In Your Essential Guide to Career Success, Sheila Pantry and Peter Griffiths draw on their personal experiences and case studies to bring out pertinent issues touching professionals in the information profession (could also be applied to other professions). Although the information contained in it mostly refers to UK, Europe, America and Canada, the principles apply elsewhere. The book is divided into ten chapters that are linked to each other except for the last one, which deals with case studies. However, each chapter could be read independently, depending on individual's specific needs.
Chapter one highlights the challenges of current employment market and how they impact the information professionals as regards to keeping abreast of new developments, including expanding and complex employment market and pattern that requires various skills. Skills required include management skills, language skills, negotiation skills, Web editing and the like.
Chapter two covers essential issues related to career plan, including a change in the nature of work from jobs for life to portfolio careers. It highlights what types of jobs are available and where. It also highlights what is happening in the traditional sectors: public, academic and special libraries and information services and what is happening in the “new” sectors: publishing packages, e‐publishing, Web controllers, media and research. Tips on risk assessment for jobs are given to guide one's decision regarding career path and other related matters.
Chapter three is centred on starting one's career. It covers job opportunities for people with information qualifications, searching the market place, where to find recruitment agencies, advertisements and advice, and factors to be considered when looking for a job. Chapter four deals with intricacies of applying for a job. These include understanding the advertisement, knowledge of the prospective employer, the role of referees, preparing curriculum vitae in line with the advertisement, information to be included and not to be included in the application letter and what to consider when choosing between two or more offers.
Chapter five discusses various issues pertaining to career plans including promotion plans. Specific issues covered relate to both change of jobs (similar or better) and promotions within an organisation or by joining another employer or by changing a sector altogether. This chapter also covers issues pertaining to working from home.
Chapters six and seven are devoted to interviews. Chapter six discusses what is involved in all stages of an interview: what interviewers look for, preparing for an interview, tips for improving chances in the interview, kinds of interviews, and other tests carried out as part of interviews. This chapter also covers at length recruitment and promotion interviews. Chapter seven covers post interview (recruitment and promotion interviews) considerations ranging from feedback on the performance, evaluation of the job offer, knowledge of the organisation to salaries and benefits.
While chapters one to seven are concerned with career development by taking permanent posts, chapter eight highlights opportunities that can come from using one's skills to do other work for one's employer or another organisation or to work independently as a consultant. And chapter nine covers other considerations in career planning. These include whether or not one is happy with the current job, motivators, benefits offered by other packages, mechanisms for tracking trends in pay, predictability of future plans, opportunities for work‐life balance, flexibility of working hours and or space and the like.
Chapter ten gives case studies from which an individual can learn from live experiences of others and ultimately revise one's plans (and strategies) where they exist or embark on drawing one where none exists.
As highlighted by the title of the book, this guide is an important tool that an information professional should not miss on his/her shelf, and a guide that should be kept in library reference collection.
