Book details

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Book details

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Book details

Availability: Usually emailed within 48 hours of receipt of electronic payment.

Format: 3 PDF EBooks

What Recession?

The trade magazines tell us this is a golden time for IT technologists. Jobs are blooming all over, for those with the right skills. Developers and engineers can take their pick. Well, at least developers and engineers who:

1. Live in the right cities
2. Are the right age
3. Have up-to-the-second skills in all the right technologies
4. Have a relevant, continuous, unblemished work history for the past three years
5. Have the right college degree

If you pass all five of the preceding tests, you can quit reading this page.

If you're still reading, you probably have a problem with one or more of the five tests. You could be a master class developer, but if you failed one of the five tests, 2014 probably doesn't seem a whole lot different to you than 2009 or 2002 (or if you're the wrong age, 1991 or even 1982).

Well, maybe 2014 does feel a little different, because in other recessions, we were all in the same boat, but in the current "recovery", if you don't pass the five tests with flying colors, you feel like you're being left behind. And given the emphasis on experience in up-to-the-second technologies, that feeling is accurate.

Maybe once upon a time the tech job market was a meritocracy, but today it's a fraternity. And the wrong location, age, skills, work history or alma mater gets you blackballed.

You don't have time for such nonsense. You're better than that. Read on...

The Perfect Candidate

29 year old David is a New York based MIT graduate who's spent every one of the last 60 months working on responsive websites in an Agile environment, first with Rails, and now with Python and Django, interfacing with Hadoop and MongoDB, as well as the traditional relational databases. At tech gatherings he's the guy everyone crowds around. He gets job offers thrown to him everywhere he goes. He exudes confidence, and he's highly intelligent.

The Better Than Perfect Candidate

You can be better than David. It will take some time to prove you're better. It's a process. And it takes some work. But you can do it.

David has a secret even David doesn't know about. Except for his tech skills, he's self taught. David has received no training in a host of skills vital to being and staying employed. So far, he's been able to use his superior age, education, tech skills, and willingness to work zillion hour weeks to stay employed. But that doesn't last forever, and when it fails, David's in big trouble.

You, on the other hand, have taken the time to learn a host of transferable skills necessary and sufficient for long term survival in any tech career:

1. Troubleshooting
2. Rapid Learning
3. Salesmanship
4. Generic algorithm/data structure skills

The Recession Relief Package gives you the two hard-to-obtain skills: Troubleshooting and Rapid Learning. You can learn salesmanship from many other books, and generic algorithm/data structure skills are obtainable through a combination of books, websites, and networking for knowledge.

You've already read a description of David, the perfect candidate. Want to know what the better-than-perfect candidate looks like? Look in the mirror.

Rapid Learning

Paradox: Rapid Learning helps you get hired, but employers don't care about Rapid Learning.

Here's the deal. Employers hire only for tech skills, perhaps with a smidgen of "team player" thrown in. This is because employers, and especially HR folks and search people, believe from the bottoms of their hearts that tech skills are all that count. So you use the Rapid Learning Process to learn the required skills for the job for which you're applying. The employer thinks you're a fountain of knowledge, you know you're a guy with a process for just in time learning, you get the job, and everyone's happy. Skeptics click here.

Troubleshooting and Rapid Learning On The Job

Troubleshooting and Rapid Learning are even more benefit for the already employed than they are to the job seeker. Here are three of the benefit categories:

• Promotions and good assignments
• Negotiation
• Keeping your job when heads roll all around you

Your employer values knowledge (skills), intelligence, and reliability. Your employer interprets outstanding troubleshooting productivity as intelligence. If you repeatedly demonstrate outstanding troubleshooting productivity, your employer interprets that as reliability.

Remember David, the perfect candidate? Let's say he's your coworker, and let's say that, because he's self-taught in Troubleshooting, he does a so-so job when assigned to fix a problem. Sometimes he takes too much time. Occasionally his first fix attempt leaves the system worse than he found it. Let's say that with your Universal Troubleshooting Process training, you almost always solve the problem quickly and correctly. Assuming for a second that your name is John, which of the following two do you think will be your boss's response?

1. David's OK, but John's smarter and more reliable.
2. We like David: John performs better only because of his Universal Troubleshooting Process training.

I guarantee it will be #1. When the time comes to decide who gets a promotion or a great assignment, #1 will be in the forefront of your employer's mind. When it comes time to negotiate on salary, training, and time flexibility, your boss will be thinking #1. And if, heaven forbid, there are layoffs, your boss will be thinking about #1 while he writes up his recommendations for who should stay and who should go. Remember, someone who can routinely solve tech problems, with a minimum of time and trouble, is indispensable..

Now let's talk about Rapid Learning. At Tuesday's meeting, you and David hear your supervisor say good things about the Wakanda web framework, and how it might be useful in your shop. David asks your boss to send him to Wakanda training. That night, you use the Rapid Learning Process to construct a prototype Wakanda app, and demonstrate it to your boss the next day. Once again, which of the following two is your boss's response?

1. John has spectacular tech skills and shows initiative. I'll put him in charge of the new project and send him to Wakanda training.
2. John's just a guy who knows a process for just-in-time learning; I'll send David to training.

Troubleshooting and Your First Week at Work

Troubleshooting is essential your first week on the job. That first week, you don't know what's going on, your techical productivity will be minimal because you don't know the new configuration, but you'll be under intense scrutiny. It's possible some of your new coworkers will have a vested interest in seeing you fail. If, that first week or so, you can quickly and correctly troubleshoot technical problems, your new co-workers and bosses will think of you as being "smart", having "common sense", and possessing "motivation". You'll have marked your territory.

The Recession Relief Package

• Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
• Troubleshooting: Just the Facts
• Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting

Rapid Learning for the 21st Century

In its first 100 pages, Rapid Learning for the 21st Century teaches the essence of Rapid Learning: What it is, how to do it, what to watch out for. The next 40 pages are a detailed Rapid Learning session involving SSH keys. You'll see exactly how Rapid Learning happens in real life.

By the time you finish this book, you'll have the knowledge and mindset to hear about an opportunity using a new technology, immediately learn enough to discuss the technology literately, and then a few days later to actually work with the technology. When opportunities present themselves, you'll sprint to the head of the pack, and stay ahead of the pack. You'll be nimble enough to get the best assignments, to avoid most layoffs, and prepared to pursue new opportunities if you do get laid off.

Troubleshooting: Just the Facts

Troubleshooting: Just the Facts is designed from the ground up to be a fast read. If your troubleshooting productivity needs to be visibly better in 24 hours than it is now, this is how you accomplish that.

The first couple weeks of a new job, assignment or project are worrisome in a recession. Will your boss think you bit off more than you can chew?

Troubleshooting is the most important and impressive skill you possess during the first two weeks. Every "new guy" gets assigned several problems to fix before being set loose to redesign the entire system. Your results solving those problems can do one of two things:

1. Impress your boss and co-workers with your quick and complete solution, providing you much needed credibility.
2. Fall short, putting your every action under a microscope.

Be sure your results accomplish #1.

Troubleshooting productivity depends on much more than knowledge of the system and the underlying technology. By far the greatest predictor of troubleshooting success is knowledge of the process of troubleshooting. This book teaches that process. And teaches it fast!

"Troubleshooting: Just the Facts" is exactly what its title says; a very concise and organized description of the ten step process you must use to achieve maximum troubleshooting performance. This book is short enough to be read in one night, but complete enough to materially improve your troubleshooting the next morning. This book is a must for every employee, especially the new employee.

Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting

You read "Troubleshooting: Just the Facts" to quickly assimilate the nuts and bolts of the process and mindset of troubleshooting. You read Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting to learn the nuances that advance you from competence to mastery.

This book consists of 28 short stories, each one to illustrate a specific point or discipline. Each story is crafted not only to help you learn troubleshooting, but to understand it and even feel it.

Feeling it is what makes the difference between being able to ace a test on a subject, and being able to productively put that subject to use. This book has generated voluminous positive feedback in the two years since its publication. Reading "Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting is your next step toward excellence on the job.

Strategy for Using These Books

If you are currently, or expect to be faced with the need to quickly learn a technology, read "Rapid Learning for the 21st Century" first. The 100 page instructional text should take about 8 hours to read and understand, and then the 40 page example appendix should take another 6 to 8 hours. In other words, you can begin this book on a Friday night, and begin Rapid Learning a new technology on Sunday afternoon.

On the other hand, if you're doing OK on your technology, but you want to improve your overall job performance, read "Troubleshooting: Just the Facts" first. This all-facts, no-fluff 82 page book is designed to be readable in a single night (maybe 6pm to 11pm). The knowledge gained from this book will improve your troubleshooting productivity, and therefore your job performance.

Either way, save "Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting" for last. At 229 pages, it's a longer read. Also, it's more valuable if you've been thinking about Troubleshooting for awhile.

Just Do It!

Recessions retard careers. For those on the margins, they can kill careers. They're nothing to fool around with. At $27.50, this three book package is easily affordable, and the books themselves are designed to be quickly readable for quick results. The ability to learn rapidly and troubleshoot quickly and accurately are two very powerful ways to outrun your competitors.

Buy these three books right now!