Booklife Review
This review was originally published on Booklife.com.
"Yang also draws on her own experiences to demonstrate that, yes, finding a job in five days is possible—she’s done it—but also the importance of holding to one’s personal beliefs and morals, urging readers to define their core values and then stand for them."
With a title like The 5-Day Job Search, readers might expect that this guide to “securing a job offer within five days” is overpromising its utility. But Yang’s book, jam-packed with helpful advice on how to manifest the life you want by finding a career you love, is actually about putting in the work to be able to start such a job search—with encouraging tips and clear, non-nonsense prose, she urges readers to put in the work and then bet on themselves that they can make it happen. Coaching readers to get to that point, Yang provides straight talk, blunt business practices, and tools that are easy to follow but demand drive and persistence. "The most important promises you make are the promises you make to yourself,” she writes.
Yang’s advice is extensive and specific, covering many nuts-and-bolts job-hunt topics like personal branding, addressing skill gaps, crafting compelling anecdotes from past work experiences, and even picking Zoom backgrounds. She also draws on her own experiences to demonstrate that, yes, finding a job in five days is possible—she’s done it—but also the importance of holding to one’s personal beliefs and morals, urging readers to define their core values and then stand for them. The guide’s three-part structure, split between "Possibility," "Preparation," and "Opportunity,” fits the narrative structure of many successful job searches, from a process of discovery, work on understanding and presenting one’s self, and clearly directed, results-oriented action.
Yang explains key steps to laying the groundwork to be able to present one's self as a hard worker and invaluable asset, including creating an intentional online footprint, becoming comfortable with public speaking, and increasing typing speed. Accomplishing that makes the final section, and the promise of the title, much less daunting. There, Yang explains with precision how to create potential job opportunities by applying to 50 jobs a day, crafting attention-grabbing resumes, and learning how to negotiate a salary without fear.
Takeaway: No-nonsense guide to forging a career path and demonstrating one’s value.
