10 Best Audiobooks to Boost Your Career and Brain - The Muse

10 Best Audiobooks to Boost Your Career and Brain - The Muse10 Best Audiobooks to Boost Your Career and BrainAs a big fan of physical, paper books, I always do my best to avoid audiobooks and e-readers as much as possible. This, Ive also found, is extremely difficult on a day-to-day basis. Paperbacks are clunky, and its practically impossible to simultaneously turn the page and cling to a subway pole without falling on someone. And, theyre heavy to carry around- now, Im no 1,000 page kind of person, but I dont read light picture books, either.So, Im basically at a loss- unless I choose to listen to my books. But thats not the same thing as reading, right?Well, actually, it is (Sigh of relief.)According to Science of Us, and a recent blog post by University of Virginia psychologist Daniel Willingham, you get the same mental benefits from audiobooks than you do from reading, even if it doesnt feel like you doThere are two basic processes happening when youre reading There is decoding, or translating the strings of letters into words that mean something. And then there is language processing, or comprehensionListeners and readers retain about equal understanding of the passages theyve consumed...Decoding, by contrast, is specific to reading, Willingham said this is indeed one more step your mind has to take when reading a print book as compared to listening to the audiobook version. But by about late elementary school, decoding becomes so second-nature that it isnt any additional work for your brain. It happens automatically.There you have it, two processes covered by both strategies. The Science of Us article also phrases the argument that while yes, its easier for us to get distracted listening to a book than reading it, its really no different than skimming. And just like putting down or flipping through a book, you have the option to rewind, pause, or fast-forward to better take in the information.And, because Im constantly looking for new ways to examine my l ife and career, I decided to round up some of the best and most popular career books on the market online, just for your viewing- sorry, I mean listening- pleasure 1. The Power of Habit Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg, $28If you struggle with bad habits, or want to get better at developing good ones, this one is for you- youll learn exactly why we choose certain patterns, and how to break the cycle.2. You Are a Badass How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero, $25Even this title is enough of a confidence boost Speaker and coach Jen Sincero will motivate you to become your best you with funny stories, insights, and exercises (and some great chapter titles).3. The 4-Hour Workweek Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated) by Timothy Ferriss, $23Working less hours doesnt come with age- now, with this advice, youll learn the tips and tricks to being successful and earning a steady income a t any stage, without sacrificing your life to your job.4. Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen, $28A healthy work-life balance is every employees dream, and its especially hard to accomplish in our ever-changing world. This all-new edition will be your guide to reaching inbox zero and tackling all those to-dos.5. Getting to Yes Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury, $21Practice your negotiating skills with this read and kill it in any professional or personal agreement with grace and poise. 6. GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso, $25Attention all outsiders Sophia Amoruso is your gal. As the founder and CEO of a major fashion retailer, she knows a thing or two about finding your way to success, and her story will inspire just about anyone to make it big.7. Presence Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy, $21TED speaker Amy Cuddy (famous for her power poses) will help you overcome all that social an xiety by helping you harness your most confident self in any high-stress situation.8. I Could Do Anything if Only I Knew What it Was by Barbara Sher, $18If you have no idea what your passion is, you might want to check this out. Itll help you identify all those inner dreams, goals, and feelings that will eventually lead you to outward success and fulfillment.9. Drive The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink, $18Cant seem to get your team to do their best work? This book will teach you what motivates people, and how to better intotenstill drive in others.10. The Happiness Equation Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything by Neil Pasricha, $21If you want to reach total and complete happiness, this book is a great start. Pasrichas equation is easy to follow, fun to read, and will completely change how you see your life and career.While physical books are still my go-to, Im now more excited to pick up an audiobook when its more practical- whether on my way to a nd from work or travelling.Have a favorite career book (and do you listen to it)? Tweet mePhoto of woman with headphones courtesy of Paul Bradbury/Getty Images.

Why Men Have Stronger Professional Networks Than Women

Why Men Have Stronger Professional Networks Than WomenWhy Men Have Stronger Professional Networks Than WomenResearch indicates that the glass ceiling is firm. And the reason why may surprise you. Its leid your gender, its your network.Its been nearly half a century since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed sexual discrimination.Further legislation has been reisereisepassed to root out sexist corporate-promotion practices and encourage diversity in the workplace. Womens groups have lobbied agencies and businesses to support and mentor female employees, and private enterprises have funded and cultivated programs to promote the advancement of women to the highest ranks.But in 2009 women hold just 20 percent of the senior management positions in American businesses, according to the 2009 International Business Report by Grant Thornton. The glass ceiling remains firmly, invisibly, in place.But what is responsible for the invisible barrier that allows employers to pay lip service to dive rsity but promote men to 80 percent of the senior management positions?New research suggests that fewer women reach those jobs than men because they are less likely to hear about available positions from coworkers as early as their male counterparts.Both men and women tend to circulate the good news about job openings or opportunities when they hear about them. But looking at the quality of the job leads in terms of pay and prestige women get poorer quality leads from other women, said Lisa Torres, a George Washington University sociology professor who studies the hiring and job-search process in corporations. Men tend to be in the top positions in organizations so, structurally, theyre in a position to hear about job openings or opportunities when they arrive, and circulate those to their networks.Birds of a feather flock together.The problem is not a failure in the career-development or job-search acumen of seasoned female professionals and certainly not a statement on the qualit y of the candidates, Torres said. It has mora to do with the people with whom men and women feel most comfortable associating, she said.Torres and Matt L. Huffman, sociology researcher at the University of California-Irvine, studied groups of men and women and tracked census data to identify patterns in the way the sexes network. The researchers detailed their findings in a 2002 study, Social Networks and Job Search Outcomes Among Male and Female Professional, Technical, and Managerial Workers, published in Sociological Focus.They discovered that both men and women tend to build networks comprising people of their own gender - a process known scientifically as homophily and colloquially as birds of a feather flock together. But women tend to recognize the tendency and try to overcome it - building networks made up of about 50 percent men - while mens networks included very few women, Torres said.According to Torres and Huffmans theory of social networking Because men hold 80 perc ent of the jobs in senior management (a figure that has been steadily declining), they are more likely to hear about job openings at the senior-management level. Men pass the news on to their mostly male social networks, and it is likely that news about the job opening reaches women only after it has reached and passed several men.Who is in your network?It isnt just a matter of being connected, said William Bielby, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It matters who those connections are.Bielby is a leading researcher in race and gender bias. He has been called upon as an expert witness in sexual-discrimination and bias lawsuits involving WalMart, FedEx, and Johnson Johnson. Bielby said the professional networks women build fail to deliver the same job leads as men because of whom they choose to include.Research into how men and women form professional relationships at work shows that women tend to be more effective at networking - at least a s far as the size and cohesiveness of their professional networks are concerned, Bielby said. But that breadth still does not overcome the concentration of power in male networks.Women have tended to be better connected overall, but they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more female-dominated jobs, Bielby said. So their networks may be wider but not reach to as high a level as mens, who tend to be better connected, particularly in getting professional news, to more high-status people.Access is only part of the issue, Torres said. The rest is an often unconscious decision about who is the most appropriate target for a tip.You might tell a male colleague about an opportunity thats very high demand or involves a lot of traveling, she said, but not a female friend because you know she has family concerns that might make that more difficult.That may show sensitivity toward a colleagues personal situation, but not one that allows that colleague to make up her own mind abou t whether the job is too high stress or the travel requirements are too great, Bielby said.Gender biasWhile men hold 80 percent of senior management jobs, the eu-agrarpolitik in income is less severe. According to Huffmans review of 2000 census data, women in senior management earn salaries that trail mens by only 9 percent.The gaps persist most notably in access and perception, Torres said.For example, in technology companies - which, like financial services, tend to be male dominated - men are 2.7 times as likely to be promoted to top technical or managerial positions than women they are far more likely to be viewed as competent and are four times as likely to have a partner who takes on the bulk of responsibility for home and family, according to a 2008 study by Caroline Simard, director of research at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.A third of women in technology companies deliberately delay having children to pursue career goals, and far more women than men are likely to believe extended work days and a lack of sleep are necessary to achieve success, the study concluded.Even without gender bias, the greater number of connections men have to higher-level contacts make it more likely theyll hear about a particular opportunity than even a woman with the same hintergrund and similar contacts, Torres said.And the higher up the ladder a candidate goes the more likely unconscious bias about race, gender or competency is to intrude on the decision-making process, Bielby said - especially in something as informal as a job reference.Passing on a job lead is ultimately an exercise in subjective judgment, Bielby said. So when someone is thinking whom to tell about an opportunity - and that decision is often made unconsciously in just a split second - it may be stereotypes of what men or women are competent that makes you more or less inclined to tell a specific person.We like to think were beyond those days where stereotypes matter, but were no t that far removed from it, Bielby said. In my experience during financial-services litigation, for example, even with brokers who work only on commission, youd think there couldnt be any bias there because the numbers tell the story. But the real issues were not the commission formula, it was in the soft decisions made about how do distribute leads or referrals and the accounts of people who leave.Farther down the ladder, its easier to quantify levels of performance, Torres said.As you get higher, the judgments invariably get more subjective. Thats one reason there is still quite a pay gap between men and women in similar jobs, she said. As you get higher on the ladder, job performance is based more on evaluation and subjective assignment. A woman lawyer may handle more cases, but are they the big cases? I may produce more as a knowledge worker, but is what you produce really first tier compared to someone else?Trying to legislate or organize job references to eliminate gender bias is not a good idea, Torres and Bielby agreed. That would just squelch the process altogether.Overcoming the gender networkIf women want to equal the effectiveness of male social networks, they need to emulate the men in those networks, said Torres. If male-dominated professional networks are passing jobs leads to other men before women, women should put themselves in the path of those leads, Bielby said. Women must add more men - especially high-status men - to their professional networks. Furthermore, they need to make their interests and competencies as clear as possible, he said.The basic insight about how job leads are passed along, which has been around for years, is that they come through weak ties - acquaintances or friends of friends, who we dont necessarily know that well, Bielby said. When you pass along a job lead, often thats based more on assumptions about someone you only know vaguely than anything specific about them.What you can do, he added, is cement that conne ction by following up with specific information about what kind of job youre looking for or sending a resume or link to a Web page with that information.

Words You May Be Misusing in Your Job Search

Words You May Be Misusing in Your Job SearchWords You May Be Misusing in Your Job SearchIn an effort to impress a potential boss, you might decide to toss out a word or two during a job interview that youre not all that familiar with. Or worse, it might be one of the most common words out there- but youre using it incorrectly. Before you make a major grammatical gaffe in the interview, on the application, or in any emails to the hiring manager, read through these words that you may be misusing during your job search.Words You May Be Misusing in Your Job SearchAffect vs. EffectAlthough affect and effect are often used interchangeably, they are very different. Affect means something has been influenced by someone or something (i.e., She was very affected by the news on TV.) whereas effect is the result of something (i.e., The changes will take effect next week.). Therefore, the effect of all your hours of job searching is that you landed a job interview.Comprisevs. ComposeAccording to an article on Ladders, these are two of the most commonly misused words in the English language.While comprise means to include, compose means to make up.It all comes down to parts versus the whole, the article says. When you usecomprise, you put the whole first A soccer gamecomprises(includes) two halves. When you usecompose, you put the pieces first Fifty statescompose(make up) the United States of America.Accept vs. ExceptOne of the reasons why accept and except are used incorrectly is because they sound almost the same. Thing is, accept means that you are receiving something I accepted the job offer. Except, on the other hand, means to single something out I am available for a second interview any day of this week except for Thursday.Ironic vs. CoincidentalWhen something is ironic, its usually the opposite of what was expected. (Think of a lyric from Alanis Morissettes popsong Ironic- Its a free ride when youve already paid.) On the other hand, coincidental is when two events ha ppen at the same time without being planned. Finding out during a job interview that both you and the hiring manager are actually related is a coincidence.Lie vs. LayBeyond your and youre, lie vs. lay can be one of the biggest vocab mistakes you might be making. Obviously, if youre fibbing, its a lie. But what happens when you need to go rest? Do you lie or lay? In this case, you would lie down. Now, if youre putting something down, you would use the word lay (i.e., Lay your plate down on the table.) The past tense is even trickier- the past tense of lie is lay, and the past tense of lay is laid. And when youre in front of a prospective boss, be sure to lie your briefcase on the seat next to you.Knowing how to use these common words correctly can not only make you sound smarter, but ensure that you say what you mean- every time.