Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
Most careers do not stall because of a lack of talent and skills, but because of a lack of access to the unwritten rules. Christine Hunt brilliantly articulates these rules in her book, Secrets to Work Success. She shares decades of experience, transforming it into a warm, story-driven guide about everything we never learned in school. She offers vivid fictional scenarios, such as a nervous first presentation that becomes a triumph, a botched email chain that sparks a team feud, and a narcissistic boss. She covers a lot in this book, from clear communication and effective meetings to self-knowledge, job hunting, networking, interviewing, salary negotiation, collaboration, and purpose. The result is the work of a gifted mentor, an effective guide to accompany you through every phase of your working life.
Secrets to Work Success demystifies success and dismisses the assumption that it is innate. Christine Hunt presents success as a set of learnable behaviors, grounding her lessons in meticulous research and compelling references that explore Cialdini’s take on influence, Gallup’s engagement studies, Kahneman's work on snap judgments, and Grant on givers and takers. She keeps the voice lively, compassionate, oftentimes funny, and deeply human. This book gives you concrete assets that you can start using right away, such as the “one touch” email, STAR answers for behavioral interviews, the Power Opener for high-stakes calls, word-for-word scripts for negotiating salary, résumé tactics that outsmart screening software, and graceful ways to manage up. Her candor in discussing confidence gaps, bias, and toxic bosses and how to deal with them captured my interest. This is the tool you need to achieve success, and it offers wisdom for readers at any stage of their career.