About
Don Pieta
“My career has included being a computer programmer, a college math coach, and speaking to students.”
Three jobs, one thread running through all of them: watching capable young people struggle with the gap between finishing school and starting work. Not because they lacked ability — because nobody had told them how the process actually works.
Why this book exists
The same questions, over and over
After enough years of coaching students and sitting through enough hiring conversations, a pattern shows up.
The questions were never complicated. Should I put this on my resume? What do I wear? What do I bring? What do I say when they ask why I want the job? Is it rude to ask them a question back? These are small, answerable things — and not knowing them costs people jobs they were qualified for.
So the answers went into a book. And because the students who most needed it were the least likely to read forty pages of career-advice prose, it was drawn instead. Every point is a cartoon panel. You can read the whole thing in a sitting, or open it to one page the night before an interview and get exactly what you need.
There is one more thing in there that most career books leave out: the trades. Not every degree leads to an office, and apprenticeship programs in fields like electrical work and carpentry let you earn a paycheck while you train. That is a real option, and it deserved real pages.
Background
Three careers, one perspective
Computer programmer
Years inside the working world, on the side of the desk that reviews resumes and sits in on interviews.
College math coach
Working one-to-one with students, which is where the questions about life after graduation always came up.
Speaker to students
In front of rooms full of graduates, translating the hiring process into something practical.
Speaking
Bring Don to your campus
Don speaks to students about the practical mechanics of getting hired — the same ground the book covers, delivered live and built for a room that is about to graduate.
- Graduating classes and senior seminars
- Career center workshops and job-fair sessions
- Student organizations and alumni events
- Parent and family orientation programs
