'Adulting' how-to from Naperville authors offers life-launching advice

A consultant and a career coach wanted to write a book about financial planning for 18- to 30-year-olds, but they decided they needed to take a step back.

After all, the authors thought, students will have more finances to manage if they can find good careers.

So Gerry O'Connor and Barbara Schultz, both volunteers and board members at the Career & Networking Center in Naperville, brought on the center's executive director, Kimberly White.

And that's how the book now published as "Adulting Made Easy (er): Navigating From Campus to Career" got its start.

The life-launching manual is targeted toward students as well as their parents, offering advice and action plans to help make a satisfying career a reality. Most chapters conclude with a list of take-aways on topics such as networking, social media use, creating a personal brand, searching for jobs, interviewing and negotiating job offers.

"It's about resources, careers, working with your family as a team, building your network," O'Connor said. "We concluded if we could help students make wise education choices that link to careers that they might like to pursue, that's the smart move."

The authors collaborated for 15 months to write the book and now are promoting it to high schools and colleges locally and across the country.

O'Connor, who is principal of a consulting company after a career with Nicor and other companies in the Naperville area, provided the financial expertise, such as encouragement for students to consider the return on investment as they decide which field to study or which career to seek.

Schultz, who is principal of a company called The Career Stager, gave some of the do's and don'ts of applying for jobs from her background in human resources and hiring.

"What I brought was the other side of the desk," Schultz said.

And White contributed not only professional experience from running the Career & Networking Center but also personal experience from helping her children, ages 23 and 28, complete college and start careers.

The first chapter, called "The Talk," draws on her experience explaining to her children the financial resources she and her husband, Naperville City Council member Benny White, were putting into their education as a way to get them to take responsibility for some of the cost and for their success.

They now work in the real estate and public relations industries in New York and Washington, D.C.

All of the authors tailored their messages to today's teens and young adults.

"We all have been successful in our careers and that's great. But it loses its luster when you're talking about, '20 years ago, I did this,'" Schultz said. "Well, they don't care."

So the book doesn't preach, authors said. It encourages parents and students to be open to the nontraditional options of the "gig economy" and to admit it's OK to change course.

While the book focuses on the college-to-career transition, White said part of the message to parents - especially in a well-educated area such as Naperville - is college isn't the only path.

"Parents need to know that not every kid is going to go to college and not every kid is meant for college," White said. "Understand your kid and then help them to be successful, whatever that looks like."

The book is available for $9.99 on Amazon at http://bit.ly/adultingeasyer.