Young people entering the job market for the first time do not enjoy the benefits of their older peers who bring years of experience and refined skill sets to the table when seeking employment. Julia Ivy’s book Crafting Your Edge for Today’s Job Market provides a remedy to the natural disadvantages they experience when their school years are concluded and they set forth into a competitve employement world for the first time. It is the result of Ivy’s years teaching at an elite collegiate level and the BE-EDGE method she has constructed to assist their efforts separates her thinking on the subject from scores of other academics and advocates for the subject. This short book manages to encapsulate the impressive extent of her method in a little over 100 pages and there isn’t a single reader who will feel she glosses over the topic.
BE EDGE: https://www.be-edge.com/story-of-practice/
Her BE-EDGE method should be readily comprehensible to any young adult or beyond and this is thanks, in part, to a polished writing style that dispenses with any unncessary sideshows in favor of driving to the heart of the matter. The method, as revealed in the book, is the obvious product of years spent thinking and considering the challenges young people face, the attitudes of those in a position to hire them, and how these two sides can meet in the middle benefitting all involved. It is also thanks to her deep and abiding interest in aiding the young in their initial forays into professional life evident in each part of the book. She has a clear investment in the success of her readers and students alike – perhaps the finest compliment one can pay to any teacher.
A wealth of data accomanies the text. Various graphics, such as charts and graphs, are likewise abundant during the book and they share the same hallmarks of clarity and consideration defining her writing. Though it is a brief book, Ivy has labored long to build a book meant to last and provide abiding value to its target audience. The appendices present near the book’s conclusion are perhaps its crowning touch. Teeming with data, they are extended versions of the homework exercises she includes during earlier portions of the book and are accompanied by extensive charts, graphs, and pictures pictures further strengthening their value for the reader. Her talent for creating workable scenarios is invaluable.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Crafting-Your-Edge-Todays-Market/dp/1789732980
It is obvious this is her life’s work. She has written a volume with inexhaustible value for the current generation and those to come that can assist them in making the best possible case for why they are ready to contrubute to their chosen employeer in the now rather than requiring time, maybe even years, to find their professional footing. Accomplishing all of this within so few pages is breathtaking. Julia Ivy’s Crafting Your Edge for Today’s Job Market should be required reading for any aspiring professional on the cusp of finishing their academic career and, likewise, should be introduced in business classrooms across the country to prepare those individualsso they have a better chance of realizing their dreams and ambitions.
Garth Thomas