Great Careers for People Who Like to Work with Their Hands

Genevieve Cherwinski is a co-operative education and family studies
teacher in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The recession and the resulting high unemployment rate have left
teachers and students scrambling for the most up-to-date information on
future job opportunities. To meet this demand, this series of 12 guides
covers a variety of careers, from the traditional ones of carpentry and
hairdressing to nonconventional ones like hot-air ballooning,
woodcarving, and inventing. Since the public and private sectors now
place great emphasis on the environment and on entrepreneurship, two
guides are also devoted to these areas. Other guides are not as easily
defined. For example, careers are organized under titles that include
such phrases as Working with People, The Human Body, Sports and
Medicine, and Living Things. One problem with this division is that
descriptions of possible careers cannot always be easily found. For
example, one might expect to find a theatrical designer in Performing
Arts or Film, Video and Photography, instead of in How Things Work. (A
series index of careers would have overcome this problem.)

Each guide follows the same format: 36 pages devoted to 6 careers, plus
4 pages of interesting but not very informative anecdotal discussions on
related areas, followed by a list of related careers not discussed in
the series. Each guide ends with four pages that, using different
examples, outline the tools needed to get a job (i.e., a résumé, an
application form, a covering letter, and instructions for interview
preparation). This information is very useful, but need not be repeated
12 times!

The strength of this series lies in its visual and stylistic impact.
Not only are the volumes colorfully illustrated, but they are also
simply written. Each of the careers highlighted includes a personal
profile, a job description, a training program, and a list of desirable
personal characteristics. However, the student activity provided for
each is questionable, as are some of the careers profiled (e.g., the
veterinarian and the veterinary technician are described in detail, but
the only biologist included is a zoo biologist, surely not a hot item in
the Canadian job market). Moreover, the series leaves the impression
that all careers featured have a promising future, but no mention is
made of growth rates or realistic salary expectations. The selection of
careers profiled also ignores prospects for those Canadians who do not
live in cities but who nevertheless also require meaningful career
information. Finally the price—$170, for 576 pages, briefly describing
72 careers—leads one to conclude that better value exists elsewhere.
Not a first-choice purchase.