10 Best Books for Career Guidance

Whether you're a new job seeker fresh out of college on the hunt for your first challenge or among the late-game career changers seeking out your dream job later in life, you may find yourself at a loss for the right steps to take on your journey. If this sounds like you, then you'd be smart to seek out help from books for career guidance. But how do you sort through the hundreds and hundreds of career development books out there? Different books take different approaches to the issue, from general interpersonal skills to specific techniques to actual job descriptions. I've taken the liberty of narrowing down some of the absolute best books for career guidance on the market today to help set you on the path for satisfaction and success in your quest for your ideal career.

As far as I'm concerned, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People is king among books for career guidance as well as guidance for life in general. Originally published in 1937, it is the grandfather of all life and career self-improvement books. The book explores the best methods to interact with other people and understand their point of view as well as helping them to understand yours.

This book has had a profound impact on me, personally, as my own dad gave me a copy when I was a wee lad. My dad has worked in marketing for decades and even released his own guide on sales, marketing, and life, all about what to do when Sex Sells but I'm Ugly. Another modern day offshoot of Carnegie's masterpiece is How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, which applies Carnegie's original model and updates it to include techniques specific to social media and other aspects of the business world in the modern era.

Never Eat Alone is another one of my favorite books. The core theme of this book centers on building beneficial business relationships. Keith Ferrazzi understands that hard work and persistence are important for the job hunters among us, but career success all too often depends not on what you know, but rather on who you know. Never Eat Alone teaches you to take advantage of every brief meeting, from the elevator pitch to the business lunch to standing in line at a coffee shop, because you never know what small chance meeting will help you land your dream job.

Adam Grant's Give & Take turns the traditional idea of career development on its head. Like many of my favorite career guidance books, this work focuses on the importance of relationships in the business world. Give & Take discusses three types of people, defined by their approach to interpersonal relationships: givers, takers, and matchers. These categorizations reminded me of biology class: matchers seek out symbiotic relationships ("I'll scratch your back if your scratch mine") while takers, for lack of a kinder word, act as parasites: taking advantage of what they can obtain without offering anything in return.

Give & Take argues that the third type—givers—serve to gain the most in the long run. As you have probably figured out, givers tend to put others' needs above their own, giving priority to helping their peers in both their personal and professional lives. Grant shows, through analysis of several real-world examples, that the support network garnered by givers eventually offers them greater success than either matchers or takers. This is one inspiring, if idealistic career guidance book that is definitely worth your time.

The selections on this list so far have been more general, and not necessarily the best choice for learning about actual career paths. 120 Jobs That Won't Chain You to Your Desk, compiled by Princeton Review, does just that. For many job hunters, finding that dream job isn't a matter of interpersonal skills, it's simply figuring out what sort of career paths are actually out there to explore. This no-frills compilation provides descriptions and information about 120 different career paths, with an emphasis on jobs that don't require you to sit in a cubicle all day.

The full title of this career design bible is The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success, and it is one of the most comprehensive books for career guidance money can buy. Nicholas Lore is an originator among career coaches, having founded the pioneering career guidance program The Rockport Institute, and his expertise shines through in The Pathfinder. This work is equally useful to those looking to switch careers successfully and first-time job hunters trying to find their ideal career for a lifetime of fulfillment.

The uniquely titled Strategy and the Fat Smoker takes an interesting angle on career development by focusing on the fact that most people know what they need to do to improve themselves but lack the grit to follow through and actually do whatever it is they need to do. Like the best books for career guidance, Strategy and the Fat Smoker is also effective as a guide for a more fulfilling life in general. The book functions almost like a collection of essays, with each chapter providing another angle of insight to help you find satisfaction and success in your personal and professional lives. By focusing on long term goals instead of short term gratification, Maister's work will help you find the grit you need to succeed and live a better life.

Todd Henry's Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day is a deep and powerful life and career development book that urges us to avoid a life of mediocrity. The book opens with a compelling fill-in-the-blank: "Before I die, I want to ______." The rest of the work explores what it means to take advantage of our finite lives and what it takes to fulfill our goals in the amount of time we have left. Henry doesn't shy away from deep concepts, making this one of the best books for long term satisfaction and success in life.

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." This quote, attributed to Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger, forms the basis of this anecdote-driven career success guide. Luck Is No Accident seeks to prepare the reader to take advantage of happenstance and unexpected opportunities for the betterment of their life and career. Many books for career guidance seem to gloss over the fact that countless success stories involve at least some element of luck—a chance encounter, an unplanned meeting—but Luck Is No Accident confronts the issue head on. Sometimes all a job seeker needs is a little bit of luck, and this book lets you know that sometimes, you can make your own.

The Slight Edge seeks to uncover the mystique that surrounds and corrupts many lesser books for career guidance. Jeff Olson contends that there is no secret to career success and that a fulfilling life and career is simply the result of simple, everyday discipline. In other words, baby steps are the key to success and a penny saved is a penny earned: one dollar invested today becomes two tomorrow, and this incremental approach is what sets you on the path to long term satisfaction and success. This book provides ample evidence to convince you of this simple concept that, if you follow through on a daily basis, will lead you to happiness and contentment.

Acclaimed author Malcom Gladwell draws from biblical sources for the central narrative in this book, but David and Goliath is not a religious work. Instead, it focuses on the all-too-common feeling of insurmountable adversity in life as well as the search for near career paths. Compared to other books for career guidance, David and Goliath is largely narrative in structure and reads almost like a novel at times. Depending on the type of person you are, this may be a good or a bad thing—you'll have to decide for yourself. I can tell you, however, that Gladwell does an excellent job providing guidance to those dealing with the woes of job hunting, feeling like a little fish in a big pond, and career changers who feel like they are up against insurmountable odds.