5 Books Every Young Professional Should Read

Early on in your career, you have a lot to learn. Not only are you still learning the technical skills you will use throughout your career, but you also need to figure out this thing called work and how exactly to succeed at it. Here are 5 books that young professionals can read to understand some of the core skills they'll need, no matter their profession.

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi This is a practical book on developing professional relationships will help people understand the importance of building those relationships, networking and succeeding in business. The three main lessons it will teach you: Build your network before you need it. Don’t Keep Score. Be Audacious.

Decisive by Chip Heath & Dan Heath This one is all about learning better decision making skills for work and general life. It takes you through what you should consider and how you should go about making any decision, and it narrows it down to four steps. Any of us can learn four steps to become a better decision maker!

Everybody Writes by Ann Handley As the title says, everybody writes. No matter what aspect of marketing a young professional wants to work in, mastering writing skills is key to future successes. Ann Handley has written other books about content, but this one is a great guide for anyone, no matter their experience level. And a bonus - it's actually a really fun read!

Atomic Habits by James Clear Atomic Habits is an excellent book for anyone who wants to finally achieve health, fitness, financial independence, relationship success and other goals but is dissatisfied with how they can't seem to break some of their terrible habits.

The Weekend Effect by Katrina Onstad This easy-to-read non-fiction essay discusses the difficulties in finding work-life balance. The chapters are written in an informal, conversational style and mix statistics with personal tales – it provides general, common sense counsel rather than unique insight into the subject but is worth a read for early-career professionals to understand how work-life balance challenges can be addressed.