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About six weeks ago, I received my review copy of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success and immediately gave it to my partner and purchased two more for her brother and her best friend. 
The book from career columnist, Penelope Trunk is unconventional in its tone and advice and just what lost souls of Gen X & Y need to read to thrive in their work life.
Several other bloggers wrote reviews, so I wanted to round these up before I summarize my takeaways.
PunditMom in Are You “Brazen†Enough? mentions that she bought the book for her two college-age nieces. There are gems in the book irrespective of age and career stage. She writes:
Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success is an amazing little volume that should be on everyone’s bookshelf, from recent college grads to those who are old hands at the job hunt. If I had had even just a few of the pointers contained in her book when I was floundering about in my lawyering days, I might have found the focus and courage a lot sooner to leave the security of the high-paying job for the writing career I had always dreamed of.
Trunk covers everything from networking, to whether to be a “Boomeranger,†to finding ways to mine our creativity to keep from finding ourselves on the lockstep path to money but no happiness. She dispenses great advice like, “Being likeable matters more than being competent.†No one is comfortable hearing things like that, but I know from first-hand experience that truer words were never spoken.
Pamela Slim at Escape from Cubicle Nation starts by giving her post an appropriate title: Book to read for generations from any letter of the alphabet. She writes:
This book is written as the antidote to tired, old-school career “experts†like me who keep hammering the same advice over and over to the new generation of 20 and 30-something workers. As Penelope says, “the rules to success have changed.â€
I think it is the aim of each new generation to provoke and challenge the next. I catch my breath when I find myself saying things like “When I was their age, I had already been working for 6 years!†or “You really need to pay your dues before you ask for so many perks.†As much as we try to act “sick,†“phat†and “tight†to prevent ourselves from appearing old and boring, we will have different opinions on work and life than the generations that proceed us.
Jason Alba at JibberJobber first runs a commentary on Trunk’s writing style (by the way, I love the way she writes. Read her blog and you’ll likely be hooked). Alba continues on with his review:
So Penelope knows about writing. She likes to write with lists, use lots of examples, and give you her raw advice and perspective. Don’t expect sugar-coating in her stuff. And if you disagree with her it doesn’t matter - most of her columns on Yahoo get hundreds of (sophomoric) comments questioning her logic but she keeps coming back with stuff that is right on target.
There is a lot to her book and I don’t want to paint it into a certain corner. But as I read through it there is one resounding theme that jumps out in every chapter: the difference between Gen Y and every other generation (somewhere Gen X seems to have gotten lost between the Baby Boomers and the YouTube/MySpace masters).
Here’s the cool thing - no matter what generation you are in this book is a must read. I found myself shaking my head a number of times saying “no way, it’s not like that†only to give in and agree with her. I’m not sure how I feel about the modern workplace as compared to the workplace of my parents, whether it’s better or worse, but the truth is it is different. And Penelope packs every single page with a broad range of information on how to compete and excel in this new environment.
At I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi likes the tactical aspects. It’s also worth clicking over for the 70+ comments. He writes:
That’s what’s interesting about the book: It includes not only advice on how to think about large, ambiguous topics like going back to grad school and office politics, but also includes tactical advice that’s actually good.
But more than tactical advice, she uses research from places like Harvard Business School – not just her
