From Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn, and author Ben Casnocha comes The Start-up of You, a book on how to apply the strategies of successful entrepreneurship to your career and career change, whether you are in regular employment, run your own business or are a freelancer.

The ideas in this book are applicable to career changers as well as those who may be comfortable in their current line of work, yet want to grow and perhaps shift their working lives. As the idea of ‘job security’ is changing, this book can be helpful to all of us - providing tips and strategies to use not only now but in future to navigate the changing world of work.

The book encourages you to think and act like an entrepreneur in order to be successful and navigate your career resiliently: to be nimble and self-reliant, to be innovative, to be on the lookout for new opportunities, and to know how to network effectively.

Many of the broad ideas they use are ones we encourage career changers to employ - use your networks, assess your values, talents and how they can be best placed in the marketplace, and trialling ideas out. The book goes into more detail about these topics and how to strategically use them together to navigate your career or career change.

For me, the core ideas I took from the book are:

1. Take action to increase your visibility in your personal network, and nurture current and potential contacts.
2. Whilst working towards a clear goal, be open to unexpected opportunities that may come your way to help you advance to your goal. Also be open to opportunities or potential options that may not be your exact goal, but do give you most of what you want. For example, if your goal is to change career to work as an in-house marketing expert, do not completely rule out the option of working for an independent marketing consultancy.
3. Stay curious and open to opportunities whether they come in the form of job offers, collaborations, work shadowing offers, or following up on contacts.
4. Continuously invest in yourself, whether that’s through training, self-development, joining relevant industry bodies or setting time aside each month to check in with your career change plan.
5. Use your networks wisely - approach the right people for the specific information or help that you need. Simply put, don’t ask a vicar for social media advice or ask a nurse about how to break into the music industry! This may seem like obvious advice but too often it can be easier to ask our family or friends for information about things they truly can’t help us with.

For me, the book could have done with a few more examples of people who work ‘regular jobs’ - many of the examples cited were from the tech industry and/or web-based start-ups. However the core message and strategies put forward in the book are indeed applicable to everyone and after reading the book I felt motivated to consider my career as one full of potential with no set end point, and to use my networks in a more strategic way.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Reid Hoffman is the cofounder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, and previously was executive vice president of PayPal. Ben Casnocha is an award-winning entrepreneur and author.

The Start-up of You is published by Random House and is available now from Amazon.