Interview with Doug Hardy on Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career

Today's post is by Ashley Melo, Monster's public relations intern:

Doug Hardy, co-author of three books in the Monster Careers series and former Monster.com editor-in-chief, recently released Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career. Hardy’s objective is to move people from urgent job searches to lifelong career management. He offers six fundamentals to inspire people to take command of their careers. In fact, alongside Monster.com, he hopes to inspire people to improve their lives. Here's what Hardy has to say about how the six fundamentals can help everyone inspire, prosper and succeed.

What made you want to write this book? What was your inspiration?

In 12 years of talking to job seekers, I’ve observed that much of the frustration in the job search comes from the incorrect assumption that there is some trick to it. Everybody wants a miracle -- a new job to magically appear. It doesn’t work that way, but if you develop short daily habits you can have a quicker, more effective transition to a new job. I wanted to put this inspiration in the form of a short book because like any real practice, it’s not something you learn in one day. It is something you gain in short, easy practices.

Is there one most important fundamental out of the six fundamentals? If so, which is it?

The most important is probably the first. The first says from now on managing your career is your job. The trouble is, people start a job search, get a job and then they stop. To take career management as a lifelong series of habits rather than a periodic response to losing a job leads to a more successful career in the long run.

How does one truly integrate these six daily habits that every working person needs to take command of in his or her career? Would you say it’s appropriate to call it a lifestyle change?

Yes, good choice of words. In the introduction I say most bad job searches are like yo-yo dieting. You diet for a little while, it’s painful, you lose weight, but six months later you’ve gained back the weight. The best way to stay healthy for life is to eat right and exercise every day. The same principle applies to career management. If you take on the six habits just a little bit every day, you will find that new opportunities and growth in your current job just seem to start happening.

How is the dynamic different between those people frustrated with their current employment and those who are jobless and desperately looking for employment?

Surveys show that people who are currently employed and frustrated, waiting and looking for the next opportunity, comprise a big part of the workforce right now. Their job now is to integrate specific advice in Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career into their daily routine. One way to get started is to keep a detailed log of work accomplishments at work. Doing that and updating your resume will take one hour versus three days. Keeping email job alerts active on Monster tells you who is hiring.

Monster has always published traditional books. Why an ebook?

We wanted to get this into the hands of job seekers as soon as possible. Typical publishing takes about 18 months from start to finish. Amazon published this book a month after the manuscript was finished.  You can read it anywhere -- on the Kindle, your computer and many mobile devices. We wanted advice that was short, easy, quickly available and extremely flexible for the job seeker or reader. I think we succeeded.

The book is available exclusively in digital format in the Amazon Kindle Store. Read an excerpt here.

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