Buy pre-owned: $9.29

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Tue, Sep 27 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Select delivery location

Pre-owned: Good | Details

Sold by Zoom Books Company

Fulfilled by Amazon

Share <Embed>

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Steve Dalton

The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster Paperback – March 6, 2012

by Steve Dalton (Author)

344 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Paperback

"Please retry"

$9.29

$10.98

$1.38

Audio CD, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$22.70

—

Great on Kindle

Great Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

View Kindle Edition

There is a newer edition of this item:

The 2-Hour Job Search, Second Edition: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster
$12.99
(367)
In Stock.

A job-search manual that gives career seekers a systematic, tech-savvy formula to efficiently and effectively target potential employers and secure the essential first interview.

The 2-Hour Job Search shows job-seekers how to work smarter (and faster) to secure first interviews. Through a prescriptive approach, Dalton explains how to wade through the Internet’s sea of information and create a job-search system that relies on mainstream technology such as Excel, Google, LinkedIn, and alumni databases to create a list of target employers, contact them, and then secure an interview—with only two hours of effort. Avoiding vague tips like “leverage your contacts,” Dalton tells job-hunters exactly what to do and how to do it. This empowering book focuses on the critical middle phase of the job search and helps readers bring organization to what is all too often an ineffectual and frustrating process.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ten Speed Press
Publication date

March 6, 2012
Dimensions

5.47 x 0.62 x 8.19 inches
ISBN-10

1607741709
ISBN-13

978-1607741701
See all details

Steve Dalton
367
Paperback
80 offers from $5.92
Steve Dalton
89
Paperback
53 offers from $8.25
Richard N. Bolles
486
Paperback
in Job Resumes
60 offers from $13.50
Bill Burnett
3,514
Hardcover
141 offers from $9.99
Wendy Enelow
52
Paperback
43 offers from $11.95
Nathan A. Perez
53
Paperback
48 offers from $3.49

Nathan A. Perez
53
Paperback
48 offers from $3.49
Steve Dalton
89
Paperback
53 offers from $8.25
Gallup
7,057
Hardcover
in Systems & Planning
1191 offers from $0.01
David H. Rosenbloom
Paperback
17 offers from $78.97
Steve Dalton
367
Paperback
80 offers from $5.92
Bill Burnett
3,514
Hardcover
141 offers from $9.99

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Dalton is a program director and senior career consultant at Duke University's business school (Fuqua). He holds his own MBA from the same institution. Prior to entering the career services industry, Steve was an associate marketing manager at General Mills and a strategy consultant at A.T. Kearney.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ten Speed Press; 58470th edition (March 6, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1607741709
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1607741701
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.47 x 0.62 x 8.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #451,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26 in Job Markets & Advice
- #272 in Job Interviewing (Books)
- #595 in Job Hunting (Books)

Customer Reviews:
344 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Steve Dalton

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Steve Dalton is Program Director for Daytime Career Services at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Prior to entering the career services industry, Dalton was a strategy consultant at A.T. Kearney and an associate marketing manager at General Mills. He holds an MBA from Duke University and a chemical engineering degree from Case Western University.

Dalton has appeared in the Financial Times, Wall St. Journal, and US News & World Report, and he is a regular contributor at The Huffington Post.

Dalton presents workshops on The 2-Hour Job Search at dozens of schools across North America and Europe each year, and its concepts are taught at over one hundred universities worldwide.

Dalton can be followed on Twitter (@Dalton_Steve), his book’s LinkedIn Group (The 2-Hour Job Search Q&A Forum), and at 2hourjobsearch.com. He currently resides in Durham, North Carolina.

Customer reviews

5 star		64%
4 star		20%
3 star		7%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

J. Wilson

Excellent system! Here's one major recommendation to help improve the "motivation" piece of LAMP:

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Fantastic guide. Useful for all job-seekers, but a must read for incoming MBA students!!! Very practical and clear.

Remember it's a whole system and follow it once exactly. Trust the system! Make sure you understand how all the parts work together before making changes. Also, do the whole process again if you have significant changes (or even if you want to pursue two industries at once!). It goes much faster the second time. For incoming MBA students that don't know where they want to go, I recommend doing it for every industry you think you might be interested in. Do the LAMP process early and you will have a good grasp of unfamiliar industries & companies.

NEGATIVES: Two small down-sides.

First, the book is already getting out-dated as technology changes. I was easily able to adapt it, but maybe in 5 years they need a new, updated release.

Second, I found the process mostly led me to the big names in my industry. I'm not sure if that's true for everyone, it may be a result of me switching industries and just beginning to learn about a new industry. My recommendation below may help with that a little bit. Otherwise, if you don't just want a list of the biggest names, think about how you can keep a narrow focus.

RECOMMENDATION: The rest of this review is a long description of how to tweak the system. This will make more sense AFTER you complete the whole LAMP process, including the sorting.

In the first few chapters, he talks about the LAMP list. It works, but might need some tweaks. The "M" stand for motivation and is a 5-min process where you simply identify how motivated you feel about working for that company. I totally understand the theory behind it, but have found that some people need more of a break down for the "M", especially if you don't know much about the companies. It can help to make a few columns that break down your motivation into different categories. These should be VERY EASY to find (like glassdoor / wikipedia first page - you don't want to take more than 10 -15 minutes per extra category). Pick 2-3 categories that are important to you, then sort as you prefer (maybe name recognition (N) first, then location(L)) and then assign a single motivation score to each company. I recommend using the 2 categories to come up with ONE motivation score that you then put into the original LAMP list. If you add these two columns into the LAMP, for example making it LA(NL)P... you might get your sorting dominated by the two new motivation components.

Here are some ideas:

♦ Location of headquarters: 3=favorite cities, 2=could live there a few years, 1=don't want to live there
♦ Size (decide what size you want): 3=best size (1,000+ employees or 10-50 person start up), 2= next nearest size, etc
♦ Name recognition: 3=Top name in your industry, 2=big name, 1= hey, at least they're in the right industry
♦ Glassdoor score (a proxy for corporate culture - don't read the reviews, keep focused! Don't include companies with less than a certain number of reviews (ie 3 reviews that give a 3 star average isn't helpful): 4=4-5 star reviews, 3=3-4 star review, 2=2-3 star review, 1= NOT ENOUGH REVIEWS (re-evaluate those separately)
♦ Work-life balance: This one is hard to research quickly, but glassdoor reviews often focus on it. Maybe a simple Y/N based ont he first page of glassdoor reviews would be sufficient. If a company has terrible balance, that should show up. Good balance might also show up. But many companies might be unclear (some ppl say yes, some say no) - in that case, maybe try for a 3=good, 2=unclear, 1=bad system.
♦ Culture: Similar to work-life balance, this is a simple check. See if company makes Best Place to Work lists. Just google "best *industry* companies to work for (best tech companies to work for, best consulting firms to work for, etc). Pick three lists from reputable sources (Forbes, Business Insider, etc) that will cover at least 100 companies. For example, don't pick three lists of 10 best, which is only 30 total, but try a 100 best, 30 best, and 25 best for 155 total. Obviously many companies will overlap. Then make a column and simply write Y/N if the company appears on any of your lists.
♦ Bad example: Benefits package - Don't choose something like this that would take too much research per company.

The point of all of this is to see which companies you are more motivated to pursue. Think about what you really want in a company and a very quick way to check if companies have it. For me, location was a big factor in motivation, and taking 15-mins to look up location really changed my priorities. For example, a company with a pretty solid reputation that I thought I was interested in was in Milwaukee. They suddenly dropped from a 5 to a 3 in motivation, essentially falling off my list because I have NO interest in moving to Milwuakee (nothing against it, just not for me!).

Hopefully all of this helps. If it's not clear, do the full LAMP first and then use this to make nuanced adjustments. I'm happy to clarify / explain if needed. Good luck to all the job searchers!

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Step-By-Step Method to Get in the Right Doors, Fast

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2012

Verified Purchase

Whether you are a current student - undergrad or grad - or a working professional looking to make a job change, the 2 hours of reading and the 2 hours devoted to completing the work in the prescribed methodology for the job search will be the best 4 hours you will invest in the work to generate leads to the job you want.

As a senior career consultant and associate director at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Dalton has coached hundreds of job seekers, so his methods are paint-by-numbers specific and thoroughly tested in the market. He knows that current students and alumni need to use the limited time they have to devote to their job search to maximize the return on the investment. Accordingly, he applies the 80/20 rule to all input recommendations by telling you to do only the work that takes 20% of time to produce 80% of the results and don't do the other 80% of work that will generate only 20% of the results. In addition, he tells you exactly how to use email and Web technology to make your communications and research efficient and effective.

The 2-Hour Job Search does not include work to clarify your direction, although Dalton quickly suggests you consider what you enjoy reading and doing in your spare time for insights. And strategies to ace a job interview are also not covered, although he makes recommendations on how to best answer the three most widely asked questions - tell me about yourself; why do you want to work in this organization?; why do you want to work in this industry? The book is focused on giving you a system and very specific instructions to conduct the search for job openings in three steps:
1. Develop a Prioritized List of Target Employers;
2. Build a List of Approachable Contacts at Each Company;
3. Secure and Conduct Information Interviews to Produce Advocates.

Steps 1 and 2 are research intensive, and, as such, employ an extensive use of Web technology. Throughout, Dalton tells you which online sources to use and which to avoid, and his instructions are clear and precise. While official job postings are used as indicators of economic conditions at a company, Dalton recommends avoiding the temptation to waste time on this low-odds activity.

Step 3 involves written email, telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings. In all three, Dalton provides examples of what to write and say, leaving very little open to mistakes. He has learned that conducting "information interviews" by phone is the most effective way to build advocates inside companies and being introduced to hiring managers.

With The 2-Hour Job Search, those who are in the game finally have the winning playbook that leaves nothing to chance or inexperience.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Vauxhall Hoosier

Worked for me

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

I can't think of a stronger endorsement than to say this book worked for me. In less than three months, I landed a job that met my goals and suits my talents.

After taking more than a year off, from an industry that has shrunk dramatically in the last several years, my search wasn't going to be easy. Plus, like many people, I don't really enjoy job hunting - I'd find just about any excuse to avoid it. As he admits, the "2-Hour" hook is the set-up time to lay the groundwork - following the process through to finding a job will take significantly more time than that. Still, Dalton's framework cut a lot of the fat, hesitation, and excuses out of the process. He guides us to focus on the avenues that are most likely to yield results with minimum frustration. Yes, some people get jobs sending online applications to Fortune 500 companies. Some people win the lottery every week as well. But practically speaking, it's a demoralizing waste of time.

The framework takes a lot of the thinking out of the job-searching process as well, by trying to automate as much as possible. But not all of the thinking: I still needed to adapt certain things to my specific situation and industry. For example - requesting a generic "informational interview" is well and good for a recent graduate, but not for someone with experience who is supposed to be an expert in their field.

Finally, I discovered two important things once I really got with the "2-Hour" approach: first, like most things, interviewing is a skill that improves with practice. Second, there are lots of friendly, helpful people out there who are happy to share valuable advice in an informal conversation.

10 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Good practical compelling outline for the jobseeker

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 26, 2016

Verified Purchase

Good practical compelling outline for the jobseeker. Aimed more at graduated but can be applied. However, I think a second version that focuses more on a progressed career candidate would be a helpful addition.

3 people found this helpful

Elad Dwek

Good condition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

Good read as well

markcumisky

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2016

Verified Purchase

Well written and easily accessible this book is a modern primer for directing your job-search. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

Amr H.

Only thing you'll need to find your dream job!

Reviewed in Canada on May 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book was recommended by my business school career placement service to teach us how to network. It made a difference for me and most importantly, my wife. As we immigrated to Canada, we learned that the job search culture is different in North America. After I read it, I asked her give it a try and read it. Her field a regulated profession, architecture, is very difficult to enter. It's 99% hidden market and good luck if you stick to applying online.
Steve Dalton's book is straight to the point, no clutter, no blabla, no BS. It's a structured plan to understand & execute right away. With practice, one overcomes the fear of rejection and is a step closer to getting that dream job!
We highly recommend it, as it helped both of us. I learnt there's a 2nd edition just released, we'll probably get it too.

2 people found this helpful

See all reviews

Follow the Author

The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster Paperback – March 6, 2012

There is a newer edition of this item:

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Steve Dalton

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries