Last Sunday I Met with Penelope Trunk who wrote BRAZEN CAREERIST The New Rules for Success; in this post I'll review Penelope's BRAZEN CAREERIST book.
I did read the entire book - did not skim the pages and Penelope Trunk signed my copy (with a nice paragraph).
Some of ideas Penelope puts forth in direct and unconventional way are as follows:
- The American Dream for Gen X/Y is not about money or security - it's about fulfillment and is measured by leisure time to spend more free time for things Gen X/Y enjoy doing.
- Changing jobs often is the norm for Gen X/Y and it's more important to grow and learn - there's no job security, no pension and usually no long term prospects with any company, any longer.
- However, when your working for someone, your chief job is to make your boss happy.
- Authenticity is the most valued quality of Gen Y - being genuine, doing things you know and believe in and not doing things you don't believe in.
- You get hired for a job because you are liked, not because your competent - being hired is a measure of how comfortable your interviewers feel with you and if they like you enough to want to work with you. You can study and prepare for an interview and it's very helpful to become a story teller - find a way to tell your story.
- Sex Discrimination is here to stay - and it's best, according to Penelope, to realise it's happening and do your best to ignore it, transfer to another department or find another job (she mentions that fighting Sex Discrimination directly usually does not work and ends up being a bad career move for many Woman - and she gives examples from her own life (she follows her own advise).
- It's important to work hard, but not too hard, and not to be the hardest worker but the smartest work, or at least, a smarter worker.
- Electronic communication can't improve the relationships you don't have with your coworkers - you need some face time.
There's a lot more in BRAZEN CAREERIST that is much different than you'll read in any career book I've seen before this - Penelope cuts her own path and makes a convincing case for her approach to the workplace and work/life balance.
One thing that came up when we met last week - children with Social Autism (IE: Asperger's Syndrome) have, or are going to have a very hard time finding jobs and keeping them because Autistic people lack key social skills, despite being brilliant.
As a result, I hope Penelope Trunk writes her next book (or a future book - it does not have to be the very next book) on how Autistic and Socially Challenged children can find jobs and hold down a normal life / job, etc. It's not an easy job, Penelope would have her work cut out for her - but we both have interests in such a book being written - because we both have children that have those issues.
In fact, growing up, it's possible I had/have some of those same issues and my life has not been easy (at least, to me it's seemed very hard - maybe to someone else …they'd say my life was easy).
I would have thought that with so much of life today being dominated by the Internet - a brilliant but socially autistic child can thrive and find work - I believe, is still true. However, what Penelope says is also true - you can't get or hold down jobs if you don't get along with / like the people you work with and vice versa.
As far as buying this book - I think everyone would benefit from reading it and I'm sure BRAZEN CAREERIST will be a success for Penelope Trunk - and lead to more books, and hopefully…the book I hope she'll someday write for her kid and mine.
Buy BRAZEN CAREERIST - you will like and learn a lot from this book!
