Frequently Asked Questions about
Janet Ruhl's Books
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Q: What is The Computer Consultant's Workbook ? A: The Computer Consultant's Workbook was based on the "Getting Started in Consulting Seminar" Janet Ruhl developed after the original success of her Computer Consultant's Guide. While it covers many of the same topics as the Guide its emphasis is on helping the reader assess their own situation, and formulate a business and marketing plan that will allow them to succeed in consulting. Like the guidebook you'd take on a trip with you, the Workbook contains a lot of well-organized, practical material that one buyer called, "The other half of the "Guide" In the Workbook you'll find: Worksheets, exercises, and detailed discussions that help you decide if consulting is for you and lead you through the process of crafting a business and marketing plan Detailed fact sheets about complex issues like business insurance, contract clauses for independents and contractors, and effective marketing strategies Step by step help in setting your rate The facts on how to get the best deal from consulting firms Sample business letters, marketing materials, proposals, and telephone scripts that help you sell yourself to clients Insider tips and "gotchas" highlighted in an easy to read style. Computerworld's reviewer said, "Almost every page can be quickly turned into a to-do list or the outline of a plan of action. . . Although the volume of information Ruhl provides is tremendous, it's easy to absorb and can be immediately useful." Q: What is Answers for Computer Contractors? A: Answers for Computer Contractors: How to Get the Highest Rates and the Fairest Deals from Consulting Firms, Agencies, and Clients is Janet Ruhl's latest book. Its focus is exclusively on computer contracting, with an emphasis on how you can work safely with consulting firms, placement agencies, and brokers. It draws heavily on the data collected by the Real Rate Survey and on the experiences reported by hundreds of computer contractors who have participated on the Computer Consultant's Message Board which you'll find elsewhere on this site. Topics covered include What it takes to be eligible for big money contracts The differences between W-2, 1099, and corp-to-corp contracting What rates contractors are really earning and for what kinds of work How consulting firms operate and how they exploit the unwary How to find contracts through consulting firms and agencies How to work directly with clients How to protect yourself from abusive contract clauses What to expect on the job How to increase your value on the open market Q: I'm starting out, which book would you recommend I start with? A: If you are thinking of becoming a contractor or working on jobs found through large consulting firms, you'll want to begin by reading Answers for Computer Contractors. If your main interest is in improving your marketing skills and finding your own clients, looking to find your own clients either The Computer Consultant's Workbook. Q: Do the books repeat the same information? A: While both books discuss facets of computer consulting, the approach taken in each is different, so that the books complement each other rather than overlapping. Answers for Computer Contractors goes into much greater depth about what's involved in contracting, especially through agencies, and includes a lot of hard data about contract rates and the conditions of contract jobs that was not available when the earlier books were written. The Computer Consultant's Workbook is the best book for you if you want to find your own clients and pursue a more entrepreneurial kind of consulting. It concentrates on helping you decide whether you are ready to enter entrepreneurial consulting and then shows you how to find clients and craft an appropriate marketing plan. Q: I'm a contract programmer working contracts I get through consulting firms, would these books help me out? A: Answers for Computer Contractors would be the best book to begin with, but the other two books will show you how to make yourself less dependent on consulting firms for work, as you develop your own clientele through applying the marketing techniques successful consultants find most effective. Q: I'm not a programmer, but I do computer work for clients will these book help me? A: Yes! All three books carefully differentiate between the various kinds of computer consulting people pursue and what strategies work best for each type. Systems integrators, VARs, computer management consultants, and web site designers will all find useful information in all three books. Q: What's in the new book, Computer Job Survival Guide ? A: This book is a completely rewritten and updated look at the same subject matter that made Janet Ruhl's first book, The Programmer's Survival Guide a computer career bestseller for over ten years. This book focusses on salaried computer work and teaches you the proven strategies that lead to long-term career success. This book begins by showing you how to break into the computer field--with different strategies appropriate for you depending on the strength of your entry-level credentials. It then shows you how to behave on the job so that your career grows as fast as possible. There is extensive material on how to work with recruiters and managers and a long hard look at whether pursuing a management career might make sense for you. The book also features several chapter on how to evaluate any new job to make sure that the job you get is the job you thought you were getting--and so that the job you get improves your employability for your next job and the one after that. You'll find up-to-date information on the HB-1 visa program and its perils, issues related to working for start-ups and pre-IPO compaies, data about current salaries, the truth about salaried consulting, and more. Besides the material that made Janet Ruhl's Programmer's Survival Guide a long-term bestseller, this new book incorporates hard data from The Real Salary Survey that helps you understand what real computer professionals are earning and for what. It also incorporates new material taken from interviews with dozens of high earning computer professionals. Q: Who should read Janet Ruhl's Computer Job Survival Guide A: This book will be useful for anyone who is considering entering the computer field. That includes students about to start their job hunt and professionals in other fields who would like to switch to computer-related work. Janet Ruhl's Computer Job Survival Guide will also be very helpful for computer professionals already in the middle of careers who feel that those careers aren't progressing as fast as they would like and who wonder what they can do to improve their earnings or their job satisfaction. Q: Why did the clerk at [your favorite huge book chain] tell me I couldn't order one of your books? A: In keeping with Janet Ruhl's belief that those teaching entrepreneurship should practice it, she turned down offers from large publishers and instead published The Computer Consultant's Workbook , Answers for Computer Contractors and Computer Job Survival Guide through her own small press, TECHNION Books. Some chain stores make it hard to buy any books published by small presses. However, after several years of steady sales, TECHNION Books is now distributed by the two major distributors who stock most retail stores. So you should now be able to order these books through any bookstore that buys from either Baker & Taylor or Ingram Books (which is 99% of all bookstores). However, sometimes a book will be listed as "out of stock" in the wholesaler's database because the copies available at the warehouse have sold out and it takes several weeks to restock. When this happens, a bookstore clerk may tell you the book is unavailable. You can always order any of our books directly from TECHNION Books. Q: Why are you no longer offering The Computer Consultant's Guide online? A: Janet Ruhl's book, Computer Consultant's Guide is published by a large publisher, John Wiley & Sons. The terms on which they let us sell their books are such that it is hard for us to make a profit on them when demand drops below a certain level. Sales for that book are nowhere near as strong as that for the books we publish ourselves, so for now we have decided to sell only books, tapes, and other materials published by Technion Books on this site.

Read the Table of Contents of Computer Job Survival Guide! Read Excepts from Computer Job Survival Guide! Read the Table of Contents of Answers for Computer Contractors! Read the Computerworld review of Answers for Computer Contractors! View sample pages of The Computer Consultant's Workbook Read the Computerworld review of The Computer Consultant's Workbook. Home ...