Making It Work: Career Management for the New Workplace

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

In the flood of résumé-writing books published in response to
today’s high unemployment rate, Van Norman’s work stands out as
exceptionally clear, practical, and proactive. Although the book targets
recent college and university graduates, the content is sufficiently
universal to be valuable to anyone seeking employment for the first time
or looking for a career change.

The material is organized into five interrelated areas: skills,
résumés and cover letters, research for employment, self-marketing,
and long-term career management. The first section looks at skills
identification for the new workplace and how to feature these in a
résumé. An innovative concept, the skills savings bank, is introduced.
Examples of different types of résumés effectively illustrate the
explanatory material on résumé components. Help in designing a
personal marketing plan, and in developing strategies for finding work,
along with some basic points on making the most of a first job, complete
the book.

Van Norman brings a calm, understated tone to the subject, in sharp
contrast to the usual pep-rally hype of such books. Also, while she
acknowledges the changing nature of the new workplace, she does not feed
the new economy/jobless economy hysteria. Making It Work combines sound
explanatory material with a workbook format; by completing the
exercises, the reader creates his or her own personalized
employment-search reference.

This is the best of the dozens of books on the topic published in the
past few years.