Susan Maciak’s Job Shopping: Don’t Settle for a Job that Sucks exemplifies creating literary lemonade out of the sour economy. She brings cleverness, snappy language and design sense to the employment guidebook market, incorporating advice on how to identify and market one’s skills into a gentle beige and light blue, dark green and purple color scheme. Graphics and the multicolored text and layout of each page draw readers in and focus their attention on the information presented, while the content is detailed enough to provide real information but short enough to avoid wordiness.
Maciak’s upbeat tone empowers while sharing straightforward truth. Those working through her career program take practical action every step of the way, listing skills, developing written goals, evaluating and choosing options. The curriculum engages participants, keeping them involved while helping them put the concepts to memory.
Job Shopping includes information useful for all ages, and goes beyond the traditional skills checklist/resume and interview pointers to offer information on how to work a room and talk with a variety of people, how and where to find job leads, and how to market oneself as a product, with a concise pitch describing skills and career interests. The comprehensive nature of this resource will come in handy in the modern economy, where one must increasingly promote oneself: simply filling out applications and sending resumes and being willing to work will not go far enough.