Career You Love (Princeton Review Series) (Paperback)

I found this book to be quite interesting. I especially like the survey that defines what 'color' you are, in terms of one's potential career interests and styles. I was a BLUE-BLUE. It seemed accurate for myself, but others that have taken the test, have not always agreed.

Anyhow, I didn't give the book a 5, because I don't think a book can really tell you what you should do. Career books are at most, good guides. Mostly, you'll need to do a lot of research and soul searching before you can find a job that is suited to you. But, I can say that this book helped to put more perspective on the job hunt. As a recent entrant to the workforce and still discovering what I "want to be," this book helped me to better understand the things that I should be looking for in my next job/career: organizational culture, level of interaction with others, types of skills, etc.

The color analysis is based on a tool developed by Birkman. You can basically find everything in this book on the Princeton Review's site, www.review.com. If you have access to the Internet, this is probably the better and cheaper route. The information is almost the same, with the exception with exercises on recalling some past memories (this is the same exercise that is touted in "What Color is your Parachute?").

One thing that I did not like about the book was that it was too restrictive. Although the colors are guides, it's easy to get stuck into thinking that because you're a certain color, you should stay away from certain jobs. Also, I had hoped that there would be more job profiles. But, I guess you can just about find more job profiles on other websites like.

Happy hunting!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another excellent Princeton Review guide, April 6, 2005

By	Gaetan Lion - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I am a big fan of the Princeton Review guides on colleges. I own several of them. And, I refer to them constantly. My daughter is in high school, and we use this college information almost on a daily basis. Now, she is looking one step beyond and considering different career paths.

I spent an hour doing research on career guides at Amazon. I also did more research by browsing in the best physical bookstore I know off (Stacey's in San Francisco). After conducting this data gathering, I came up with a clear winner, this Princeton Review book. There is just so much more information, more concisely, and clearly presented than in any of the other career guides I browsed through.

This career guide answered all the basics questions we had on this vast subject. The Birkman Career test as outlined near the introduction is excellent. Just to verify the accuracy of this test I took it myself. And, it was spot on. I know it will be a great help for my daughter too.

The book describes in detail about 230 different professions or careers. For each profession, the 2004 edition discloses detailed salary information (at the start, after 5 years, after 10 years). It indicates what kind of journals such professionals read. It describes the requirements to enter the field, what it takes to build a foundation in a small section called "Paying Your Dues." It also discloses what kind of careers you can easily transfer your skills into. For instance, an economist can become a statistician, banker, financial analyst, or journalist, among other professions.

At the top of each right-handed page, the book also has four little icons that quickly let you know info about: pay, working hours, educational requirement, and contribution to society associated with a given profession. The book also gives you realistic lifestyle expectation over the next two, five, and ten years for each profession.

Just as its college guides, the Princeton Review packs in an amazing amount of information in just two pages. This time it is not about a specific college, but instead a specific profession. I would think that be more difficult. But, Princeton Review handled it just as elegantly. I strongly recommend this book for any one interested in the subject.