With unemployment rates the way they are, and more gloomy and downbeat reports for the near future prevalent across the media, the jobless need a little encouragement, and that’s exactly what “Unlock the Hidden Job Market: 6 Steps to a Successful Job Search When the Times Are Tough” by Duncan Mathison and Martha Finney provides. But don’t think this book is just a set of cheers that there are jobs out there, it’s much more than that. The book is full of practical, if somewhat unconventional, advice for finding and landing a new job.

The book suggests that the traditional approach to finding a job—looking at ads in the newspaper or online, submitting a resume, waiting for an interview, then interviewing and hoping to get the job—isn’t the best way to find a new job. The book presents a networking strategy for finding and landing a new job. Here are some very practical pieces of wisdom and advice for all job seekers, but the strategies themselves are more suitable for certain white-collar professional positions. The strategies are also more geared towards people who live in a larger metropolitan area. Sure, some of the tactics will work in smaller cities and towns, but the reality of some of these places is that there are no opportunities or people to network with. Not as described in this book.

For those reasons, I think this book will be of great help to people who live in cities and want white-collar professional positions. However, for the price of the book, and the ease of reading, anyone looking for work would benefit somewhat, especially some of the parts that encourage those who are discouraged in the whole process. That little ray of light and one of many strategies can be the boost needed to find and land a new job. There are many traditional job search books out there. I really like that this book takes a different approach, and for some, this approach would probably be much more fruitful in finding a desired position. If you’re out of a job and looking for or thinking of changing jobs, this book may be just what you need.