Quintessential Careers Reviews: Job!

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Career and Job Book Reviews

Book Review: Job! Learn How to Find Your Next Job In 1 Day

From time-to-time, as we receive career-related and job-hunting books from publishers, the staff of Quintessential Careers will review them to help you make better decisions about the best books to use in your career and job search.

Job! Learn How to Find Your Next Job In 1 Day, by Rick Gillis. Paperback, 136 pp. ISBN: 0615514537. (Also available in Kindle.) Publisher: The Really Useful Job Search Company. Pub. Date: July 2012.

Reviewed by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.

Rick Gillis is a well-known career coach, guru, and career radio host. I have known him for years and feel he and I are kindred spirits in our quest to help job-seekers find better jobs and lead better lives. So... when he asked me to take a look at his latest book, I jumped at the chance to review it and share my thoughts with you.

The thing I love most about this book is its focus on helping all job-seekers -- from new grad to executive -- on achieving job-search success. Job-hunting is not hard to master, but it does take some key preparation to achieve greater success -- and this book shows you exactly how to do so. Another plus? Anyone can read the entire book in a day; yes, it will take you longer than a day to implement the ideas and concepts in the book, but you won't be burdened with 300+ pages of reading!

The other aspect I love about the book is its focus on helping job-seekers understand the importance of accomplishments. We've been preaching on that subject for years -- see our article, For Job-Hunting Success: Track and Leverage Your Accomplishments.

Readers will leave this book with a better understanding of how to succeed in finding a new job opportunity -- mainly through a focus on identifying and articulating your past accomplishments and with a strategy designed to greatly improve your online applications.

10 Key Job-Search Concepts and Factors Reader Will Take from Job!

Many job-seekers do not know how to answer the interview question, "Tell me about yourself." Instead of responding with a targeted sales pitch focused on one or two key accomplishments relevant to the job opening, Gillis says many job-seekers either ramble on about themselves or ask the recruiter what s/he would like to know. What job-seekers need to do, he says, is convince the recruiter how they'll bring value to the organization.
Job-hunting success is directly related to understanding and articulating accomplishments. Every person has accomplishments, but the key task is identifying them. Gillis shows you a multi-tier strategy for collecting a list of accomplishments from all your previous experiences.
Many job-seekers do not have a strong inventory of past accomplishments -- or feel they have no real accomplishments beyond "doing their job." Gillis says the key to identifying accomplishments is asking, "how did I make a difference?" Another way is asking "what am I proud of?" While increasing sales or saving money are great accomplishments, you may find your accomplishments in more mundane work performances, such as zero errors, perfect attendance, trustworthiness, and the like.
Understanding the three components of a great accomplishment. Each accomplishment you identify should include a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning addresses what you did (such as creating a new filing system). The middle sets up the end. The end focuses on the end result/benefit. "Created a filing system resulting in 300 hours saved per week." And if you can't quantify, "Created a filing system that resulted in more efficient and timely delivery of files."
Developing an Accomplishments Worksheet provides multiple benefits for job-seekers. Developing a list of all your accomplishments serves as the basis for a stronger resume and better interview responses, but Gillis suggests that the Accomplishments Worksheet can become another tool in winning the job -- as a key tool that more fully depicts the job-seeker as a complete package in a manner that a resume is not designed to do.
Once developed, using accomplishment stories to develop an accomplishments-based resume. We know from the thousands of resumes we've seen -- and Gillis reinforces the point -- that resumes must focus on accomplishments, not just job duties and responsibilities. Employers want to see results.
Knowing past accomplishments is also important for networking events/opportunities. Beyond job-hunting and resumes, having a firm grasp of your accomplishments -- and having accomplishment stories -- provides you with key content to use in networking and other business settings.
Job-seekers must learn to successfully navigate employer applicant tracking systems (resume-filtering software). All online job applications now go directly into a database -- and no human eyes see those applications until they are filtered and sorted by keywords the employer uses in an attempt to find the most qualified candidates. Gillis explains this issue and identifies a job-seeker tool to enhance the chances of your application.
The Short-Form Resume, a new job-seeker tool designed to help break through the clutter of all the other online applications. The solution Gillis suggests for beating applicant filtering software is the Short-Form Resume -- a streamlined version of a traditional resume focused on key accomplishments and keywords tied to the specific job opportunity.
The power of keywords in helping your online application gain traction. Knowing your industry's jargon -- and your specific job and accomplishments keywords -- is essential to all forms of your resume, but are especially important with online applications. Gillis shows job-seekers how an employer uses keywords to retrieve the top applicants from the employer's database -- and how you can use that knowledge to enhance your application. See also our article, Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume's Effectiveness.

Final Thoughts on Job!

The three takeaways from this book that EVERY job-seeker should leave with are:

the value of knowing your accomplishments;
the power of the right keywords; and
the importance of developing a short-form resume.

Finally, remember this keen insight from Gillis when next applying to jobs online: "Job search is no longer about selection but about preventing elimination."

A great companion to this book is Dr. Katharine Hansen's book, Tell Me About Yourself, which shows readers how storytelling and stories of your accomplishments can be used to demonstrate your strengths and fit with a prospective employer.

Read an excerpt from Job!, Job-Seeker Accomplishments: Articulating How You Made a Difference in Your Job Key to Job-Search Success.

For additional information, see also:

Sample Short-Form Resume

Accomplishments Worksheet

Check out all our book reviews in Quintessential Reading: Career and Job Book Reviews.

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Quintessential Reading: Career and Job Book Reviews