James Michael Farr founded JIST Publishing and was a nationally recognized job search expert, multi-award winner and best-selling author of more than 20 career books, including The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book and Getting the Job You Really Want. He passed away in December 2010.
Widely known as America’s Career Expert, Farr was an important figure in the self-directed job search movement. His passion was empowering job seekers with the knowledge and skills they needed to take control of their own job searches, so that they’d be less reliant on outplacement and vocational services and counselors to find jobs for them.
In 1981, Farr founded JIST, which has been one of the nation’s largest career publishing houses for nearly 30 years. Farr’s ground-breaking job search and career planning books have sold more than 2 million copies and dominate the career shelves of bookstores and libraries across the nation. Farr is the primary author of the Best Jobs series, Top Careers series, and The Quick Resume & Cover Letter Book.
During his lifetime, Farr received numerous awards and recognitions for his work. His books Getting the Job You Really Want, The Very Quick Job Search and Best Jobs for the 21st Century were finalists or winners of Benjamin Franklin Awards. Several videos based on Farr’s job search expertise and book content also have won prestigious Telly, Communicator, WorldFest, NY Film Festival and Videographer awards.
Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., is one of the nation’s leading occupational experts and appears regularly on national news programs and in major print publications to share his expertise about trends in the world of work. He is a senior product developer at JIST Publishing, has 30 years of experience in the career information field, and is an award-winning career information systems developer.
He has been a researcher and developer at Educational Testing Service, where he helped develop the SIGI Plus computer-based career information system. He oversaw the updating and enhancement of the SIGI PLUS database for more than 15 years. He has served as a board member and as president of the Association of Computer-based Systems for Career Information. Shatkin also is a member of the National Career Development Association and a frequent presenter at its conferences.
Shatkin is the media’s go-to source for up-to-the-minute occupational information and has appeared on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, ABC News Now, the FOX Business Channel’s Money for Breakfast, CNN’s American Morning, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and many more television and radio shows across the nation. He has been quoted in major print publications including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, Fortune, Reader’s Digest, Men’s Health, and Publishers Weekly—just to name a few.
For interview requests or questions about Shatkin, contact Selena Dehne at sdehne@jist.com or (651) 215-7548.