books as gifts — and good recruiting

Micro-move alert! It’s surprising to me how many very online folks don’t know that you can give a Kindle book to someone as a gift. You choose the book; they get an email with a link and they download the book. Voila voila.

If you’re looking for a meaningful and low-cost gift for someone on your team (employee, boss, or colleague), this can be a great one. I find it’s especially useful and well-received if you send a book you have read and gotten something out of and you tell the recipient how that motivated your choice.

I could see this being a pretty great move during recruiting, hiring and/or orientation, too. After an intro conversation at a conference with a leader who worked in a space I was interested in, that leader sent me a curated box of books that amounted to a crash course. I felt so seen and respected. And then I read all of those books and I realized that I hadn’t just gotten a gift - I had passed a test. When I wrote the thank you note and reported reading the books, that leader knew my interest was serious, not passing, and I had acquired exposure and knowledge he could point to when he introduced me to others.

-eric