Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career [Paperback]

If you itch to change careers but have made little or no progress, chances are this book will help you understand why .. and what you can do about it.

With it's core "just get out and experiment" message it's a very useful antidote to conventional career advice which holds that the key to making a sucessful change lies in first knowing with as much clarity and certainty what we want to do and then using that knowledge to implement a sound strategy.

It's a powerful message although whether it needed such a long book to present it is debateable. That said, the stories it tells of other career changers are more than just padding - they are illuminating and interesting if a little narrowly focused on professionals.

There is not much in the way of specific tips and advice, but then that is perhaps unsurprising given that the author advises that you go out and find what works for you.

Overall, a very good read for those caught up in the agony of self-analysis that precedes many attempts to change careers.

NB This is a book for career changers rather than job changers.

"Working Identity" is a book about making a drastic career change - that is, leaving your unsatisfying profession behind and beginning to do something that's really fulfilling for you.

There must be lots of people who feel vague dissatisfaction with their current lives but can't figure out what's wrong. There are countless books on that subject that tell you to sit down and ponder over what kind of stuff you would like to do, and write it down in minutest detail. I have filled out dozens of slightly different questionnaires over all these years, done all kinds of exercises trying to uncover that knowing that was supposed to be buried somewhere deep inside of me, and ended up none the wiser. In my late thirties, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

"Working Identity" is the first book I've seen that clearly spells out what my long-time first-hand experience has so clearly demonstrated to be true - that you can't find your true calling by self-reflection. On the contrary - you can only find out what would make you happy by trying stuff out and seeing what you enjoy and what you don't.

Well, then, what help does this book offer? The short answer is: apart from moral support, nothing.
I did find it very comforting to learn that I wasn't some kind of a freak unable to achieve ultimate happiness by fast and simple methods everyone else seemingly uses. But other than that, the book contains just anecdotes about people who experimented around and eventually found something they wanted to spend their lives doing. I didn't even read them all.

Of course, it's clear to me that one can't expect to get things from a book that can only be learned by doing. Still, the book could have been much better. In particular, I disliked three things:
1. Too many times, the author seems to have put random English words one after another just to fill pages.
2. Lots of profound-sounding but actually empty phrases, which are probably meant to make this book appear more serious or something. Just look at that utterly meaningless diagram on page 12.
3. Repeated stressing of how it's all going to be so difficult and confusing and depressing, and how it's supposed to be that way, and how it's inevitable, and how you can never expect to change your life in a smooth and easy way.

That said, it's quite possible that reading a five-page article (to which the essential content of this book could be summed up to) wouldn't have gotten the message through to me. Sometimes you need a book just to shake you up, to tell you that you've been on the wrong track. In that sense, the book served its purpose and deserves 3 stars.

"Find a job you enjoy and never work a day in your life"

This book shows how other people have made the transition to working at what they enjoy and becoming successful in the terms that satisfy them. If you are looking for direction in your working life, this is a great place to start. It will help you think about what it is that you really want to do and inspire you to realise that doing what you really want to do is the truest and most satisfying way to succeed in your own terms.

If success really is a journey rather than a destination, this book shows you how to choose a journey that you will actually enjoy. (If you can see light at the end of the tunnel, you really need to ask yourself what you are doing in the tunnel in the first place.)

This is an excellent book on this subject and it really helped me gather my direction in working life. Being such a good book, I ended up lending it to a friend so my next move will be to acquire another copy!