Life, leadership, and career advice from Tom Murry: “Everything I do needs to be like a Calvin Klein suit.” • “It has to be iconic, legendary, and let its brand speak for itself. • It has to be impeccably precise and carefully considered. • It has to be tasteful, timeless, and elegant, with nothing unnecessary getting in the way. • And most important, it has to make people feel great.” Tom Murry headed Calvin Klein as CEO for seventeen years during a time of massive growth and success for the company. In his first book, Murry describes his decades of experience as a leader in the world of fashion along with personal advice on how he made it to the top of the profession he was destined to have—and how we can do the same in our careers. Murry gives us glimpses of well-known fashion personalities, institutions, and events, and in an easy-going, humble narrative, takes us from his childhood in Houston to the most influential runways of the world, including his travels around the globe and a stint on an oil rig as a young man. Equally important are Murry’s takeaways on what qualities he believes it takes to become a good leader and how we can use them to achieve success in any workplace. This is not a how-to, but rather a thoughtful and straightforward look at the talents and grace that allowed Murry to thrive in his chosen career. Everyone, no matter their career or stage in life—or their knowledge of or interest in the fashion world—will find this book a fun, informative, and inspirational gift from an author who wants everyone to enjoy the same success in their career that he has.

The Fit Factors guides readers through the challenges regarding career decisions, the solution for making smart decisions, and how to proactively manage your career from the job hunt to promotions. An excellent companion to StrengthsFinder 2.0, The Fit Factors will help you build on your strengths to find the best job and build a great career.This book explains:- How to evaluate jobs using The Fit Factors- How companies and job seekers have different goals- How to ensure recruiters look at your resume- What companies are not telling you about their workplace- Why setting goals needs to happen before your interview- Interviewing the interviewer- What to do on your first day at a new job- The best way to develop in your careerFrom the Author:The goal of this book is to level the playing field between you and the companies you'll work for. I want to help you make smart decisions about your next job and your overall career. In doing so, I'll give away some Human Resources strategy secrets used by sophisticated companies. Fortunately, explaining these secrets is a good thing for everyone involved, because everyone wants you to succeed. On the day you are hired, your new manager and company hope that you will be their next "star" - that you'll end up in the right job, performing well, developing at work and helping them grow the business. By becoming familiar with HR strategies, you'll be better equipped to help them get their hiring decisions right and take advantage of the recruiting process they've created.I've been focusing on how to make the right job decisions for over ten years, from three perspectives: as a consultant, an employer, and as a mentor. Most recently, I've spent the last six years advising HR executives at major corporations on their recruitment, employee performance and retention strategies. Through thousands of meetings with executives, I clearly saw the contrast between employer and employee, recruiter and job seeker, executive and their talented workforce. Prospective employees do not understand what is happening "behind the curtain" when it comes to HR strategy - and if they did, they would be embarrassed at how unprepared they are to manage their own careers.Second, as an entrepreneur starting my first venture during the dot-com boom, I wanted to figure out whom to hire and how to help my team members succeed. Around that time, I discovered a variety of self-assessments that we could use to help tailor our responsibilities to our unique abilities. My goal was to determine which activities people were naturally better at than everyone else at the office and give them a chance to build their job and career around those things.Lastly, as a result of my time inside large recruiting organizations and building my own teams, I found many friends and mentees asking me for guidance regarding their own job searches. In those conversations, I tried to learn more about the person's strengths, interests, and goals, with the hope of helping them understand themselves better and search for jobs in a more focused way. Unfortunately, I found that most people did not have a way to figure out what they were good at, what they wanted in a job, and what jobs would best fit them.The frameworks, diagrams, data and quotes in this book that are the result of hundreds of conversations with managers, executives, mentees, job seekers and individuals interested in connecting what they are good at to what they do at work. Many of the pages had their beginnings as quick lists written over coffee with a mentee or as a grid I drew on the whiteboard as I considered who to hire into my team.Great careers don't just happen - that's why I wrote this book.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth—the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries—from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete—Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.

Great on the Job offers a much-needed "people skills" primer and masterclass in all facets of workplace communication Do you know how to ask for help at work without sounding dumb? Do you know how to get valuable and useful feedback from your colleagues? Have you mastered your professional elevator pitch so that every time you meet someone, they remember and are impressed by you? If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you need Great on the Job. In 2008, Jodi Glickman launched Great on the Job, a communications consulting firm whose distinguished client list includes Harvard Business School, Wharton, The Stern School of Business, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup. Now, Glickman's three-step training program is available in book form for the first time. With case studies, micro strategies, and example language, readers will learn communication skills that can be practiced and implemented immediately. In today's economy, it's not typically the smartest, hardest working or most technically savvy who succeed. Instead, the ability to communicate well is often the most important precursor to success in the workplace. So whether you're a star performer or a struggling novice, Great on the Job will give you the building blocks you need for every conversation you'll have at work.

"In this definitive guide to the ever-changing modern workplace, Kathryn Minshew and Alexandra Cavoulacos, the co-founders of popular career website TheMuse.com, show how to play the game by the New Rules. The Muse is known for sharp, relevant, and get-to-the-point advice on how to figure out exactly what your values and your skills are and how they best play out in the marketplace. Now Kathryn and Alex have gathered all of that advice and more in The New Rules of Work. Through quick exercises and structured tips, the authors will guide you as you sort through your countless options; communicate who you are and why you are valuable; and stand out from the crowd. The New Rules of Work shows how to choose a perfect career path, land the best job, and wake up feeling excited to go to work every day-- whether you are starting out in your career, looking to move ahead, navigating a mid-career shift, or anywhere in between"--