Book Review: What’s That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It?

I love it when students recommend career books to me that I haven’t yet discovered.

The book, What’s That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It? The Inside Scoop on More Than 50 Cool Jobs from People Who Actually Have Them by David J. Rosen, was originally recommended to me by a former student assistant who worked at my career center.

Three Reasons Why I Like It

Overall, I enjoyed this book due to three primary reasons:

• The reason why I originally liked this book is because it put a unique spin on the job search and information about careers because of the way it is written. For instance, just by virtue of the title it is clear that this author’s style is quirkier and more humorous than many other career-related writers.

• In addition to writing in a humorous style, this author gives you the “inside scoop” on 50 different careers. What I liked about this list was that the careers are relatively current, such as a blogger, video game developer and multimedia designer, to name a few. I especially appreciate that the author gets the inside scoop from interviews with leaders in the field, so you feel like you are really getting an idea of what a day in the life is for these people.

• Finally, the author breaks this book down into many sub-categories per job.
  • The first paragraph usually explains what a person in the occupation does and then is followed by a common question or myth that is typically debunked.
  • After speaking to the qualities that would make a good fit for a certain occupation, the author speaks to the setting, hours and pay, followed by a stress-o-meter which looks at the aspects of a job and how stressful it can be.
  • He ends each section with a plan to getting more information on the occupation along with resources.

Bottom Line

I think that the strength of this book is the insider information as well as the humor it uses. For some people, you may not appreciate the humor he uses, which would would be the only weakness I could see.

However, over the course of 5-6 pages you can get great information on a particular occupation, along with resources and maybe even a laugh.

On Amazon, as of this writing, you can find it new for about $10.00 or less, and just like the student who originally recommended it, I also recommend it.

ISBN-978-0-7679-2612-6