| Welcome to vBulletin FAQ |
vBulletin FAQ Navigation
Getting Started
Customizing your vBulletin
Search Engines & SEO
Making Money with a Forum
Promoting your Community
|
| Get your own vBulletin Today |
|
| Webmaster Help |
|
|
|
Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with B
|
Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success |
Author: Penelope Trunk
Published: 2007-05-25 |
List price: $22.99
Our price: $15.63
|
Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: December 02nd, 2008 03:14:47 AM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 Penelope delivers constructive criticism (a bitter pill to swallow for some)
Penelope's book (and her weekly columns and blogs) take a challenging but ultimately rewarding approach.
br /
br /People expecting step-by-step how-to advice will be sorely disappointed. Penelope is very blunt and sometimes contrary, but she wants to engage people and make them really THINK objectively about their career and what they've done.
br /
br /I have also heard Penelope on the radio, and I agree that her speaking style as well as her writing style can be very direct. People who are not used to this can misinterpret it as condescension or attitude. But she's simply being very no-nonsense. This is not a book where you'll see 300 pages and 4 of them will be useful, because the author fluffed out the rest of the pages with mindless homilies or Oprah-style psychobabble.
br /
br /Penelope's advice is delivered in a very forthright way, and it can be a challenge for people who haven't had that kind of direct, constructive criticism. I've noticed many of the most negative comments on here, as well as on her blog, are from MEN who seem to be threatened by the strength of her comments or the delivery of her comments.
 Author undermines her own work.
I just heard Penelope Trunk on a public radio show (WNYC) and she managed to be insulting, narrow-minded, and ageist all at once in a short interview. If anyone attempted to turn me away from this book, or from taking her seriously, they couldn't have done a better job of it than she did herself. Imagine, she gets bored while driving, so uses her Blackberry. Take advice from this person? You'd have to be crazy.
Do I want to buy this?
I heard Penelope interviewed on NY Public Radio and found her so off-putting that it makes me not want to trust her advice or opinion much less buy her book. She came across not as brazen, but as cruel and obnoxious with no sense of civility. I sure wouldn't want to follow her example. So although the book once sounded interesting in theory, the author has now ruined its appeal.
 Challenge yourself
I bought the book and value it for its insightful and practical advice. Penelope's advice will challenge you, resonate with you or be disagreeable with you which is quite evident when you look over the other reviews here. It will not bore you or put you to sleep. This book is thought provoking and made me reflect back on the decisions I made or didn't make in my career. I honestly believe it could have helped me in my career. Three themes in this book that most resonated with me were 1) the importance of knowing yourself, 2) being likeable matters more than being competent, and 3) understanding that control of your life comes from within yourself as opposed to making excuses or placing blame elsewhere. A topic as important as career advice needs more than one book or one author's point of view and this book should be one of them. She covers a lot of material (45 rules) in this book so it must have been an arduous undertaking to define all of them, give supporting statements and examples, and tie them all together. The rules are well explained and provide a good starting point for further exploration if necessary.
br / It's a book on a landscape that is changing and does have new rules. It doesn't mean some of the old rules don't still apply. It's also important to remember this is a self-help book and will only be as effective as the person who implements it. A book can provide a good starting point but it isn't an end all. I have self-help books on golf but it wasn't until I hit many balls at the range, played games with more experienced players, and got lessons from a golf pro (in that order) that I started to really feel confident about my swing and enjoy the game. My point is that the search for a satisfying and meaningful career will require preparation, practice with trial and error, and learning through feedback given by other players or a pro (career coach) if necessary.
br / This book was the first book I bought without reviewing it first in a bookstore, library, or whatever. [...] I agreed with much of it so I bought the book and I'm glad I did. The advice given in this book is to the point. It is illustrated with her own and other peoples' experiences (successes and failures). Her writing style makes this book easy to read. It is also well laid out which makes it easy to find what you're looking for in the book. There is no doubt the advice is brazen and hence the title. Here's the brazen last paragraph on a recent blog post (4/14/08) titled How to get a job that's way beyond your experience - "Tough part: Seeing your true self and believing in the person you see. This is actually the tough part of all of life. Which explains why I like writing about career advice so much." She challenges herself and is always looking for new and fresh perspectives from her readers. There are no sacred cows here so that's why I like to read and comment on her blog. I would recommend buying this book.
br /
contrarian advice for today's workplace
Penelope Trunk has taken the material from her blog and her Yahoo finance column to provide an interesting perspective on working today. You may not agree with everything she says, but she has an interesting perspective with lots of good suggestions on finding a job, interviewing, and getting ahead. I've shared many of her suggestions with other workers and gotten positive feedback on how to deal with bosses and managing both work and life.
|
|
Our vBulletin book picks:
|
|
Find more vBulletin related products of interest.
|
