The 9 best books for boosting your career
Whether you want to change careers, commence a career, or figure out how to balance your work and family life check out this list of books that offer expert advice on a range of topics.
CBT for Career Success: A Self-Help Guide by Steve Sheward
This book is combining CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and career coaching, to give you the psychological advantage you need in what is an increasingly competitive and turbulent career landscape. The author Steve Sheward is a career counsellor and Senior CBT Therapist in the National Health Service in the UK. He regularly contributes to The Guardian Careers, for a sample of his writing check out this article.
Photo taken from Amazon.com.
Rethink Your Career: In your 40s, 50s and 60s by Joanna Maxwell
It’s never too late to rethink your career and this insightful book is here to help you do so. A combination of practical exercises and inspirational stories will help you identify your skills and strengths, address your fears and evaluate your finances.
Photo taken from HarperCollins.com.au.
‘Practical, intelligent, encouraging, Joanna Maxwell discusses how everyone can achieve success with a positive approach to this much neglected second half of life.’
—Susan Ryan AO, Age Discrimination Commissioner 2011-2016
‘Joanna Maxwell is terrific and her book is highly readable, illuminating and wise.’
—Ray Martin AM
Creating a Freelance Career by Jill L. Ferguson
Would you rather be an entrepreneur than someone’s employee? Or are you a creative spirit trying to figure out how to turn your talent into an income? There are so many advantages to working freelance, but it does come with its challenges. This book is perfect for budding copywriters, graphic designers, musicians, photographers, videographers, make up artists or any other creatives.
Jill L. Ferguson is an award-winning writer, an artist, a business and higher education consultant, and a serial entrepreneur. She is the author of eight books and has written for the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Sierra Club Magazine, and more.
Photo taken from CreatingTheFreelancerCareer.com
Career Reports from The Institute of Career Research
These books are perfect for anyone wanting to learn more about the ins and outs of a particular career. The Institute of Career Research has published an astonishing number of career reports, the range of titles including: Careers in Photojournalism, Career as a Meeting and Event Planner, Careers in Nutrition, Career as a Computer Systems Analyst, Careers in Public Relations and many more. They say, “Our complete, impartial research investigations provide the answers people seek. This program is especially helpful to young people who face the prospect of choosing a life work in these challenging times of new technology.”
Photo taken from Kobo.com.
Career Leap by Michelle Gibbings
Gibbings provides expert advice on how to reinvent and liberate your career in a world where every job and industry is changing with alarming speed. Gibbings says, “You’ll develop the confidence you need to take decisive action, sharpen your skills and become the agile, adaptive professional we will all need to be. The 10-step Career Reinvention Cycle helps you assess the status quo and determine where you need to go, and then gives you a solid framework for making a move when the time is right.”
Photo taken from MichelleGibbings.com.
“Career Leap is a great leap forward for anyone navigating work in the 21st century!”
—Bernard Salt, best-selling author of The Big Tilt
Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
This book is perfect for recent graduates, but it’s also applicable to anyone who wants to take stock of their career and relationships and change them for the better. Taking the title from a course they teach at Stanford, in Designing Your Life Burnett and Evans teach ‘design thinking,’ an approach typically used in design to improve an object like a lampshade or a website, an apply it to careers and relationships.
Photo taken from DesigningYour.Life.
“Life has questions. They have answers.”
—The New York Times
#GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso
You might have heard of this one, because it’s so popular that it’s even become a Netflix series. Sophia Amoruso is the brain and CEO behind online retail giant Nasty Gal but this book is about so much more than women’s fashion. It’s about trusting your instincts, having drive and striving for whatever it is you want to achieve, despite the negativity you’ll inevitably encounter.
Photo taken from Goodreads.com
“Amoruso teaches the innovative and entrepreneurial among us to play to our strengths, learn from our mistakes, and know when to break a few of the traditional rules.”
—Vanity Fair
“#GIRLBOSS is more than a book . . . #GIRLBOSS is a movement.”
—Lena Dunham
Working It Out: Career, Family and You by Jayne Anderson
This is a book about work life balance, but more importantly it’s about how to have a successful career, care for a family and still have time to dedicate to the things YOU love not as a mother or co-worker but as an individual. In Working It Out a variety of women discuss how they focus on their career while raising children.
Photo taken from Booktopia.com.
Those interviewed include:
- Surgeon and former Australian of the Year, Fiona Wood
- Federal Deputy Opposition Leader, Tanya Plibersek
- Singer, Helen Reddy
- Federal Court Judge, Annabelle Bennett
- Pilot, Deborah Lawrie
- Actress and Director, Rachel Ward
- Former Minister for Sport and Tourism, Jackie Kelly Frank
Resilience at Work: Practical Tools for Career Success by Kathryn Jackson
Resilience is the core focus of this book. Based on the author’s own experience of working under extreme circumstances in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand, an heightened by collaboration with leading resilience experts from around the world, this book is packed with stories, resources and personal coaching.
Photo taken from Amazon.com.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
There have never been more stresses and distractions than what we face today. Technology and digitial media have made it particularly hard to focus. Do you struggle to get your priorities straight? Dr. Cal Newport reminds us, ““If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.” Deep Work is a Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller and the Amazon Best Business Book for January 2016.
Photo taken from Hachette.com.au.
Dr Newport also runs an awesome Study Hacks Blog which you should be sure to check out.
“As a presence on the page, Newport is exceptional in the realm of self-help authors.”
—New York Times Book Review
“DEEP WORK accomplishes two considerable tasks: One is putting out a wealth of concrete practices for the ambitious, without relying on gauzy clichés. The second is that Mr. Newport resists the corporate groupthink of constant connectivity without seeming like a curmudgeon.”
—Wall Street Journal
Wherever you are in your career life, it's never too late to make improvements or change - as these authors certainly prove. If you'd like more advice on how to further or boost your career, be sure to check out more of our career development articles here on SkillsTalk.
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