Career Stories & Articles

Personal Career/Life Planning

Altered Ambitions: What's Next In Your Life? 
Betsy Jaffe. Donald I. Fine, New York, 1991. 
Shows how new forms of careers call for new methods of coping.  In an age when careers and lives need to be managed, this book shows a practical way to think strategically, to make the most of new challenges and options and to master the changes in one's life.

Beating Job Burnout: How to Turn Your Work Into Your Passion.
Paul Stevens, VGM Career Horizons, Lincolnwood, IL, 1995. 
Offers valuable advice to those feeling the pressures and stress of today's demanding work environment to overcome obstacles, identify the stresses and master strategies for taking control of your own career satisfaction.

Broken Ladders.  
Paul Osterman, ed., Oxford University Press, New York, 1996.
A series of essays that looks at how the work of managers in organizations is changing.  The book concludes that the manager’s work is still there and is necessary, but is done within a shifting context of great uncertainty and disappearing career ladders.  Thoughts are provided on skills required for success.

Career Compass.  
Peggy Simonsen, Davies-Black Publishers, Palo Alto, California, 2000.
A comprehensive review of the new world of careers facing the twenty-first century worker.  After examining some of the changes that have taken place in recent years, the book offers a number of very practical suggestions for the modern worker who must navigate an uncertain career journey.  Closing chapters provide thoughts on navigating major career/life change.

Career Knockouts: How to Battle Back. 
Marilyn Moats Kennedy. Follett Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, 1980.  
To survive and prosper when facing cutbacks, reorganizations, mergers, and closings as organizations struggle to stay afloat, you need a sophisticated understanding of career management. This book identifies the most common and devastating knockouts and gives you counter-strategies to deal with them.

Career Mastery.  
Harry Levinson.  Berrett-Koehler Publisher, San Francisco, CA, 1992. 
Offers practical advice on how to take charge of your career and grow through changes, setbacks and successes.

Career Survival: Strategic Job and Role Planning.  
Edgar Schein.  Pfeiffer & Co., San Diego, CA, 1993.
Recommends that all technical, professional and managerial employees and executives in changing organizations learn how to do "strategic job and role planning".  This is a dynamic process which will replace job descriptions to keep roles up to date as networks, needs and expectations evolve.  Shows how to analyze your job, role and environment and the developmental implications. 

Creating Your Future: Personal Strategic Planning for Professionals. 
George L. Morrisey.  Berrett Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 1992. 
A step-by-step guide to personal strategic planning for professionals.  A no-nonsense approach to goal setting and career/ life planning.

Do What You Are. 
Paul D. Tuger and Barbara Barron-Tuger.  Little, Brown & Co., Boston, MA, 1992.
Personality Type (Myer-Briggs Type Indicator) unlocks the secret of career satisfaction.  Uses a self-test to create new self-awareness and clarity about job success and enjoyment.

Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood.  
Marsha Sinetar.  Dell Publishing Co, New York, NY, 1989. 
 Shows how knowledge of one's values, persistence, patience, and loving what you do can all work to bring you personal satisfaction as well as financial reward. 

Doom Loop: A Step-by-Step Guide to Career Mastery. 
Dory Hollander, Ph.D.  Viking Penguin, New York, 1991. 
The Doom Loop is a career management model "simple enough to put on a cocktail napkin but powerful enough to change your life."  This book helps a person chart a career path based on the concept that one's preferences are just as important to success as performance.

How to Jumpstart a Stalled Career.  
Charles C. Prush. VGM Career Horizons, Lincolnwood, IL, 1994. 
Five key steps help you analyze your personal and career goals, discover what changes would put new zest in your life, and create realistic goals for change.

How to Make the Right Career Moves.  
Deborah Perlmutter Bloch.  VGM Career Horizons, Lincolnwood, IL, 1990.
Guidebook to evaluating your current job situation, as well as where you want your career to go and how to get it there.  Provides tips and strategies for moving up within your organization.  Includes information on career changing and finding the right job elsewhere.

Job Shift: How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs.
William BridgesAddison-Wesley. Reading, Massachusetts, 1995. 

Masterful Coaching:  Extraordinary Results by Impacting People and the Way They Think and Work Together 
By Robert Hargrove, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Publishing, 1995, 310 p. 

Networking Smart 
Wayne Baker 

New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World: 13 Ground Rules for Job Success in the Information Age. 
Price Pritchett, Ph.D. Pritchett & Associates, Inc., Dallas, TX, 1994.  
Presents high-powered guidelines on how to take personal responsibility for your career and seize the many opportunities you will encounter in the Information Age. Pritchett shows why you have to change your work habits — immediately  — in order to protect your future.

No More Blue Mondays: Keys to Finding Fulfillment at Work.
Robin Sheerer, Davies-Black Publishers, Palo Alto, California, 1998.
Offers a way to empower your work and change your life through four life principles: reveal what’s true, reclaim personal power, express commitments, and surround yourself with support.  Offers guidance to people wanting to stay where they are or make a move elsewhere.

The Plateauing Trap: How to Avoid Today's #1 Career Dilemma.  
Judith M. Bardwich, Ph.D.  Bantam Books, New York, NY., 1986. 
Being plateaued -- reaching a stage in work or in life where there is no more growth or movement -- is a fact.  This book was written to give an awareness of plateauing so it can be recognized and managed.      

Shifting Gears: Mastering Career Change. 
Carole Hyatt.  Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1990.
Based on more than 300 interviews with people in a wide variety of professions, the author has created a breakthrough program for positive change.  A useful tool for people going into career-change overdrive during these changing times.

Solving the Work/Family Puzzle.  
Bonnie Michaels and Elizabeth McCarty, Business One Irwin, Homewood, IL, 1993. 
Helps creatively solve the challenges of balancing work and a personal life.  Provides strategies for combining family and work responsibilities into a whole life plan.

Staying Employed:  What You Must Do Today to Ensure You Have a Job Tomorrow.  
Tom Daoust.  Lexington Books, New York, NY, 1990.  
The subtitle describes the contents.  Suggestions include participation in professional associations, writing articles for newsletters, and conducting seminars in order to establish a network to be used in managing your career.

Stepping Out, Starting Over: How to Get Your Life on the Right Track: Career Life Planning.  
Patrick J. Montana, Ph.D.  National Center for Career Life Planning, New York, NY, 1989. 
Changes in demographics, in the economy and workplace, in our values and lifestyles combine to make career/life planning opportunities and programs necessities in today's world.  In addition to discussion of these matters, the book includes a "step-by-step program for career/life planning as well as a practical job hunt system".

The Three Boxes of Life. Richard N. Bolles. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA, 1978.
By the author of What Color is Your Parachute, a step-by-step introduction to life/work planning. 

Transitions: Successful Strategies from Mid-Career to Retirement.  
Stephen Strasser, Ph.D. and John Sena, Ph.D.  The Career Press Inc., Hawthorne, NJ, 1990. 
Suggests ways to successfully cope with the transitions that occur throughout work and life.  Deals with becoming a manager, becoming a parent, getting divorced, dealing with the boss's divorce, losing the job, finding a new job, and preparing for retirement.

We Are All Self-Employed: The New Social Contract for Working in a Changing World. 
Cliff Hakim, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco,1994.  
Provides a "how-to" for changing beliefs from those based on the old social contract (loyalty to the organization guarantees job security) to the new social contract (we are all self-employed).

Who Moved My Cheese?  
Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard, G. P. Putnam’s, New York, 1997.
A multi-year bestseller, this simple book tells a fable in which two mice-like creatures take very different approaches to managing a sudden loss: the disappearance of a piece of cheese from their maze.  Provides a parable for constructive and dysfunctional reactions to change of all types.

Working From the Heart: For Those Who Hunger for Meaning and Satisfaction in Their Work.  
Jacqueline McMakin with Sonya Dyer.  LuraMedia, San Diego, CA, 1989.
 Well-organized series of exercises to help in opening up oneself to one's gifts, talents, and values in order to pursue work that truly provides "meaning and satisfaction".  Written for use in a support group setting but useful for individuals with the discipline to take the journey.  An unusual value-based approach coupled with practical advice makes this a welcome addition to career planning literature.

Your Own Worst Enemy: How to Overcome Career Self-Sabotage. 
Andrew Dubrin. American Management Association, New York, NY, 1992. 
An interesting book that leads readers to question their attitudes, motives, and actions at work, and change behavior that is disruptive to their careers.

The 2001 What Color Is Your Parachute?  
Richard N. Bolles. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA,  2001.
First published in 1970, the practical manual for job-hunters and career-changers is revised substantially each year.  One of the most popular self-help books of all time, it reflects changing currents in the job market.

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