A thorough, useful resource for job seekers.
This all-in-one job-search manual provides a candidate’s point of view.
Typically, books offering advice about job searches are written by recruiters or human resources professionals. In contrast, this debut is the work of someone who, over the course of 15 years, “attended more than thirty-five interviews” with little success. Mapleton learned what he did wrong and eventually found a good position. Now he has turned his experience into a handy guide to help other job seekers. The book begins by covering some basic information about types of jobs and the hunt for a position while employed versus unemployed. Next are two perspectives on the job search through the eyes of a recruiter and a hiring manager, each of whom offers valuable advice. One of the strongest sections of the manual, “Body Language Basics,” supplies an instructive overview accompanied by uncredited color photographs of various facial, hand, and body positions. The remainder of the work is divided into three “phases”: “Preparation,” “Moving Forward,” and “Foot in the Door.” Mapleton addresses job descriptions, resumes, cover letters, the oft-overlooked thank-you notes, and “the elevator pitch” in Phase 1; job boards, LinkedIn, recruiters, fairs, and networking in Phase 2; and interviews in Phase 3. The interviewing phase, likely the most crucial, is especially rich in detail. It covers in-person, video, and telephone interviews; delivers worthy suggestions for how to answer numerous queries, and includes typical “trick questions.” In combination, these three phases constitute a comprehensive approach to searching for a job from start to finish. While much of this information could probably be found elsewhere, it is beneficial to have it consolidated in one book. The content is logically organized; examples are liberally sprinkled throughout; and the author’s writing style is clear and conversational. In addition, Mapleton includes some very helpful tips presented from the job seeker’s point of view, such as describing specific “microexpressions” (facial expressions that represent each emotion) and noting a particular “selling method” that can enhance a candidate’s desirability to a hiring manager.
A thorough, useful resource for job seekers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5255-7711-6
Page Count: 132
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
