Top 10 Books to Read When Considering a Career Change

So you’re thinking about a career change. Whether you’ve been planning this for a while or simply want to start considering changing your job, it pays to do your research into the topic and weigh up what options lie ahead of you. From evaluating the extent of your re-skilling to deciding what sector you’d like to move into, keeping a broad knowledge at your fingertips will be key in shaping your new career path. With that in mind, we’ve put together this list of books that you should check out if you’re considering a new direction in your professional life. 

1. What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles

Richard Nelson Bolles writes a best-selling book, with over 10 million copies sold, advising you on how to go about changing your career. In our uncertain times, his works speak to graduates recently leaving education, workers who’ve been let go during financial difficulty, and those who’ve become tired of their current work routine and who are looking to redefine their 9-to-5. Highlighting tips and advice that has worked time and time again, Bolles’ book is a revised collection of the best things you can do in your hunt for a new career. Buy it here.

2. The New Rules of Work: The ultimate career guide for the modern workplace by Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew

Founders of TheMuse.com Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew have written a book that aims to take you on a journey from choosing your new career path, to getting the job you want, all the way through to setting yourself up for your first day. Use of exercises and tips that the authors have found useful combines to provide you with the perfect insight on how to get ahead in your hunt and land the perfect pitches that will get you the role you’ve been dreaming of. Incorporating the modern, changing workplace, this book is a must-have for those trying to navigate the bold new world of recruitment. Buy it here.

3. Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron

Do What You are, by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron has already helped over a million readers to find their dream careers. Whilst the book was published in 2007, in a corporate world very different to the one we inhabit today, one thing has remained constant: the magnetic pull of certain careers to certain personalities. Using the tried-and-tested Myers Briggs personality test, the book identifies your personality type and then suggests tips and career choices that match your personality type. Through workbook-style exercises, Do What You Are calls to your identity at its core to help you consider where you want to be when you work. Buy it here.

4. Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One by Jenny Blake

As the title suggests, Jenny Blake’s book focuses on small movements, from things within your own control. By pivoting towards your next move, Blake teaches you how you can answer the big “what next?” question that we get every time we reach a goal. Blake worked in career development for Google before starting her own business advising on pivoting in careers, and she utilises excellently her own experience and findings to help you take control of your career change. From this book, you’ll learn to bolster your skills, constantly be on the scan for new opportunities, and be ready to pounce when pivoted into the necessary position to do so. Buy it here.

5. The Multi-Hyphen Method by Emma Gannon

Emma Gannon’s book teaches us that no matter what your work setup, there is no reason why you can’t live a fulfilled and financially healthy lives by using entrepreneurial skills. In a digital age beget by digital and social media, the ability to work from our phones and tablets presents an unique opportunity to begin exploring other opportunities and building social brands into businesses for us to step into. Gannon’s book explores these opportunities and shows how in an ever-changing world, we can grab opportunity by the horns and really make something for ourselves. Buy it here.

6. Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

For Burnett and Evans, one mantra is clear: whilst we continue to tell ourselves that if we truly love a job, we’ll never work a day in our lives, the vast majority of us do not know what we love. Passion, they say, is learned behaviour, at least for 80% of us. This book aims to teach you to “iterate” your plans: consider your options, design your move, redesign your options, redesign your move. Through consistently reconsidering and upgrading your outlook, you can avoid falling into pitfalls such as overthinking ruts on career changes. Burnett and Evans have turned their own experience of career change into something mechanical and methodical, and it's easy for you to join them at it. Buy it here.

7. Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte

Park your existentialism at the door because David Whyte’s book “Crossing the Unknown Sea” seeks to talk frankly about where your pay comes from, and exactly why it can have such an impact on how you feel about work. From examining the physiology of the workplace, to discussing and exploring methods to cope with it, Whyte brings a new angle to career change planning. Reflectiveness, meditation, and a high-mind mindset is what Whyte is teaching to provide philosophical insight into topics such as the corporate ladder and how you can tackle it. Whether looking to change career, or progress beyond your perceived limits in your own, this book is one to watch. Buy it here.

8. Get a Life, Not a Job, by Paula Caligiuri

Paula Caligiuri has highlighted the perfect escape from a career you aren’t enjoying: diversifying your “career acts”. These range from extracurricular events, even unpaid, to side-jobs, all of which can blossom into new careers and paths for you to take. Getting out to more networking events, starting a community group, attending a book club, airbnb-ing your spare room, tutoring etc - all present new and varied opportunities for you to find new streams of income and new sources of enjoyment as you do so, whilst offering the chance to grow into something fresh. From this short but informative read, you can begin to plan how you can diversify your options whilst keeping your income secure. Buy it here.

9. Strategize to Win: the New Way to Start Out, Step Up or Start Over in Your Career by Carla A. Harris

Carla Harris, managing director of Morgan Stanley, writes this super book that teaches you to analyse and focus on your career profile. By examining how you got to where you are, and what skills you have, you are able to properly define how you may start to make changes and moves in your career to build on your repertoire. Through offering step-by-step guides, Harris recommends building 5 year plans to help you figure out where you are and where you want to be in your career. Through these plans, you can make informed decisions and take important steps towards getting where you want to be, either in your existing career or in a new one all together. Buy it here.

10. The Work by Wes Moore

Wes Moore has done it all - from serving in the army, to working in the Whitehouse, to becoming a banker on Wall Street, The Work is a semi-autobiographical piece that seeks to use Moore’s experiences to make a profound point. That point, of course, is to find inspiration to live a life with purpose, and advice on how to find a way to do that. Moore draws on his own inspirations, the career-driven people who inspired him, to help you realise how you can actualise your success. Uniquely, unlike many career change books, Moore also chooses to deviate from standard paths on planning to talk about other important aspects: courage, risk-taking, and what sticking to a strong work ethic can do. Buy it here.

You can also join us on 8th November for a free workshop about navigating career changes. Click here to register.