1998 (Knock 'em dead) - Softcover

I have been in the career management business for almost thirty years. I was an International headhunter, HR Honcho at a Silicon Valley technology company, and Director of Training for (what was then) the world’s third largest employment agency chain.

In short, just about ever since I got out of short trousers, I seem to have been involved in the world of career management from an unusual variety of professional viewpoints. This first hand knowledge of so many aspects of job hunting and career management offers me a wide frame of reference to make sense of the job hunting and career management challenges facing professionals today.

Since 1985 I have written and published ten books, each addressing some different area of career management concern. There’s plenty to write about, as our work lives typically spread themselves over half a century.

Although English, I have lived most of my so-called adult life in the U.S., which is where I developed most of my understanding of career management issues.

I wrote Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions while in the U.S., but for an out of work friend in England. The book was published first in the U.S. then a few months later in the UK.

Over the years I learned managers everywhere are looking for the same things in their employees, so I was convinced what worked in the U.S. would work for my buddy in England. When Great Answers came out, I was panned in the UK press, on radio, and TV as being unethical because I recommended moving our traditional loyalties from the corporation to your own economic survival, which was seen as heresy.

Fast-forward 16 years and the book is a perennial bestseller in the UK, the #1 job-hunting book. In the U.S., it is also a perennial bestseller and the 2nd bestselling book on the other side of the pond. It is also published around the world in a number of different languages - in French, German and Spanish in Europe alone.

"Why?" is the question. When I wrote the book I knew it was different, but at the time I didn’t have the frame of reference to put the work properly in context. Now 18 years down the line, I can.

Great Answers has worked for millions of readers around the country and the world. It provides solutions to the problems you face as a job hunter, based on an in depth understanding of the needs of the hiring side of the desk.

You don’t come to a book like this for a good read; you come because you have problems to solve. There is no padding in the Great Answer books; I cut right to the chase. On every page there is some action you can put right to work for the benefit of your job hunt.

The book covers the job hunt from A-Z, and if you follow my advice, in letter and in spirit, you will get a job and be better prepared to make a success of it from the career management lessons that are woven into the book.

The biggest strength of the book is the interview section. Here I give you over 200 questions and then tell you what is behind them and how to structure answers that will sell your candidacy without making you sound like a snake oil salesman ;-))

With the volatility of the job market, you probably realize that the job hunt you are contemplating is unlikely to be the last you will execute in your career. As such, you might as well learn to do it right at some point in your life.

Sometimes we choose our careers, and sometimes they choose us. I didn’t plan on doing this, but over the years it became clear that I have an unusual understanding of the job hunting and career management process, and a simple straightforward way of making that knowledge accessible to anyone who wants to get a grip on their professional lives.

I am one of two career management writers in the world who makes his living entirely from books. Economic survival of the individual is what I think about, everyday. The books I write are my considered response to the different issues that predict our economic survival.