Resources

The following books, online courses, webinars, podcasts and websites offer a free Do-It-Yourself approach to career development and/or will supplement the work we do together.

Please excuse me for not putting myself in front of the camera or microphone to create my own content. There's so much excellent material online already and I'm happy to save you the time to cull through it. I update this list regularly. Trust me, this is the best information out there.

If you engage with these resources but still feel overwhelmed, don't be discouraged. Most people don't just need information. That's actually the easy part (though still challenging!) The hard part is understanding how to apply this information to your unique situation to create a strategy that gets the results you're looking for...and how to remain motivated through the uncertainty and fear that comes with job or career change. 

That's why I'm here.

 

Self-Assessment/Career Choice

  • Designing Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness – and a New Freedom – at Work, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This brilliant book applies design thinking - brainstorming, prototyping, testing, deciding - to your life, helping you create a career that is meets your most important needs and is fulfilling. It combines self assessment and fact finding exercises with sensible advice. There's also a companion workbook that's excellent - and you'll find the author's inspiring TED talk here. Career Direction
  • The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World by Bruce Feiler. The world of work is drastically different than it was a generation ago, and our approach to career planning needs to change just as radically. Feiler shares a structure to help you conduct a “meaning audit” in your work so you can chart a path that honors who you are, not just what you're able to do.
  • www.self-directed-search.com - a real classic. Brief assessment generates a "Holland Code" that suggests career families and choices that match your type and primary interests.
  • Clarity about your life values - more specifically, your personal definitions of success and life balance - is instrumental in making the best decisions about your career. Check out Richard Shell's simple but brilliant "Six Lives" exercise. 
  • Life's a Bitch and Then You Change Careers, Andrea Kay. You may need to get around the title and the age of this book but it's one of the best out there for do-it-yourselfers. You'll find some down-to-earth information - as well as companion interest and values exercises - that provide welcome structure to the career seeker. The key is to do all the exercises. Your hard work and self-discipline will be rewarded!
  • Truity's free personality assessment is analogous to the Myers-Briggs Temperament Assessment (MBTI). It provides a helpful understanding of your innate tendencies (and gifts!), lists of career options that pair your personality and interests, and strategies for navigating the workplace given your temperament. Very insightful!
  • Our current cultural script implores us to find and build our careers on our "passion." But what if research indicates that only a small percentage of people can identify their passion and that people who end up loving their work didn't in fact build it on their passion? This Ted Talk by Cal Newport suggests an alternative and evidenced based approach to finding satisfying work. 

Interviewing

  • Try AMA Interview, a Chrome extension that generates AI-driven mock interviews using your LinkedIn profile or resume. Covers behavioral, case, and modeling style questions. Rated highly as a go‑to for unlimited self‑led practice
  • This video interview with my colleague Kathy Robinson is the smartest content out there about interviewing. It's long (an hour) but filled with equal amounts of wisdom and practical tips about researching your target company, connecting with the interviewer, and listening well for the employer's challenges in order to map your success stories onto their pain points.
  • Studies consistently show that interviewers form their opinion about you within their first 5 minutes of meeting you. So your response to the common initial question, "Tell me about yourself," is critical. Listen here (at 54:00) to learn the brilliant "P.E.T" approach and hear Jeremy Schifeling, tech career coach and former recruiter, guide a job seeker through it. 
  • Sorry to say it, but, yes, interviewing is selling. But there's no shame in this! We all use the tools of persuasion naturally and effectively in our personal and professional lives, even if we're not in sales - and we do so without being inauthentic, pushy or obnoxious, right? This 20 minute presentation at Wharton by Adam Grant and Daniel Pink reminds us that questions, which may feel easier than providing compelling information, may be the greatest selling tool out there.
  • This TED talk by Adam Grant is not specifically about interviewing but it's quite relevant because it implicitly (and rightly!) contradicts the advice to build credibility in an interview by hiding our limitations (our humanity, really). It's worth a listen because it's also great advice for building trust and creating influence in any relationship. 
  • Rambling (talking more than 60-90 seconds in response to an interview question) is a common issue that can limit job seekers' success. The antidote is preparation. Here's a quick video about just how to do that. 

Career Exploration

  • www.careeronestop.org/Toolkit – The U.S. Department of Labor provides skill, interest and personal values assessments, wage and occupational trend reports, and a directory of career fields and requirements.
  • www.bls.gov/ooh/ (Occupational Outlook Handbook) - This web site, also published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, provides accurate sketches of hundreds of job titles as well as a wealth of location specific, job-related and economic information from around the country. Also included are updated state unemployment rates, salary information, and anticipated job growth rates for industries and career fields.
  • www.glassdoor.com employee reviews of local, national and global employers. crowd sources the good, bad and ugly. Reviews often include salary and interviewing intel. You have to create an account before you can access info.
  • Watch video overviews of more than 550 careers. Super helpful since most of the videos offer footage of professionals on the job.
  • Looking for another way to get the inside scoop on a profession you're considering? Check out these Vault Guides that provide rich and current information about popular career fields. They're not free but they're awesome.
  • OwlGuru is a highly graphic catalog of career options sorted by interests, priorities, temperament, and degree. The comprehensive website includes "day in the life" descriptions, videos of people on the job, pros and cons, lists of related careers and a quiz for each career to help you decide if it's for you.
  • Okay, I can't resist adding one more resource: career explorer on Linkedin. Insert your current role and get several career options that use your current skillset. You'll also learn about roles that are a little "further afield" and what skills you'd need to get there.

Job Boards

  • www.indeed.com - A job aggregator that collects job postings from all general and niche job boards as well as newspapers, professional association websites, and employer websites. It's a fabulous opportunity for one-stop job shopping on the Web. You can use handy features like job search agents or RSS feeds to avoid having to search every day for the latest relevant postings. In fact, setting up a circumscribed job search agent to send relevant postings your way is key to your efficiency. Here's how to do it.

Moving from Individual Contributor to Manager

  • This HBR video from Harvard researcher and management consultant Herminia Ibarra provides great advice for this challenging transition. Tips include how to build internal networks, adopt a strategic perspective, balance authenticity with effectiveness, and coach direct reports who used to be your colleague

Linkedin

  • Linkedin's help section offers solid, basic advice for setting up your profile. They also offer some terrific suggestions for using Linkedin to find a job here.  
  • Linked: Conquer LinkedIn, Get Your Dream Job, Own Your Future by Omar Garriott and Jeremy Schifeling. Written by two former LinkedIn employees, this book shares great insights on how to optimize your profile and use LinkedIn as a key tool in your career and job search strategy. 
  • When we meet, we'll talk about the importance of being active and posting regularly on Linkedin. This article contains solid ideas for doing so.

General Job Search Strategy

  • Reverse the Search: How to Turn Job Seeking into Job Shopping - Hot off the press! Learn how to network and use LI to create a targeted visibility campaign and land without relying on the job boards. Super solid, actionable advice that's spot on considering your chances of landing a job are 10x higher when you're referred - and employers are increasingly sourcing talent over Linkedin rather than using the job boards. 
  • Looking for low cost menu of job search advice and tools? If you already know your job target and are qualified for it - and you're self disciplined - check out Work It Daily. For a very reasonable monthly membership fee, you can get access to the highest quality/lowest cost online job search support I've found - It's chock full valuable instructional webinars, templates, tips, and access to coaches and a community of other job seekers. Good luck!
  • The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career - Highly read-able, do-able and up to date advice on choosing a job target, employing a multi-faceted job search, and landing and advancing in a job that lies at the intersection of your aptitudes and appetite. Great planning tools and worksheets to keep you focused and moving forward in a world of work that is changing rapidly. 
  • Here's a fabulous conversation with Dawn Graham, author of one of the smartest career change books out there, Switchers, on how to create a job search strategy when you're looking to change either your functional role or industry. In these circumstances, the job boards won't work very well for you. Take her advice instead. 
  • Jenny Foss's course on Linkedin learning, The Career Strategist's Guide to Getting a Job, gives you all the information you need to execute an effective job search - with some humor built in (always appreciated!). If you follow all her advice, you probably won't need me. Get access to Linkedin Learning (previously Lynda) through signing up for a free one month trial, logging in for free through your public library, or purchasing Linkedin Premium.

Cover Letters

      I know - such a pain. This video will help you maintain your sanity and sense of humor while learning a simple formula for success.

Using AI to Accelerate Your Job Search

Artificial Intelligence chatbots are the career changer and job seeker's new best friend. There are so many ways to use these applications such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or CoPilot to make your life easier and save time - from generation of career options to specific career research to quick and easy help with cover letters and resumes.

For the best set of prompts, check out my colleague Jeremy Schifeling's Career Coach GPT: The Complete Guide to ChatGPT Resume, Cover Letter, Interview and Job Search Success which you can read for free on Kindle!

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome - over functioning to manage feeling fraudulent or inadequate - affects up to 70% of workers and job seekers. Most of whom are senior professionals and top performers! Here's a great podcast to support a growth mindset rather than fear and perfectionism.  

Resume 

  • There's a lot of conflicting advice on the internet about writing a resume, making this task even more gruesome. You can trust Jenny Foss's course on Linkedin learning, How to Write a Resume. Get access to Linkedin Learning through signing up for a free one month trial, logging in for free through your public library, or purchasing Linkedin Premium.
  • Please ignore resume advice aimed to "beat the Applicant Tracking System (ATS)." The applicant tracking system isn't the gatekeeper - humans are. Rejection isn't your problem, invisibility is. Your "enemy" isn't the ATS, it's the recruiter's lack of time and the volume of applications received. Write for a reader, not a platform. Aim to offer immediately accessible clarity about your match to the organization's needs. You don't need a higher "keyword match" score, you need a clearer message. This video explains it SO WELL. Thank you, Farah. Can you tell how strongly I feel about this? 
  • Listen to podcasts during your commute for some solid job search advice on CareerCloud Radio. Start with the episodes that are highly rated.
  • I love Andrew LaCivita's free resume workshops on Youtube - they're easy to follow and spot on. His step-by-step process of writing a targeted, accomplishment and keyword rich resume mitigates the overwhem!  
  • Even though most people get their jobs through networking, you can't neglect online job postings you're at least 80% qualified for. If you don't know anyone at the company who can advocate for you, don't worry! Just take the time to tailor your resume to closely match the requirements spelled out in the job posting. This strategy works!

 Salary Negotiation

  • www.salary.com - This site is dedicated to helping you evaluate your total compensation in light of analogous jobs in your field and geography. Keep in mind that it tends to run about 10% high so take the information with a grain of salt.
  • www.payscale.com - I love this site! It provides salary information on hundreds of professions in addition to up to date information on career trajectories. A great resource if you're trying to figure out the next step in your career. You have to share your information to create an account.
  • Salary Tutor: Learn the Salary Negotiation Secrets No One Ever Taught You, Jim Hopkinson. The book provides the tools and words you need to craft the most advantageous response to the job offer. Don't be discouraged that it's from 2011; these principles are timeless and this author does a fabulous job explaining them. The case studies are particularly helpful.

Networking

  • If you're a job seeker and only have time to use one resource on this page, listen to this TED Talk. Job seeking is a social activity because people hire people they know, like and trust or who are recommended by people they know, like and trust. Networking is often as simple as having a different (but very normal) conversation with people you already know. The data doesn't lie (see below). This is how you're likely to land your next job. And you can do it without feeling weird.
  • Most people know the old axiom "It's not what you know, it's who you know," and that they increase their chances of getting an interview dramatically by being referred. In fact, you're 66% more likely to land an interview if you're referred and 40% more likely to land the job. The only way to get referred is to network. Here's how to find and reach out to people who can help you through Linkedin (content is at 34:09)
  • You may not think about this much, but all jobs exist long before they're posted on the job boards (and many jobs are never advertised). This is called the "hidden job market." The comprehensive (but short, I promise!) LinkedIn learning course Find a Job in the Hidden Job Market will take you step by step through the process of finding these opportunities. You can access Linkedin learning free by signing up for a trial of Linkedin premium or getting access through your local public library.
  • Wouldn't it be great if you could land your next job in only two hours? This video summary of the book outlining this appproach provides a systematic way to leverage your network without being a jerk to get interviews. It works. Warning: even if you follow the instructions perfectly, your job search will probably take more than two hours. Sorry. But it does offer a proven strategy and structure!

New Grads/Millennials

  • "Getting From College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World" is the best career advice book out there for folks entering the job market. It’s chock full of great stories, inspiration, and ideas for manageable things to do to help you choose a career and get your first job.
  • Including this video may not make me popular, but if you want to know the secret to career success, watch this.
  • Here's the classic conundrum: how to get a job when you have little or no experience doing the job you want. This video gives you sound options to consider and suggestions for creating the value employers are looking for that are spot on.  
  • Discouraged and overwhelmed because you can't find your passion? That's a lot of pressure. This TED talk suggests a different approach to finding career direction, such as asking yourself what problems you care about or how you can be useful.  

Self Employment

Retirement

  • What Color is Your Parachute For Retirement, Richard Bolles and John Nelson. I love this book because it's full of stories and valuable exercises to help you think through the most important questions concerning your retirement – many of which may be surprising. Much less ambitious than the original Parachute book so, in many ways, it's more practical.
  • How to Love your Retirement, Barbara Waxman. Advice from hundreds of active retirees of all ages and stages inspires new thinking about what you want in the second half of life.
  • MAXIFI - an online personal finance resource that which compares your assets against your fixed expenses to calculate how much you can safely spend annually for the rest of your life. The program, which costs $99 for the first year and $79 for renewals, takes about 45 minutes to complete.
  • www.aarp.com - great resources and videos regarding obtaining part-time work in retirement.