The Laidoff Ninja 237
walmass writes "My first reaction on seeing the book was, 'Oh no, another book with "Ninja" in the title.' But in this case, the authors have established a case for that: they explained that the first ninjas were peasants who could not take the abuse from the samurai anymore and how they used everyday objects as weapons." Keep reading to see what walmass has to say.
The authors are co-founders of The Layoff Support Network, which seems to be a collective knowledge-sharing site for people looking for jobs, and the authors say that the book distills the knowledge from the website collected over the past 2 years. The authors also started off by stating that this is not just a book about finding a job; this is also a book about surviving until finding a job. I think The Laidoff Ninja (henceforth, "LON") fares well on these claims.| The Laidoff Ninja | |
| author | Craig Brown and Javed Ikbal |
| pages | 278 |
| publisher | CreateSpace |
| rating | 9/10 |
| reviewer | walmass |
| ISBN | 1451558848 |
| summary | Learn techniques that helped hundreds of people survive unexpected unemployment |
The pre-ramble is listed as section zero (0) — perhaps not surprising considering the two authors are techies: information security is their day job. Keep that in mind when we look at what they manage to extract out of LinkedIn.
One thing I liked about this book right out of the gate is what the authors (or their editor?) decided to call "Quick-shot" guides. Instead of traditional table of contents, they have provided a listing of topics they thought might be interesting to the following types of readers:
- Job seekers with work experience.
- Recent graduates with limited work experience.
- People who are feeling "cash strapped."
- People who are feeling overwhelmed and emotionally distraught.
Considering the last bullet, I was not really surprised to see a section titled "Ninja Psychiatry." The authors made it clear that they do not have any formal training in Psychiatry and are not licensed to practice psychology, psychiatry or any mental health related profession. They then proceeded to dispense advice on feelings of Loss, Depression, Anxiety, Financial Worries and how to deal with rejection after interviews. The section ends with an admonition to say no to drugs, and encouragement to say yes to humor.
There are lots of "Guerrilla this" or "Ninja that" related to layoffs and job hunting, but I don't think I have come across any other book that addresses the mental aspects of being unemployed.
The next section, "Survival" contains a chapter titled "Pull money out of your butt." Crude but effective, and while whole books have been written about making money on eBay, LON addresses this in a practical way.
Frankly, I was a bit surprised to see LON come out and suggest people should not commit crimes when they are desperate for money. I think this would be obvious to any rational person.
There are some tips about maximizing your available financial resources by delaying payment on some utility bills. While legally OK, I question the morality of providing such advice to readers.
Part 4, "Getting a Job" is where the book begins to read like a traditional book, but there are some surprises and hidden gems there. The sections begin with a job-applications toolkit that recommends free email services, OpenOffice and other technological free-bees that would be required for a job-searcher. These are items that the typical Slashdot reader find amusingly basic, but would certainly be useful for seekers who have been out of the hunt for a while.
Part 5, "Finding opportunities" focuses heavily on LinkedIn. It contains a useful exercise where a job-seekers "needs and wants" are sorted in a "value sort" to determine what type of job would be suitable. But in the next breath, the authors suggest folding away the values-list and taking a job (any job) that will pay the bills. I fail to understand this contradictory advice, and wish they would make up their mind.
The LinkedIn content is useful, but only to a new user of LinkedIn. Experienced LinkedIn users may miss the nuggets buried among these basic facts.
Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are also covered. The well-known but often ignored warnings about being careful with what one posts on one's social networking profiles are posted here.
There is a scathing chapter on recruiters. While certain good qualities of recruiters are mentioned, it seems the authors generally believe that recruiters are uncaring commission-hounds that just want to place a candidate and don't care about individuals. The brutal honesty was refreshing, and I'd be curious whether a majority of Slashdot readers would agree or disagree with the authors.
If you consider that stress and anxiety for a jobless person comes from being, well, jobless, then Part 6, "Preparing for the battle" is the most important section in the book. It covers the basics like resumes, cover letters and elevator pitches, etc.
The next chapter is "Reconnaissance" and this is where the hacker background of the authors finally shows up. They show, with examples, how to find the name and email address of recruiters and HR people at practically any company. The theory being, if you can directly contact the HR people at a company, your resume will not be lost in the 1000 other resumes that people send in. There is just one problem with this theory being put into practice. The book assumes, and does not make abundantly clear, that without building up your network first to some reasonable degree this isn't easy to do. But after I have spent a few hours inviting people and joining groups as the book suggested, I was indeed able to pull up the names of some recruiters at Apple and Google. That accomplished, based on the techniques suggested in the LON, I was able to figure out their email addresses and email them. I hope spammers and marketing droids will not read this book and find out these techniques.
For example, I did not know that one could search Facebook by email and zero in on any individual. It is also a violation of my social norms to approach strangers on Facebook about jobs, but the authors provided guidance and specific examples on how to do that, and also when to step back and look for alternatives.
But some of the techniques, such as querying "whois" records to find out the email address format used by a particular company may not be for the average non-technical Joe, and also seem to skirt ethical boundaries without exactly stepping over the line.
This chapter alone is probably worth the price of the book
The book is a good value at 278 pages and the authors have not done any "white space tricks" to make it seem bigger. A laid-off person would probably appreciate the price/performance of this book.
Overall, "The Laidoff Ninja" is an extremely valuable resource on dealing with the mental stress and anguish that may come from being laid off. It presents creative and novel ways of finding jobs by leveraging social media. The book is a tool in itself that can help the reader survive and prepare for the battle that is a job-search, and do it in a highly effective way.
This book is an excellent value if you need help dealing with the stress of unemployment, or want an edge in reaching hiring managers or recruiters at potential employers. This book is not meant to teach you how to write your resume or cover letter. It will work for novice and experienced candidates alike, although the LinkedIn tricks would definitely favor a more technical reader. I highly recommend it.
You can purchase The Laidoff Ninja from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, I spent some time back in mid-to late 2001 laid off. Sending out hundreds of resumes and follow ups every day without any responses (other than canned messages, or companies that were interested, but weren't willing to hire me because they knew when the economy picked back up I'd be gone) gets really disheartening.
Luckily for me, I'd planned and prepared for being laid off, and honestly, got lucky that I got a job when I did. A lot of people on here state that you should have 6 months of "rainy day" money saved up for your living expenses. I agree with this 100%...if not for the money I'd set aside, I'd have been homeless most likely.
That's a scary thought, how quickly you could conceivably go from productive member of society to homeless.
From the article (Score:4, Insightful)
people should not commit crimes when they are desperate for money. I think this would be obvious to any rational person.
Um...no. Starvation drives people to the perfectly-rational extremes of stealing food (or stealing the means of obtaining food). Then, when they get caught, they get sent to jail, where they are provided with food, clothing, and shelter, all at the taxpayer's expense.
It is a symptom of severe economic decay when crime becomes a rational choice. However, that does not change the fact that a point can be reached when crime is, in fact, the most rational option.
Committing crimes (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I was a bit surprised to see LON come out and suggest people should not commit crimes when they are desperate for money. I think this would be obvious to any rational person.
How about because inciting a person to commit a crime is a criminal offense? And the authors like to stay out of pound-the-arse prisons?
Re:To everyone complaining about the positive revi (Score:4, Insightful)
If every book that gets reviewed receives a 7 through 10, what is the point of having a 1-10 scale since you could just as easily express it via a 1-4 scale, or better yet a 0-3 scale and store it directly in a two bit integer.
As an engineer (of any sort, even the armchair type) you should feel compelled to seek out the simplest method that gets the job done. While this may be a situation where aesthetics is called for over simplicity, that shouldn't stand in the way of a joke.
Interviews (Score:2, Insightful)
---
Job Hunting [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
Morality of providing such advice to readers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I was a bit surprised to see LON come out and suggest people should not commit crimes when they are desperate for money. I think this would be obvious to any rational person.
Unless of course, you're laid off form the banking industry, in which case, you can start a hedge fund. After all, if you're going to commit a crime, start with the legal ones.
There are some tips about maximizing your available financial resources by delaying payment on some utility bills. While legally OK, I question the morality of providing such advice to readers.
Good lord, aren't we all just a bit past that sort of sanctimonious BS? The banks and credit card companies would dig up sell our dead grandmothers for hamburger seasoning if it helped their quarterly numbers a bit. Do you think we really owe them *any* moral consideration?
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why it's so important to be a responsible adult and not leave yourself in a position where you depend upon the kindness of strangers.
There are times when you don't have a choice. It is impossible to plan for every eventuality and as a middle class person, it isn't possible to save enough money for long term layoff - let alone becoming unhireable. You can save and invest until you're blue in the face and then run into a long lay-off and burn through your savings. It's worse if you have health problems along the way. I don't care how much you save, if you get sick when unemployed, you get wiped out easily and then some. And then, you have crap on your MIB (medical information bureau) file and no employer will hire you because of that - one guy, a college educated guy, had to get a letter from a doctor that his congenital heart condition wouldn't affect his job performance - to drive a school bus. Having insurance, if you can afford it, doesn't make things much better: assuming you can even get it.
And during bad times, if you've been out of work for a while, employers just start passing you by because they think there's something wrong with you or that your skills are "rusty". They won't even check it out, they don't even bother because they think everyone else "knows" something that they don't know. And if you're middle aged or older; you're going to have some real problems.
Then there are the folks who say, "Well, just suck up your pride get any job."
Well guess what, a lot of people are in fact doing that and that's why there's this HUGE problem with under-employment along with unemployment. And that's assuming you CAN get a "lesser" job. I tried getting a roofing job (I grew up in the trades) and they wouldn't even talk to me - even though they have all these Mexicans on their payroll.
I hear all this talk about being "responsible" from folks who really don't know how bad it is out there and it really gets depressing - like shoving a 9mm in the mouth depressing. Others who are old enough are just retiring early because that's all they can do. And being out of work sucks, btw. The stigma of being an out of work bum or being called "irresponsible" is heart wrenching. Is there something wrong with me? Maybe, but no one ever says anything so you just keep sending out resumes wondering what's happening.
Starting something one your own? Ha! I started a business and got tons of calls from other IT guys - website designers, admins, you name it - that market for IT support is saturated beyond belief! It was like "dude, I don't need your services. Do you need mine?" Unfucking believable!
Volunteering is nice and it keeps one busy but the thing is, you can't pay student loans volunteering. And no, volunteering does not lead to employment; at least these days.
I don't expect anyone to understand - and no one ever does because they've never have had to live it.
Re:Yeah (Score:1, Insightful)
I had my job taken from me 3.5 years ago now. (Quick story, I found the executives with a nice little vendor kickback/embezzelment scheme, and I quickly got fired). Anyways, I moved from Silicon Valley to a smaller town (pop 300k or so) to raise a family, and the wife had a good job opportunity. We BARELY get by on her salary, and I still can't find any work. Like many of you, my education and experience has made me very overpriced for this market, and I've been living off savings for the whole time. (I never bought fancy things, so, oh well, there goes my retirement savings.) We love where we live, have family nearby to help with the kids, and the environment is wonderful. That's what's keeping me here. Wife & I could find jobs elsewhere, but we'd give all that up, and be back in a geography we probably wouldn't like. Its the emergency plan, but I hope it doesn't come to that.
So, in summary:
* yes, have a LOT of cash saved up.
* do not count on ANYONE who doesn't share your same last name. (Friends can scatter when you need them, at least most of them.)
* I don't think most people realize how close to insolvency they really are. That, too, is scary.
This has been a humbling experience, that in the end has only relit my spirit to be independent, as well as increased my anger at our fascist corporatism.
Wish me luck.
Re:Interviews (Score:5, Insightful)
Interviewers, especially in the technical interview, are looking for people they want to work with. This means they want people who are technically competent, but more importantly people who they can get along with. The better you are at being the kind of person most people (at least most people in your field) can get along with, the better off you'll be.
Re:unemployment and homelessness (Score:3, Insightful)
It is one thing to couch-surf when you are single. When you have a family (and even in your case, perhaps one medical emergency away from wiping out a year's savings) one becomes less sanguine about it.
Re:Morality of providing such advice to readers? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The banks and credit card companies would dig up sell our dead grandmothers for hamburger seasoning if it helped their quarterly numbers a bit. Do you think we really owe them *any* moral consideration?"
Of course not, but you do owe it to yourself.
There's an old story about a New York Feminist coming to Atlanta for a business meeting in the 80s and getting offended when one of the locals held a door open for her. She snapped at him "You don't have to hold the door for me just because I'm a lady!"
He looked back unblinking and said "I'm not. I'm holding it because I am a gentleman."
Integrity isn't about what other people deserve, it's about what standards you hold yourself to--regardless of others' behaviour.
Re:Yeah (Score:1, Insightful)
I have been out of work for 3 years. Count that.. 36 months. I am also the only person I know who actually had 6 months of rainy day money, but that went very quickly (well, 6 months seem quick when you don't have a job)
I am deemed "over-qualified" by many. I am 44 years old, so that also hurts although the employers won't admit it.
Oh sure, I've had consulting gigs in between but for short periods of time. Tried out Best Buy GeekSquad and worked for a pimply 27-year old at the princely sum of $12.70/hour (their best rate?)
Luckily I have family who supported me, but this is not sustainable.
I may end up killing myself. Seriously.
Pray for me.
Re:From the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it rational to put yourself and your own needs above the needs of others?
In general, yes.
On the whole, though, society works better and is more stable when individuals put others first
I'm not aware of any such society as this. Can you point to a single example anywhere in the world that exists today?
Social/liberal democratic societies don't fulfill this claim, obviously, as they are in general better for everyone than socialist (China) or corporate/oligarchic (America) societies. But neither do socialist or corporate/oligarchic societies count as ones where people put the needs of others ahead of their own.
The difference between healthy social/liberal democratic societies and sick socialist or corporate/oligarchic societies is not that people put their own interests ahead of others in the latter but not the former. It is the system of checks and balances that exist in social/liberal democratic societies that effectively balances the competing interests of individuals, and a mature recognition on the part of the members of those societies that such a balance is to their own benefit.
I would have thought that after the blood-soaked lessons of the 20th century no one would be dumb enough to suggest that any attempt to organize a society based on the good of the abstract multitude rather than the concrete individual is a good idea. I guess there really is no limit to the depths of human ignorance, or the willingness of the arrogant new generation to repeat the same errors as the previous generations and still feigning suprise when exactly the same causes have exactly the same effect.
Re:From the article (Score:1, Insightful)
"If it weren't for starvation Humanity just would have stayed in the caves all day untill they all withered away and died."
Withered away and died of what?
Re:From the article (Score:0, Insightful)
People being forced to choose between becoming criminals and starving is a failure of the social system, not the legal system.
http://www.amazon.com/Miserables-Everymans-Library-Victor-Hugo/dp/0375403175 [amazon.com]
Re:Reconnaissance can go horribly wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
"AND the "client" get blacklisted by our HR department when I forward the message onward."
you fucking asshole.
Why would you black list their client? IT's not their fault, there not breaking any rules.
The assumption is their some magical way for them to KNOW how your company goes through this process.
It's like you coming to a job interview and me not hiring you because didn't like the way your company behaved.
What that? you worked for Hershey? well 40 years ago they accidental harmed some people they where actually trying to help, so no fucking way I'm hiring you. I mean, how technically competent could you possible be?
Re:From the article (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong.
The legal system has been used destructively, to extort large penalties from desperately poor people who are of course unable to either fight or pay. Once in violation of the law, and with no way to set things right, they can start on a downward spiral. They now have a criminal record which makes getting a job much, much harder. A few more petty crimes on the record suddenly doesn't matter too much, particularly when you're hungry.
This is why social safety nets are so important. "Soup kitchens" and homeless shelters provide enough that these unfortunates do not have to turn to crime. They can still be law abiding citizens. You might think these safety nets are for lazy bums, that it enables people to be ungrateful, undeserving slackers. That people in such dire straits have only themselves to blame. No. Even if some undoubtedly are bums, the safety nets are not just sops for bleeding hearts. They're also so you and I can go about our business without being attacked by starving mobs furious that we have to wealth to feed everyone but for some incomprehensible reason just won't. And even more furious that we have the arrogance and gall to rub salt in their wounds, blaming them for being victims, and asserting, most unconstructively, that it's because they're a bunch of whining, stupid, lazy losers. You know, like what Phil Gramm said in the last presidential election. The media can always find a whiner. But is such a person representative? Often not. There are many reasons why good citizens could end up homeless: natural disasters, ruined by medical expenses arising from an accident, robbed, unpaid because their employer cheated or went bankrupt, or simply studied the wrong subjects in high school.
It's damned mean and heartless to pass judgment on their competence, particularly in cases when it is our policies that have directly contributed to the problem! "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). It doesn't help. As if having to crawl to a homeless shelter or apply for food stamps isn't shame enough, trying to further shame people into doing better presumes that they can, that the system isn't rigged against them. Blaming them is an all too convenient excuse not to fix problems with the system. It's big time hypocritical. And I know that it can happen to anyone. It could happen to you, or me. "There but for the grace of God go I". Maybe you're young enough that you've never been nailed with an unfair parking ticket or other petty violation. Or cheated out of your pay by an unscrupulous employer. Someday it'll happen, and then maybe you'll begin to understand, and you won't say outrageous stuff like "well, he should have known better" when it is obvious he couldn't have. You can't think of everything.
Periodically, the authorities realize that the worst of these sorts of laws are causing more problems than they're worth, and make changes, and perhaps declare an amnesty.
Lest you think what I'm saying is just so much hot air, here is an example. A few years ago, Texas thought to raise more revenue by attaching large fines to moving violations. This is the Driver Responsibility Program. Read about it here [dallasnews.com] The governor supports it not because it makes our highways safer or is in the public interest, but because it supposedly generates more revenue for the state. Michigan is also trying a similar stunt. In Michigan, it's possible to lose your driver's license without you even being informed! You may find out about it only if you are stopped, and then you get nailed for driving without a license in addition to whatever else it was you allegedly did. Talk about dirty pool. What these laws have really done is turn a bunch of poor citizens into criminals. It's a stellar exhibit in the kind of "kick them when they're down" viciousness and damaging brutality that does more harm than good.