The Recruiting Toolbox Bookstore
We’re all about helping recruiting-focused people win in their jobs. We’ve created great resource pages to help elevate recruiters to talent advisors and help recruiting leaders operate more strategically. Below are a selection of some of the books that we’ve seen impact how recruiting pros influence, think holistically, speak the language of the business, and deliver more value. And, below the books, we have some of our favorite sayings available as stickers – some are inappropriate, which are often the best stickers for your laptop 🙂
Books We Love
Why we love this book:
This book is a short read and offers very practical ideas and advice. It frames the difference between advising and coaching and helps the reader think more deeply about how to move from the former to more of the latter. This book centers around seven key coaching questions and also provides some scientific research and some reflection exercises, so there is something here for everyone.
Why we love this book:
Ray Dalio has a very interesting way of viewing the world and has built a successful company on that view. His approaches to transparency and decision-making are unique, that is for sure. Whether you agree with his ideas or not, this book introduces the reader to his principles, and also makes the reader think deeply about their own.
Why we love this book:
Want insights into modern HR practices? This book gives TA pros a holistic view of the expectations businesses have of their talent partners, and Lars – a long-time colleague of ours – includes a feature by our founder (John Vlastelica) on the role of the modern recruiter as a Talent Advisor.
Why we love this book:
Hear from two long-time Amazon execs about the internal practices that made Amazon the massive, 1 million+ employee success that it is today. Our founder, John Vlastelica – who co-built and co-led the infamous Bar Raisers recruiting program at Amazon – got to contribute to the chapter on recruiting, and share the origin story and mechanics of Bar Raisers.
If you’re interested in how we learn and retain info, why generalists are often better than specialists, where innovation comes from, the stories we and our educators tell our children about careers, and why match quality drives performance, check out this book. It’s one of my favorites, with insights that’ll help you coach hiring managers about target candidate profiles.
Why we love this book:
The authors do a good job of helping non-psychologists understand the implicit and explicit workings of the mind and how they impact decisions and behaviors. As two of the forces behind the Implicit Association Test, Banaji and Greenwald share insights and also use some interesting hands-on exercises to help demonstrate these concepts to readers. They share research without sounding like boring academics or coming across as condescending, which is also a good model for readers.
Why we love this book:
US history books struggle to give an accurate, holistic picture of history. They turn our heroes into perfect people, they often re-tell history with a strong euro-centric, white bias, and they don’t help us connect the dots to understand the role race has played in our history since Columbus. This book reveals a lot of things that you probably didn’t learn in US history class, and it’s critical to understand how we got to where we are to be able to address systems issues that have impacted women and people of color.

Why we love this book:
We know that one of the primary drivers of top talent is growth and learning. If you’re a talent leader looking for ideas to develop your recruiters, or want a book to share with hiring managers to help them develop their teams, check this out. It’s loaded with practical, how-to info.
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Stickers & More
Want to show the world you’re an exceptional recruiter with a bit of humor? Check out some of John Vlastelica’s favorite sayings from our trainings and travels, and order them as laptop stickers, t-shirts, water bottles, and more from our friends at Redbubble.