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CAREERS AF!

...NEW RULES...NEW TOOLS...

A wide-ranging manual that delivers valuable advice for job seekers.

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
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In this debut guide, an employment recruitment specialist offers insider information for readers looking for better careers.

As a seasoned career coach, Nadon knows how job seekers can successfully market themselves, and she shares many professional tips in this well-organized handbook. In a friendly, conversational tone, she provides some refreshing perspectives; for example, she writes that even readers in their 60s can begin new career paths. One of the biggest mistakes people make, the author asserts, is waiting to upgrade their career advancement tools—like resumes, bios, or references—until things get bad at their current jobs. Investing time and/or money for professional development is also part of her common-sense, strategic advice. In order to get job seekers started, Nadon gently walks them through some simple professional assessments—such as determining whether their careers are entry level or midmanagement—and then she prompts them to write a career wish list. Presenting an unconventional twist, the author suggests brainstorming the wish list in an inspirational place, like a park or a temple, to leave stagnant thinking behind. Nadon’s prose is fluid, and her breezy chapters include “Mindset Alerts” or short, often lighthearted tips that urge the audience to think creatively. For example, when organizing a career wish list, she encourages readers to have fun: “If you always wanted to be the prime minister of Canada, write it down.” Chapters also feature “Killer App alerts” or insider tips, such as the importance of knowing when to call about a position; for example, a hiring manager may not want to be interrupted during an important industry conference. Though Nadon encourages job hunters to think outside the box, she delivers many practical ideas, such as what not to do in a first-round interview and how to negotiate salary.

A wide-ranging manual that delivers valuable advice for job seekers.

Pub Date: March 15, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5255-4111-7

Page Count: 210

Publisher: FriesenPress

Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2020

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CALL ME ANNE

A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.

The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.

Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.

A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.

Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023

ISBN: 9781627783316

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Viva Editions

Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023

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MASTERY

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...

Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.

The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.

Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012

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