Top 10 books to improve your skills this fall

Emilija Jankauskė

September 30, 2021


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The book season is officially here - there's nothing better than curling up with an exciting read and a steaming cup of tea during those crispy autumn nights. Even more so, if the chosen title is not only captivating but also packs some valuable knowledge for your everyday career. Therefore, our team has put together an ultimate reading list for anyone interested in advancing their skillsets - from getting more efficient at your work, improving your developer's knowledge, leadership, talent acquisition to spotting psychotic tendencies and manipulations around you.

man reading outside in the sun

Dive into our team's ultimate reader's digest for the fall season:

The Talent War

Recommended by Lauryna Girėnienė, Head of Talent Acquisition

"If you take part in hiring at scale and especially if you are a decision-maker in hiring processes, I highly recommend reading this book. You'll learn why you still can't succeed in hitting your hiring targets and how to win this ever-raging talent war. It's all put together really methodically for you to easily analyze and understand your position and plan for further improvement."

A must-read for any business leader looking to build elite teams and win on talent. The book tactically lays out a strategy for building an elite team in your business. Find the book here.

A bookshelf featuring the first 5 books discussed in this article.

Building Micro-Frontends

Recommended by Paulius Kimbartas, Senior Front-end Developer

"I bookmarked this one for taking a closer look at the front-end architecture from the social perspective and not only the technical side. There is plenty of different research and insights collected from various companies who implemented the micro-frontends architecture into their systems. Therefore, you have many different cases to analyze as in each case the application is unique."

The book takes you through the whole journey of explaining the use and advantages of micro-frontends to walking you through practical use, building, and deploying micro-frontends in your organization. Find the book here.

Give & Get Employer Branding

Recommended by Rasa Daunoravičienė, Head of Communications

"Employer brand marketing is the new black. However, it's quite hard to find non-repetitive examples and thoughts on implementing them into your brand strategy. Yet, this read was a rather refreshing new look at employer brand value in today's competitive job market. Think about creating smart EB filters repelling wrong-fit candidates instead of pitching your brand to them."

The book covers a "smart filter" concept proposed by two employer brand industry leaders, Charlotte Marshall and Bryan Adams. It teaches how to focus on repelling the wrong candidates that don't fit your company's values and culture. Find the book here.

Concurrency in Go

Recommended by Domas Tamašauskas, Go Developer

"Concurrency is the main selling point of Go programming language. If you don't understand it, you don't know the language itself. I loved how the book laid out the problems and their solutions clearly and concisely. It's possible to learn concurrency in a few years, yet after reading a few books on it, you may already apply some of the principles into your everyday tasks."

The author takes you step-by-step through the whole process of incorporating concurrency into your systems. You'll learn all the necessary skills for writing and implementing concurrent systems of any size. Find the book here.

Invisible Women

Recommended by Emilija Jankauskė, Content Lead

"You're guaranteed to get chills reading this book, and it's not a horror story but an impressive stack of research on the lack of gender-segregated data, and especially, the lack of data on women. And if you think that's a minor thing, it's not - due to this lack of data, women die more frequently in car crashes, are prescribed the wrong medication, or can't even operate the voice-activated systems since the AI learns from the database which is 70% men recordings. This data gap is also starting to affect the digital world, resulting in bias you never thought of. It turns out as women, you have to work twice as hard to make the world work for you."

The book is built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and worldwide and is a real eye-opener for men and women alike. Find the book here.

A second bookshelf featuring the remaining 5 books mentioned in this article.

The Perils of Perception

Recommended by Laura Tyrylytė, Head of PR

"This fascinating book examines a few of the most critical problems of our times - fake news, cognitive bias, and poor intuition. Steeped in hardcore statistics and anecdotal beliefs, it covers a whole range of global issues - including immigration, obesity, consumption, and happiness - and shows the huge gap between reality and our perceptions. I'd say it is a must-read for anyone working in marketing - it will challenge your assumptions, but at the same time, will equip you with the skills to critique the "facts" you're presented with daily."

The author highlights the issue of misinformation and a lack of credible data in the age of the internet and how easy it is to bend and manipulate human perception. Find the book here.


The Psychopath Test

Recommended by Šarūnas Urbonas, Marketing Project Manager

"The book reveals a lot about how big of a grey area there is between what we perceive as psychopaths and who they actually are. There's a lot of misconception going on, and after reading it, you may notice how many of the people around you could be psychopaths. So if you ever struggled with comprehending some people's behaviors, this could be the answer you were looking for."

The author takes an original journey through the world of madness - convinced that quite a bit of the world's CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths. He teaches the main signs and how to spot psychotic behaviors. Find the book here.

Extreme Ownership

Recommended by Mykolas Dumčius, Head of Product

"It's a must-read if you want to set on the "ownership" topic to the end. The book itself is a comparison between management in the office and on the battlefield and what you can learn from it. Highly recommended."

The book is written by two navy SEALs who, after their return from the battlefield, founded a business teaching the same leadership mindset to companies that they learned facing the most grievous dangers out there and how to apply it into their everyday work. Find the book here.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Recommended by Marijus Briedis, CTO

"I liked how concise and to the point it was - ​​the brutal truth about today's high-tech surveillance and how it's used in our everyday life. It highlights the problem and is perfect for raising awareness around the unseen issues of data gathering through tech. Would highly recommend it to anyone working in cybersecurity or tech in general."

The author takes us through her research and line of thought on surveillance capitalism - companies trying to observe and modify people's behaviors for financial gain, which threatens to affect human nature itself. Find the book here.

How to be a Productivity Ninja

Recommended by Simona Rubanaitė, Senior ASO Strategist

"This book is perfect for those who are looking for methods, techniques, or simple life hacks to increase their productivity. The idea of this book is to encourage you to think more about your own productivity behaviors so that you can improve these habits to a point where you rarely have to think about your productivity ever again."

The title covers how to beat procrastination, make most of your attention and become as efficient at your work as possible. Find the book here.