Books about Available from Amazon.com

This completely updated edition features the latest information available for finding and applying for federal government jobs. The author and editors have over 110 years of combined federal government service. Considering that federal employees earn an average annual compensation of $106,871, including pay and benefits, compared to $53,288 in the private sector, according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, the federal sector is an attractive option for job seekers.

The federal government s new recruiting, outreach, and retention programs are attracting new applicants with lucrative incentives. Today federal agencies can pay off new hires student loans, negotiate starting salaries, and offer relocation allowances for critical vacancies.

Readers will find an expanded application and résumé chapter that takes readers step-by-step through a typical job announcement and instructs readers on how to write effective federal style résumés and Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) statements. Résumé samples, compiled by the author and Kathryn Kraemer Troutman, the author of Federal Résumé Guidebook, are included to guide job seekers through the sometimes confusing application process.

Considerable improvements were implemented over the past few years to the archaic Civil Service examination process. Uncle Sam has finally dropped most general and administrative written entrance examinations and substituted an Occupational Questionnaire and/or Self Certification in most cases. New applicants for certain occupations may still be required to take written tests, but most agencies, other than the U.S. Postal Service, forgo testing and opt to use Occupational Questionnaires.

Agencies are still evolving since the September 11 attacks and the massive reorganization that established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS was established to consolidate law enforcement and security functions, and 22 agencies transferred significant operational functions and personnel to Homeland Security since its inception.

The impact of this reorganization and the increased security requirements in all agencies have changed government demographics. An entire chapter is devoted to law enforcement and DHS careers and the many job opportunities that are now available in the government s third largest agency. DHS employs more than 154,000 workers in hundreds of occupations.

Many changes were initiated since the previous edition was published. Lucrative recruitment incentives were authorized by Congress, programs such as the Veterans Recruitment Appointment (VRA) were revised, and the student hiring program was reorganized under the eScholar program. This edition also added information on the Senior Executive Service (SES), and all these changes expanded the new 10th edition to 352 pages.

The federal government s total civilian workforce as of September 2006 was 2,700,392 and approximately 50 percent of the federal workforce is currently eligible for either early or regular retirement. This is creating significant employment opportunities for anyone interested in working for Uncle Sam. Over 1.3 million jobs will need to be filled as the baby boomers opt to leave government service.

This Tenth Edition of The Book of U.S. Government Jobs will help job seekers land high-paying, benefit-loaded, and secure government jobs. If you re looking for a position with good pay with excellent benefits, explore the high-paying and secure federal job market. The average annual salary for all full-time employees was $67,186 in December 2005, and you can work at thousands of stateside and overseas locations. Use this book s resources, including the Job Hunter s Checklist in Appendix A, to begin your personal job search..
Price: $14.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Acclaimed by the New York Times as "part muse, part quick reference," this pocket-sized dictionary is an easy-to-use tool geared specifically toward the contemporary songwriter. A concise collection of the most-often used words in popular music, the simple format allows for fast reference, while the 15,000 entries provide more than ample rhyming options..
Price: $2.52 [Notify me when price goes down.]

.
Price: $19.47 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Linux Enterprise Cluster explains how to take a number of inexpensive computers with limited resources, place them on a normal computer network, and install free software so that the computers act together like one powerful server. This makes it possible to build a very inexpensive and reliable business system for a small business or a large corporation. The book includes information on how to build a high-availability server pair using the Heartbeat package, how to use the Linux Virtual Server load balancing software, how to configure a reliable printing system in a Linux cluster environment, and how to build a job scheduling system in Linux with no single point of failure. The book also includes information on high availability techniques that can be used with or without a cluster, making it helpful for System Administrators even if they are not building a cluster. Anyone interested in deploying Linux in an environment where low cost computer reliability is important will find this book useful. The CD-ROM includes all of the software needed to build a Linux Enterprise Cluster, including the Linux kernel, rsync, the SystemImager package, the Heartbeat package, the Linux Virtual Server package, the Mon monitoring package, and the Ganglia package. All figures in the book are also included on the CD-ROM..
Price: $27.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is the best guide ever published on how to acquire and maintain good study skills. It covers everything from developing a vocabulary to improving the quality of written work, and has chapters on studying math, science, and languages; taking tests; and using libraries. If anyone you know is college-bound, buy this book: it will prove a lifesaver and a godsend..
Price: $4.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Garden Seed Inventory is an essential reference for all serious vegetable growers who care about seeds and preserving our common garden heritage. This comprehensive “catalog of catalogs” is now available in an updated sixth edition, and lists nearly 8,500 nonhybrid varieties of everything from amaranth to zucchini.
As traditional plant breeding gives way to bioengineering and patented varieties, it has become even more important to recognize and preserve our rich vegetable legacy: seeds brought to this country by immigrants from every corner of the world, or developed here by farmers and breeders for superior taste, regional adaptability, disease resistance, and other virtues. Far from being obsolete or inferior, these varieties represent the cream of our vegetable crops. Garden Seed Inventory opens the door and invites us all to discover them..
Price: $18.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, here discusses some of the most urgent issues facing intellectuals today. In this collection of personal and revealing essays, he explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. His reflections are written in a style that both entertains and disconcerts, as they engage us in topics ranging from moral relativism to the relationship between cultural and psychological differences, from the diversity and tension among activist faiths to "ethnic conflict" in today's politics.

Geertz, who once considered a career in philosophy, begins by explaining how he got swept into the revolutionary movement of symbolic anthropology. At that point, his work began to encompass not only the ethnography of groups in Southeast Asia and North Africa, but also the study of how meaning is made in all cultures--or, to use his phrase, to explore the "frames of meaning" in which people everywhere live out their lives. His philosophical orientation helped him to establish the role of anthropology within broader intellectual circles and led him to address the work of such leading thinkers as Charles Taylor, Thomas Kuhn, William James, and Jerome Bruner. In this volume, Geertz comments on their work as he explores questions in political philosophy, psychology, and religion that have intrigued him throughout his career but that now hold particular relevance in light of postmodernist thinking and multiculturalism. Available Light offers insightful discussions of concepts such as nation, identity, country, and self, with a reminder that like symbols in general, their meanings are not categorically fixed but grow and change through time and place.

This book treats the reader to an analysis of the American intellectual climate by someone who did much to shape it. One can read Available Light both for its revelation of public culture in its dynamic, evolving forms and for the story it tells about the remarkable adventures of an innovator during the "golden years" of American academia.

.
Price: $11.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]