Special Note: Due to numerous requests, I am offering an autographed version only for Anandtech members! If you're in the U.S, it's $26 (shipping included). Canada is $37 USD (shipping included), via Paypal - just shoot me a PM and I'll send you the info. For other countries just shoot me a PM. Here's the Amazon link if you just want a regular copy:
Amazon link <-----
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Well, it took a few years longer than expected, BUT IT'S DONE!!! Here's the old thread from 2005. Here's the website, I'll be adding a lot of content in coming weeks:
http://www.keeperpress.com/index.html
The title is:
Conversations: Find Your Niche!
The ULTIMATE Career Decision Tool
I'm so excited, I can hardly believe it :laugh:
Purpose:
The point of this book is to help you answer the "What should I do?" question. It helps you answer that by a combination of a Career Roadmap, 150 interviews with working professionals, and a big collection of resources in the appendices. In short, this is the most awesome career book ever Here's the Table of Contents:
PDF Table of Contents
This book is for students who are wondering what to do, people who are not satisfied in their current jobs, and anyone else looking for career guidance.
Background:
Back in high school, my brother was getting close to graduating and had no clue what to do with his life. My dad had him talk to some of his friends at work to get ideas about choosing a job, and that sparked an idea. Over time it evolved into a book about how to find a career. We split it into 3 parts:
1. A Career Roadmap (step-by-step guide for selecting a career)
2. 150 job interviews
3. Appendices (LOTS of extra resources)
The first section, the Career Roadmap, helps you narrow down your interests to a particular job. Rather than a canned response from an Aptitude Test, YOU make the choices according to questions, charts, and matrixes (might sound a little complex, but it's really easy). The Roadmap helps you clearly identify specific jobs that would suit you and your interests, situations, talents, and so on.
The second section is the meat of the book. We have over 20 job categories, from Medical to Management to Healthcare and more, with 150 interviews with working professionals. It's basically like an internship or job shadowing, condensed into a readable format. We interview each person on tape then transcribed their interview, hence "Conversations" - the interviews are engaging and extremely easy to read. We ask them what they like, how they got into it, what they don't like, misconceptions, lessons learned, all kinds of stuff - 12 questions in total. Here are some sample interviews:
Helicopter Pilot
Firefighter Lieutenant
School Psychologist
Each interview also contains extra information at the beginning in the "Executive Summary" section such as educational requirements, pay ranges (broken down into hourly rates), and a job description. There's also a teaser quote to kind of give you a flavor of the interview above each interview's Executive Summary. The last section is the appendices, which has a ton of useful information including career reference data, a huge book listing for advanced research in specific fields and jobs, an article on workplace terminology, etc.
We started a publishing company to publish it - Keeper Press: Our Books Are Keepers - and our first print run is 3,000 copies. We are selling them on Amazon.com at an introductory price of $19.95. Not bad for a 600 page book! (yes, 600 PAGES!). Our inventory just arrived at Amazon tonight and was added to the system. The description and other info should be loaded within the next few days. For those who want to know, Van is my dad - we had to list a single author due to the Library of Congress cataloging system, so the whole family is listed inside as authors, but he had to be listed as the editor on the cover itself.
Cliff Notes:
1. I wrote a book! :laugh: YAY!
2. It's about how to find a career
3. Get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1933425598/
Please feel free to ask any questions, I'd be happy to answer them!
Amazon link <-----
*******************************
Well, it took a few years longer than expected, BUT IT'S DONE!!! Here's the old thread from 2005. Here's the website, I'll be adding a lot of content in coming weeks:
http://www.keeperpress.com/index.html
The title is:
Conversations: Find Your Niche!
The ULTIMATE Career Decision Tool
I'm so excited, I can hardly believe it :laugh:
Purpose:
The point of this book is to help you answer the "What should I do?" question. It helps you answer that by a combination of a Career Roadmap, 150 interviews with working professionals, and a big collection of resources in the appendices. In short, this is the most awesome career book ever Here's the Table of Contents:
PDF Table of Contents
This book is for students who are wondering what to do, people who are not satisfied in their current jobs, and anyone else looking for career guidance.
Background:
Back in high school, my brother was getting close to graduating and had no clue what to do with his life. My dad had him talk to some of his friends at work to get ideas about choosing a job, and that sparked an idea. Over time it evolved into a book about how to find a career. We split it into 3 parts:
1. A Career Roadmap (step-by-step guide for selecting a career)
2. 150 job interviews
3. Appendices (LOTS of extra resources)
The first section, the Career Roadmap, helps you narrow down your interests to a particular job. Rather than a canned response from an Aptitude Test, YOU make the choices according to questions, charts, and matrixes (might sound a little complex, but it's really easy). The Roadmap helps you clearly identify specific jobs that would suit you and your interests, situations, talents, and so on.
The second section is the meat of the book. We have over 20 job categories, from Medical to Management to Healthcare and more, with 150 interviews with working professionals. It's basically like an internship or job shadowing, condensed into a readable format. We interview each person on tape then transcribed their interview, hence "Conversations" - the interviews are engaging and extremely easy to read. We ask them what they like, how they got into it, what they don't like, misconceptions, lessons learned, all kinds of stuff - 12 questions in total. Here are some sample interviews:
Helicopter Pilot
Firefighter Lieutenant
School Psychologist
Each interview also contains extra information at the beginning in the "Executive Summary" section such as educational requirements, pay ranges (broken down into hourly rates), and a job description. There's also a teaser quote to kind of give you a flavor of the interview above each interview's Executive Summary. The last section is the appendices, which has a ton of useful information including career reference data, a huge book listing for advanced research in specific fields and jobs, an article on workplace terminology, etc.
We started a publishing company to publish it - Keeper Press: Our Books Are Keepers - and our first print run is 3,000 copies. We are selling them on Amazon.com at an introductory price of $19.95. Not bad for a 600 page book! (yes, 600 PAGES!). Our inventory just arrived at Amazon tonight and was added to the system. The description and other info should be loaded within the next few days. For those who want to know, Van is my dad - we had to list a single author due to the Library of Congress cataloging system, so the whole family is listed inside as authors, but he had to be listed as the editor on the cover itself.
Cliff Notes:
1. I wrote a book! :laugh: YAY!
2. It's about how to find a career
3. Get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1933425598/
Please feel free to ask any questions, I'd be happy to answer them!