Career Finder: Where to go from here for a Successful Future

This book was easy to read and dip in out of...full of practical tips and hints to help refocus career goal's and aspirations. Useful for me to rethink next steps - and passed it on to my daughter who is starting out on her career and wanting to organise and focus. So far, a success as she has just had a promotion.

I have read the whole book, I have not carried out the exercises but have given thought to them. Each chapter is usefully summerised at the end which is good as a quick recap although some of the chapters are quite short. It has been useful to read right through and now it occurs to me just to read the summeries then it will be a simple case of selecting which bits of the book hold relevence to me.The book starts by guiding you the reader through a few simple multi choice bite sized questions or lists. These are a bit of a personality test to help you to figure out who you basically are and what you are skilled in and which is your best learning style. This is in order to give you an idea which career direction you want to cast your gaze. This is sound and helps the confused amongst us to recognise what and who is influencing their choices. The only thing I find odd about this is how quickly you are supposed to summerise who you are with such a limited range of questions and information. I suggest this is used as a tool and not taken to literally. I for example having answered the questions to be categorised in the learning style, I found that I disagree with the outcome.The book then looks at the oppotunities there are to network, introduce, communicate. To gain information about the jobs, careers or courses you are interested in and how to make contact. The following section is about job shadowing, courses, appreticeships and internships. All the advice is good (although some is repeated from one chapter to the next). What is particularly good about the advice is that it is current and up to date (there are even anecdotes about people changing careers and reinventing themselves in the very present 2020> pandemic).There are numerous web addresses where you can find out about careers, courses, appreticeships, intern and returnships. I found that when put midsentence web addresses made for poor reading. There is also a whole section at the rear of the book for web addresses.The book is printed in a larger than average font size and the writing is generally an easy read.The book continues on to understanding when to tolerate and when to quit. It is well informed on mental health experienced in job loss/loss of purpose and offers advice and again recommends contacts and websites.The whole book is positively written and I think a good aid for a general guide to the whole population no matter their age or employment status.

The Author, Gill Hasson has very rich experience in career tutoring for university students. You can certainly tell from the book that she is very good at this. First of all, I like the quotes she cited on each chapter. for example, "The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand" by Irene Kassorla. " it is not what you achieve, it is what you overcome. That's what defines your career." by Carlton Fisk. These encourage me to look for all the possibilities and maximise my skill and match with the right company. she suggested we need to find our own core value and work value, understand our own strength. Find the job that interests you and never stop further learning. She also attached useful resources in the book on Job roles, work shadowing, job fairs, volunteering, internship and apprentices. I would recommend this book to young job hunters such as fresh graduate or the university students. inspiring, it is a book to "get yourself prepared for the job" Recommend

This is a well written book. It is aimed at someone starting out who either has no idea what career to choose or has many options and figuring out what would work best for them.Each chapter has very useful guidance and also includes a mini case study as an example. This serves to inspire and also demonstrate a strategy. This is very useful. There is also a summary at the end of each chapter.There are some useful exercises on finding out core and work values. There is a quiz for learning styles but having a 11 question quiz which someone can then use to determine their learning style is not ideal. Someone could do the same quiz a few days later and come out with a different learning style. I don't believe this is very helpful and also labeling and having someone as a particular type of learner in my opinion can be detrimental. Learning styles are preferences rather than just a particular way someone operates.There is some useful advise around learning new skills, volunteering, apprenticeships, returnships, internships and also side careers and portfolio careers. Gill provides useful links across all these areas which can be helpful for someone to further research or learn more. I do feel like these could be beefed up as what is provides is a good starting point of resources but there are lots more options e.g. whether it is learning new skills through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) for which there are many options which are not mentioned in the book.An area I feel it can improve on is by having a place where all the links are available. It would be difficult for someone to have to read and type links from the book and having a simple page which has these resources would be super helpful. This could also be an opportunity to update links and add more resources and this will be very beneficial to someone who is trying to do more research as they explore their career options.Also, with technology changing and also the changing way of work, it would have been useful to include guidance on what type of new job roles are available. This can also be helpful for someone to explore opportunities around emerging technologies and help determine which skills to learn to make the most of the changing landscape around job roles.Overall, I think there is some useful advise for someone starting out and helpful links to explore more to support them in finding a suitable career for themselves.