Reef Breaks

Awesome woman surfer; photo from here.
 It's your fifth day on the couch, cuddled up with your laptop. You're trying to sell yourself without sounding cheap, which is difficult considering it's 3:30 p.m. and you're still in your penguin pajamas. The momentary glee from browsing travel sites is dampened by the realization that you're spending your vacation fund on your student loans (oh, the agony!). Those wretched AES people may be surfing the Banzai Pipeline, but you're stuck surfing job sites. What to do? Beside attempting to rig a contest so your nemesis wins a lifetime supply of Marmite, you can catch up on reading. Off to Amazon with ye!

Against my better judgment, I binge-bought job-searching books to see if they'd really help me land that glittering, light-from-heaven, angels-singing job. I intend to report back my findings to see if they smooth out job surfing, or just plain wipeout. Here are the victims:

What Color is Your Parachute? 2011 by Richard N. Bolles
This appears to be the industry standard. Mr. Bolle's tome has evidently sold a bajillion copies, so at first blush it seems promising. Let's just hope this blush isn't of the sheepish, gee-whiz variety.

Knock 'em Dead Cover Letters: Great letter techniques and samples for every step of your job search (Cover letters that knock 'em dead) by Martin Yate
 I hate cover letters. My idea of a good cover letter is "Hi. I'm awesome. Please hire me. Signed, me." But opinions from Internet cover letter sages differed so much that I had to find some objective guidance. It's a little weird coming from a journalism grad, but I can write about anyone else. Ask me to write about myself, and I freeze. If this doesn't defrost me, I'll be using this as a doorstop.

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0: 1,001 Unconventional Tips, Tricks and Tactics for Landing Your Dream Job by Jay Conrad Levinson
I admit it. I solely picked the book because of the word guerrilla in the title. I want to see if I can really sneak up on hiring managers, my face streaked in camouflage grease, and beatifically whisper, "I'm following you on Twitter. Please hire me."







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