A wide-ranging manual that delivers valuable advice for job seekers.
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
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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