Hello, everyone! Recently I’ve finished reading the book “50 ways to get a job” by Dev Aujla, and now I want to share my insights about this book.
The author of this book is Dev Aujla. Dev Aujla is a middle-aged man, who lives and works in New York. Dev Aujla is a chief executive officer (CEO) of Catalog. Catalog is a recruiting firm that provides advisory services for companies. For example, Catalog has provided talent and strategy to some of the world’s most innovative companies, including BMW, Good Magazine, Change.org, and Planned Parenthood. His work and writing achievements have been featured in dozens of media outlets such as the NY times, Glamour, the Globe, etc.
He has written two books that became popular, and they are considered really useful for people. The first book is the book that I’ve read — ‘50 ways to get a job’, and the second one is called ‘Making good: finding meaning, money and community in a changing world’. As you probably see from the titles of the books, they aim at telling people about how to find a good job, about business and a wise attitude to money.
Dev Aujla believes he is a successful person, and he wants other people to achieve their goals too, so his books are aimed at helping people with that. I think his own success motivates him to aid others.
The main idea of the book is the existence of only two types of jobs: a) a job that brings a lot of stress and plays on your nerves b) an ideal job that you don’t treat like a job but like work that you love to do because it brings positive emotions. If you want to have the second type of job, you should read “50 ways to get a job” as the author promises that the reader will find a job that suits him/her best.
The author suggests not only acquire the theory but do the quick-step exercises that will aid a job seeker at every stage of his/her career. For example, to make a list of a reader’s skills; to write an e-mail to someone a reader doesn’t know; to record himself/herself in a stressful situation.
I liked the structure of the book, for me it seems logical: it develops from some simple tasks that won’t take you a lot of time (like finding a friend who’s in the same situation as you) to the exercises that need time and energy (for example, working for free or going on a solo trip). The book leads the reader from the beginning of a job search process to the stage of finally being hired. The actions of a reader at different stages of this uneasy process are described in the following parts: starting, finding your purpose, overwhelmed, learning new skills, networking, stuck, applying for jobs, interviewing, happy. However, I should mention that the main thoughts are not supported by the strong arguments, and I believe this book does lack them because at every stage I didn’t get a clear idea why I should do it this way and not the other way. A reader has no other choice but acquire information with the whole trust in what the author tells us, and personally, I didn’t always agree with the author, so I needed good comments on some of the author’s suggestions.
The cultural component plays an important role in this book, and it’s so significant that while reading I thought several times that this method wouldn’t work in our culture. I believe for the American culture this book will be more useful, but for Russian culture some pieces of the author’s advice would be a burden to implement. For example, the author gives the names of the American websites where a job seeker needs to upload his application, but it’s fine because in Russia we also have many websites of recruiting but they’re just called differently (job-hunter, etc.) However, there are such things that vary on the cultural level, and some ideas of, for instance, improving networking won’t work in our country. But again, I judge from my own perspective, and I could be wrong about it.
Still while reading this book I’ve found quite many ideas and thoughts that are relevant for me and my worldview. I’d love to practice the four particular things when I feel overwhelmed (I’ve already written about them earlier), and this list of the things is a great reminder for me when I’m stressed out. I’ve gotten familiar with the concept of switching plans when these changes are beyond my own personal margin of safety, and the concept of living with the less. These concepts are very attractive not to try to apply them on my life and see the result.
As for the application of the author’s ideas to my job search, I’ve highlighted some ideas that I’d like to try to accomplish as they seem helpful to me. I’m talking about such things as practicing different ways of introducing myself; recording myself in a stressful situation and analyzing it after; finding the right job title. The third idea was educational because I’ve learned that constantly appearing new job titles are very similar to jobs that have always existed, but these new companies just sell a new type of product.
To sum it up, I’d like to say that I definitely do not regret that I’ve read “50 ways to get a job” as I’ve gotten food for thought, and actually assignments that I’d like to do when I have more free time and a strong necessity to find a job.
