Results
Winner
Navigating the Quarterlife Career Crisis: Real Stress, Real Solutions
Scott Doyne
"Navigating the Quarterlife Career Crisis" helps 18- to 25-year-olds struggling with uncertainty reduce their stress and make progress towards a fulfilling life and career. Too often, young adults' career anxiety is dismissed. This book validates that stress as real, and answers it with real solutions. Drawing on research and real stories, including interviews and surveys with hundreds of young professionals, author Scott Doyne, an ICF-certified career coach and Emmy-winning former sports media executive, names the stressors holding this generation back: fear of failure, career path uncertainty, and feeling stuck or lost.
It delivers practical, peer-sourced solutions: stress relief, mentoring, networking, job and internship search strategies, and campus career resources, plus guidance on social media, AI, family pressure, financial stress, and entrepreneurship. Its message: you have what it takes to thrive, even when
Winner
Navigating Your Next: Discover the Career You Want and the Path to Get There
Julian Lighton
We spend around 90,000 hours of our lives at work, yet many people invest more time planning a holiday than deciding what they really want from their career. Navigating Your Next gives readers the tools to change that. At a time of AI-driven disruption, layoffs, hiring freezes and shifting career paths, the book helps people move from uncertainty to clarity and take greater control of what comes next. Its practical seven-step framework enables readers to identify what they genuinely want from work, understand and articulate their value, recognise the skills and behaviours they need to develop, and pursue opportunities that align with their ambitions.
Drawing on Julian Lighton’s 35 years of experience hiring, leading and coaching people, it supports readers at every career stage – from those starting out to experienced professionals considering a reinvention. Rather than prescribing one definition of success, it equips people to define their own and build a realistic path towards it.
Winner
Coach Yourself Confident: Ditch the self-doubt tax, unlock humble confidence
Julie Smith
Coach Yourself Confident helps capable people stop paying the self-doubt tax: the cost of low confidence, levied in missed opportunities or in overwork and exhaustion. Real-life stories reassure readers that they are far from alone in doubting themselves. Clear prompts for self-reflection surface fresh insights on their confidence and their doubt. The book goes much further than deepening awareness; it supports readers to take action. Its 38 practical activities (“gold dust” according to a reviewer) take the learning from the page into real life. The result for one reader: "The biggest change? If I don't feel confident BEFORE I give something a go, I still go ahead and do it."
Throughout, gentle provocation is blended with encouragement and empathy. Described by a reader as "a personal coach on your desk", the book provides on-demand access to the benefits of executive coaching, otherwise out of reach for so many.
Winner
Careers By the People: Candid Career Advice from 101 Experienced Professionals
Mike Wysocki
My book tackles the issue of career readiness. The bridge from education to the workforce is broken. Schools are not preparing the students for the workforce and industry is complaining but not helping. Students are drowning in debt and are confused and depressed. My book offers students suggestions on workforce preparation. Since I did not prepare, I did not enjoy my profession so I inform the students on the way I should have prepared which I learned in 30+ years in industry. To add, the students and educations can read about 101 careers by the people that worked them. From CEO to actuary to accountant and so many more. Chapters are divided into Hollands Occupational Themes.
Also, it's a fun and easy read. Career Readiness is an imperative subject and many of the books are dry so students avoid and end up getting career advice from social media. My book received endorsements from educators of Stanford, Harvard, UMass, BU, Northeastern and many more. Thank you.
Finalist
Becoming the Project Manager: Lessons from the Early Years of a Project Manager
Stuart Taylor
Most people begin their careers in project management feeling unprepared, often because they never planned to be project managers.
They accidentally find themselves in a role, where they are being handed responsibility, pressure, meetings, politics, and high expectations long before they feel ready for them. And the theory they’ve learned often doesn’t match the reality they experience.
Becoming the Project Manager helps bridge that gap.
Rather than teaching rigid frameworks or textbook processes, the book shares the author’s real experiences, mistakes, pressures, and lessons; and helps readers understand that uncertainty is normal, confidence develops over time, and many of the challenges they face are shared by others in the profession.
The goal of the book is not just to help people manage projects more effectively, but to help them develop judgment, resilience, communication skills, and calm authority in complex working environments.
Finalist
The Visibility Effect; 50 Truths to Accelerate Your Career, Your Voice and Your Value
Janet Wise
The Visibility Effect is a career strategy guide for ambitious professionals ready to stop waiting for recognition and start steering their own rise. Drawing on decades as a global head of learning, leadership, and talent development, Janet Wise reveals the career advantage hidden in plain sight: visibility. Through fifty bold, actionable “truths,” I show readers how to clarify their value, amplify their presence, and build a career that’s both visible and valuable. Combining insider HR insight with real-world leadership wisdom, The Visibility Effect helps readers navigate promotions, performance reviews, and high-stakes moments with strategy and confidence. The result is accelerated career growth, greater influence, and professional freedom, because visibility changes everything, when you know how to use it.