Book Club

By Elena Pizzamiglio

Luck Is No Accident, Making the Most of Happenstance in Your Life and Career
John D. Krumboltz, Ph.D. and Al S. Levin, Ed.D.
Impact Publishers, 2004
ISBN: 1-886230-53-6

This book is engaging, practical and easy-to-read. Krumboltz and Levin set out to clearly prove that “Luck is No Accident” and that people are indeed responsible for taking actions that lead them to find themselves in what are often called ‘lucky situations’.

There are simple principles that are proposed in order to create one’s own luck: recognize that unplanned events will occur in one’s career, take advantage of chance events, take actions to potentially create opportunities, be open to opportunities and flexible with plans, take risks and learn from each experience. The authors demonstrate how unplanned events are significant in people’s career and advise readers on how to prepare for the unforeseen. Krumboltz and Levin also speak to how their ideas of creating one’s own luck fit into the current paradigm of Career Counselling and they discuss career myths.

There are a couple of great features of this book. One is the collection of anecdotes used to illustrate how occurrences in people’s lives demonstrate the veracity of the authors’ views and the second is the exercises that follow each chapter. The book can be used by professionals for ideas on how to work with clients and can also be recommended to clients for work to be completed on their own. Throughout reading the book, I often found myself stopping and pondering my own experiences. I thought about the chance events in my life, how I responded to them, and how the events and actions shaped my career.

A great little book!

Review written by Elena Pizzamiglio MEd. Elena is currently working as a Student Counsellor at the University of Toronto. She has worked for community and educational organizations in counselling and employment services for the last 6 years.

By Heather Hanley

Bizy’s Guide to: Starting a Home- or Office-Based Résumé Business
Teena Rose
www.resumebiz.com

Bizy’s Guide to Starting a Home- or Office-Based Résumé Business is a great resource tool for anyone in the career education field who is interested in starting their own business. It became apparent reading this book that the author had been through this process before, and knew the ups and downs of the home-based business.

This book offers a great starting resource to get a potential business owner thinking about their business and mapping out what their expectations are of their business. The chapters are arranged to follow a logical progression through the various stages of starting your own business. Each chapter contains many useful checklists which cover all the issues, particularly ones that a new business owner may forget or not be aware of. The language of the book is basic enough that you do not need to be an MBA graduate to understand it. This is a great asset as many people who move into their own home-based businesses are entrepreneurial without significant amount of higher education.

I would like to note however, that though this is a great resource for anyone starting a home-based résumé business, it can not be your only resource. Due to its simplistic nature, there are a lot of topics which would require further investigation and study. For example, further study would have to be pursued when creating a business plan or projected budgets. As well, the various legal matters associated with starting your own business are only briefly mentioned. The author then refers the reader to his or her lawyer for clarification on these issues. The provided list of related readings and other resources is a great reference for building your library and learning all you can before jumping into your own business.

I believe this is a great tool to be used as a foundational reference. It is a great starting point which will guide you in the directions you wish to follow next. I highly recommend it.

Heather Hanley is the Program Assistant in the Schwartz School Co-op Program at St. Francis Xavier University. Heather has worked with the program since June 2002, assisting in its creation and development. She is currently working on her Master of Adult Education with a focus in Career Development through Reflective Thinking. Heather has worked with over 100 students, preparing them for Co-operative Education work terms and assisting them in developing their career goals.