Thu, 02/09/2023 - 8:00pm

Rockport writer Frank Burtnett has published the third edition of his book Career Challenges: Straight Talk about Achieving Success in a Post-COVID, Technology-Driven World, and in it, he examines the career development encounters that people experience across their life-span.

Burtnett, a veteran counselor and counselor educator, begins with a comprehensive examination of the career development process and why those eight phases must be understood in order for career success and satisfaction to be achieved.

His analysis is followed by a meticulous treatment of more than two dozen significant challenges that members of the workforce must confront and resolve as they navigate their life experience.

The career challenges examine the right and wrong ways to move through career development and address everything from conducting an effective job search and knowing how to manage career growth and mobility to essential tasks like preparing a resume, managing an interview’ and dealing with job stagnation, change, or loss.

Burtnett, and his wife, Susan, are Maine snow birds who split their time evenly between Rockport and Northern Virginia. At age 82, he still teaches one class in career counseling at Marymount University, in Arlington, Virginia, and has taught grant-writing for the Five Towns adult education program each fall.

“The first two editions of Career Challenges were actually titled Career Errors: Straight Talk about the Step and Missteps of Career Development,” he said. “My publisher and I thought ‘errors’ was frightening away some readers and thus the change in the third edition. I also thought that COVID and the continuing technological revolution were creating a ‘new normal’ in American work, workers and the workplace and I added several chapters to address those issues.”

Burtnett has been an educator, counselor and nonprofit executive, having worked in schools, colleges and operating his own consulting firm, Education Now.

In retirement, he has focused on sharing his knowledge of educational and career development.

Rowman & Littlefield has also published his two earlier books: Bound-for-College Guidebook and Bound-for-Career Guidebook. Those two are mostly geared to the adolescent and young adult reader.

“My principle motivation in writing these books has been to pass along to both targeted and readers across the life-span what I have been teaching in my classes, seminars and workshops,” said Burtnett. “Career Challenges covers everything from self-awareness and exploration to career preparation, entry and movement. I close by addressing career wind-down and exit. I see myself as a sponge that has ‘sopped up’ knowledge and information that I now want to allow my readers to ‘wring out’ of me.”