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bloodygranuaileFor various personal reasons (namely, changing jobs) I figured it was high time I read this book that my mom lent to me last year, Hannah Sigelson’s New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches. Whether or not it will prove to be useful in my new jobs remains to be seen, but it certainly seems to be full of very good advice! It’s quite well-researched—the author interviewed a ton of highly successful career women and also a ton of young women who had recently entered the workforce. There’s a fairly heavy focus on white-collar corporate jobs—the kind of thing that requires a college degree—but since that is actually the kind of jobs I have I am not complaining.
The book is short and readable, although there are times when I think it gets a bit twee/buzzwordy in the way it discusses certain concepts (the book is less than 200 pages long but it has a seven-page glossary). It covers a good breadth of topics, from dealing with bad bosses to what “mentoring” actually means. Some of it seems pretty obvious—flirting at work isn’t good for getting taken seriously, that sort of thing—but other information is much less so, like how to avoid getting stuck with all the assistant/administrative tasks just because girls tend to be better at them. It also discusses stuff like perfectionism and, near the end of the book, takes a turn for the fairly explicitly feminist and discusses the dangers of inter-female sabotage, both as a concrete possible problem at work and as part of the larger picture of women in the working world and the social forces that shape our success or lack of it.
Overall I’d say it seems like a good recommendation for any other young women looking for or just starting work.
The book is short and readable, although there are times when I think it gets a bit twee/buzzwordy in the way it discusses certain concepts (the book is less than 200 pages long but it has a seven-page glossary). It covers a good breadth of topics, from dealing with bad bosses to what “mentoring” actually means. Some of it seems pretty obvious—flirting at work isn’t good for getting taken seriously, that sort of thing—but other information is much less so, like how to avoid getting stuck with all the assistant/administrative tasks just because girls tend to be better at them. It also discusses stuff like perfectionism and, near the end of the book, takes a turn for the fairly explicitly feminist and discusses the dangers of inter-female sabotage, both as a concrete possible problem at work and as part of the larger picture of women in the working world and the social forces that shape our success or lack of it.
Overall I’d say it seems like a good recommendation for any other young women looking for or just starting work.
