We’ve already established that I love a good memoir, but this particular selection takes it one step further. With summer over, everyone is either back to work or back to the job search and holiday parties are only a hop skip & jump away (yes, I know, but they really will be here before you know it). So, in the spirit of getting back into the swing of things, while still retaining the last bits of summer fun, I present the first book of the fall reading selection: MWF Seeking BFF.

At first glance, this book appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with job searching. If that’s your impression, you’d be absolutely correct. I picked up the e-book through the library, purely because the title sounded amusing and I was looking for a bit of fluff. What I got instead was a human, intriguing, funny read about making friends. This isn’t the stuff of Dale Carnegie, it’s better!

The author, Rachel Bertsche, relocated to be with her fiancé (later husband), and discovered that she didn’t have any close friends in her new city of Chicago. She challenged herself to go on 52 “friend” dates to increase her circles and find that close network that she was missing. Since she’s a writer, she took all of us along for the ride and shared what she learned during those successes and awkward encounters.

Why I picked this book: it’s fun! Networking is essentially about meeting people, so I really couldn’t care less if you cut your networking teeth at yoga class, the rock climbing wall or the junior professionals meetup. Rather than read a boring primer on how to network, it’s much more entertaining to tag along with Rachel and see what happened. You’ll also get some interesting ideas on how and where to meet new people. I thought some of her choices were inspired, and now have them on my “To Do” list.
Even though networking is the top terror for my clients, I’m here to say you can do it! Read the book, smile, and realize that the author actually sounded like she was enjoying herself a lot of the time. Take some of the stress out of your job search by making it work better for you, and who knows… you might find yourself having some fun along the way.