Aug 23, 2022
Hey everyone,
My birthday is today – August 23 – and, my pre-order page for my next book, Never Search Alone: The Job Seeker’s Playbook, finally went up last night.
Yay! Wow! Woo!
And so my birthday wish is simple: pre-order Never Search Alone for yourself, a friend, a colleague, a college-aged child, or anyone who may be thinking about a *promotion*, new job, or career transition.
I’m proud of this book – particularly because I did *not* write it alone.
*Many*, many of you helped.
* First, the basic methodology in the book is based on coaching more than 2,000 job, promotion, or transition seekers (including many of you).
* Second, before I began writing six years ago, I conducted 250 in-depth interviews with a range of people from college students, to individual contributors, managers, directors, VPs/SVPs, CEOs, Board members, and others (many of you participated in these interviews).
* Third, more than 200 job seekers put draft versions of this book into practice. These early readers (again, many of you) provided more than 2,500 pieces of feedback, which I then used to iterate through more than *400* major and minor drafts.
As a result, Never Search Alone may be the most reader-inclusive and customer-tested book of all time.
Thank YOU to all of you for helping me achieve this, including the wonderful Marty Cagan who wrote the Foreword (excerpt below).
Best,
Phyl
P.S. Scroll down for an excerpt from Marty Cagan’s Foreword, and for the beautiful cover designed by my colleague Charlee Riggio and designer Erica Johnson.
Never Search Alone: The Job Seeker’s Playbook
by Phyl Terry with Foreword by Marty Cagan
Pre-Order link
Based on 25 years of experience working with thousands of leaders – from early-career product managers to CEOs – Never Search Alone gives readers a time-tested, multi-step process (with exercises, tools, and templates) to find the right job now.
Three big *ideas* animate the book:
- Never Search Alone. Because your emotional balance is the most important thing you need to manage in a job search, you need a support group of fellow job seekers that will help you turn insecurity and anxiety into hope, motivation, confidence, and accountability.
- Candidate-Market Fit. If product-market fit drives company success, candidate-market fit drives career success. So, before you begin interviewing and networking you need to identify precisely what you want and what the market wants. I show how this key step will help you figure out the intersection between your hopes and dreams and market realities.
- Four Legs to the Negotiations Stool. There are *four* legs to the negotiations stool: compensation, budget, resources, and support. The last three drive your success in the next job, which is why I asks job seeker’s to emphasize that as much or even more than compensation (though, of course, I will also show you how to ask for more money).
And here’s an excerpt from the lovely Foreword that Marty Cagan wrote.
Foreword by Marty Cagan (Excerpt)
For more than 20 years, I’ve encouraged people who are serious about their career to meet Phyl Terry.
Yes, Phyl is one of the best-connected leaders in the industry.
Yes, Phyl is a genuine human being who truly cares about you personally and your career.
But what really sets Phyl apart is that he understands how to harness the power of community.
This book is all about scaling the magic that is Phyl.
I have seen Phyl and the techniques he advocates dramatically improve the career trajectories of countless people.
And not just people who are in mid-career, dissatisfied with their current job, and want to find better.
These techniques are at least as valuable for new college graduates looking for that all-important first professional job.
Or another very difficult but increasingly common situation: older employees who find themselves in need of a new job, yet encountering systemic ageism at every turn.
Which is to say, nearly everyone in the professional workforce can benefit from the techniques in this book.
And one more pro tip: it’s a good idea to learn these techniques before you need them.
When you are able to find a job that you truly enjoy, that leverages your unique skills and talents, where you can receive the coaching necessary to continue to grow and develop to reach your potential, and where you can make a real contribution, you have meaningfully improved your life.
My hope is that this book will help countless people to improve their lives.
— Marty Cagan
Founder, Silicon Valley Product Group December 2021
