Asher - How to get any job : life launch & relaunch for everyone under 30 (or how to avoid living in your parents basement)

Copyright 2004, 2009 by Donald Asher. All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Asher, Donald.

How to get any job: career launch & re-launch for everyone under 30, (or how to avoid living in your parents basement) / Donald Asher.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: How to get any job with any major : career launch & re-launch for everyone under 30, or, how to avoid living in your parents basement. 2004.

1. Job hunting. 2. Success in business. 3. Career development. I. Asher, Donald. How to get any job with any major. II. Title.

HF5382.7.A839 2009

650.14dc22

2009012096

eISBN: 978-0-307-79768-1

v3.1

For Danaelle and Nora

Note: The names of some, but not all, of the students used in the case studies have been changed. Some conversations and details have been reconstructed from memory and are based on more than twenty years of experience helping students launch their careers.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to every career center staff member who has ever advised me and shared resources and tips and techniques with me over the years, and this is literally hundreds of dedicated professionals. At the risk of omitting major contributors, and there have been so many, let me call particular attention to my debt to Dr. Robert Greenberg, NACE Fellow and former director of career services at the University of Tennessee, and founder of the Professional Development Series sponsored by the University of Tennessee and used by career centers nationwide; Russ Coughenour, current director at Tennessee, who is carrying on the fine tradition; Alan D. Ferrell, director of executive education at the Krannert School of Management, Purdue University; Midge Browning, director of academic and career advising at Principia College (and the one who first called my attention to the fact that the current generation does not identify with the word career) and her colleague James Brandt; Tom Francis, formerly director of career services at Swarthmore College, and an early influence; renowned educational consultant Dr. Howard Figler; Julie Kern Smith with the career center at Reed College; Anne Hardin Ballard, director of the career center at Linfield College; Bob Fisher, managing director, National Education Empowerment Foundation, Inc., at www.collegecareerlifeplanning.com, who provided valuable criticism of the first edition and improved this book; Dr. Orlando Taylor, dean of the graduate school at Howard University, on general principal; and Denise Rhiner, my long-time research assistant. I also want to express my appreciation to Louise Paradis at Portland State University for material she shared with me from her excellent career development game. Veronica, Chris, Michael, Kirsty, Lorena, and Phil, you know who you are, and I want you to know I appreciate all youve done for me on this book and on all the others. And I will forever be grateful to my mother, Dr. Ruby Ausbrooks, a colleague and an inspiration; Dr. Judy Jones, my mentor for decades; and Lisa Bertschi, my astoundingly wonderful wife.