3 Top Ways to Pick Books for Career Growth

Growth, development, and learning are the only constants when you want to make it big in your career. While you may get an inspirational boss, the right kind of job, or ideal work conditions, gathering speed in your career requires constant learning. This is especially true when you want a strategic and planned approach to career growth.

Different people find comfort in adopting varied methods of learning especially when it comes to self-learning. While some people may choose to take courses, online or offline, others swear by the good old method of studying with the help of books.

For a lot of reasons, the advantages of using books or e-books for studying surpass learning with the help of other methods, here’s how:

• Your book will not make noise, and even in the still of the night, you will have complete control of your study without interruptions.
• If you’re using physical copies of a book, you do not have to worry about low battery or re-charging it.
• In most instances, self-learning books for career growth turn out to be much more affordable as compared to other methods of learning like courses, both online or offline.

While arguments generally point in favor of studying with the help of books, it is also important to have a strategic approach to choosing the books that you want to study. Choosing just any book could adversely affect your learning.

Top Tips for Picking Self-Learning Books:

The right books can have a positive impact on your education. When you know how to choose books, you can be sure about attaining knowledge that will make a real difference in your career. It is therefore important to learn how to pick your books.

Here are three ways in which you can make the right choice in books for your career growth:

1. Relevance:

Look for books that are most relevant to the kind of knowledge you seek to gain from your learning experience.

You need to look for a book:

• That adds value to the existing knowledge you have
• That offers technical details on the subject you are studying
• That offers valuable information owing to subject matter expertise
• That consists of material (chapters) you can use in your field of study or work

These factors can be gauged by checking out the book summary given on the back cover of a book, or the topics covered in the book which can be checked in the Table of Contents, among other things.

Before making your purchase, you can also choose to read through a couple of chapters, some marketplaces allow you to read sample chapters online. If you are buying your book offline, you can take your time to read at least one chapter before you actually head to the checkout counter.

For example, if you seek to grow to a management position in the arena of human resource (HR) management, you need to read HR management books that will help cover concepts like HR management, strategizing, organizational development, and more.

Similarly, if you want to master the concepts of finance and accounting, you could consider picking a book that talks about accounting, balance sheets, financial statements, accounting cycles, taxes, etc.

2. The Author:

Once you are aware of the kind of material you want to learn from, you need to then zero in on the authors who are knowledgeable in your choice of subject. Subject matter experts who have written multiple books on their subject and are bestsellers on marketplaces can be a safe bet. For instance, if you are looking for a book on marketing, books written by legends like Philip Kotler, Jagdish Sheth, or Gerald Zaltman could be helpful.

However, if a subject matter expert has written their first book, they could still share important lessons that will help you for life.

Take the example of John Caples, an advertising veteran with a 6-decade-long career. Caples wrote his first book 'How to Make Your Advertising Make Money' at the age of 83 which was a hit and is still teaching important advertising lessons to readers in this day and age.

Other first-time authors like Dr. Michael Walsh, Komal Shah, and Dr. Bianca Szasz, have written high-quality, easy-to-understand books on HR Analytics, Business Law, and Data Analytics.

There may be different types of authors - first-timers, experienced or famous, as far as they have the subject matter expertise, they can be your best pick.

3. Publisher:

Looking for relevant material and the right authors may be streamlined by picking a trusted publisher. The publishers decide on topics for books, look for subject-matter experts, run background checks on prospective authors, evaluate the writing styles of experts, check that the content flows naturally, and enable ease of understanding in the content while keeping it comprehensive.

The publishers also ensure that unique and valuable information is included in the book while making efforts for the book to be easily accessible.

When looking for a publisher, the characteristics you need to be on the lookout for are:

• They should be in the business for a substantial amount of time, adding credibility through experience.
• They should hold expertise in the subject that you seek to read. A publisher that is into children’s books may not be the right one to buy management books from and vice versa. 
• They need to have the right subject-matter experts on board.

Many publishers can help you with books in pursuit of career growth, and one among the prominent names is Vibrant Publishers.

We have been in the arena of publishing self-learning management, test prep, and interview question books for 11 years, making us veterans in the domain. Our attention to detail, eye for quality, and meticulous author selection process make us front-runners among our peers.

Conclusion:

Apart from looking for relevant books, knowledgeable authors, or trustworthy publishers, you may also find books through other methods such as recommendations. The recommendations could be from professors, book recommendation websites, libraries, or other resources.

No matter how you find your book, it is important to remember that you get one that is easy to learn from and can be used in furthering career growth.

It is safe to say that choosing books to aid career growth is not too complicated. All you have to do is take the right approach in picking the books with a clear view of your end goal.

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