What Color Is Your Parachute? 2007: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers [Paperback]

"What Color Is Your Parachute" is the first book you need if finding a job is your goal. If you've not bought this yet, you haven't started looking. It is that good.

Richard Bolles is the expert. His books sell because they are fresh each year with insight, purpose and ideas for determining what job you should do, and how to get it.

I used "Parachute" to get my first job. It continues to influence me today, as I job hunt again. (post script: two weeks after posting this review, I landed a position as a communications manager at a major firm).

Thoroughly practical, Bolles asks you questions about your mission in life. His belief is that just getting a job -- even ones you are good at -- won't be a wise decision in the long haul. He helps you see your passions mixed with skills and experience, and guides you to getting their. Though it is hardly a self-help book, it is far more useful than the ones clogging up the Top 10 list.

He keeps you accountable. Finding a job is your job if that's what you say you want. And if you aren't working, he won't let you make excuses -- you've got the time. Either you are looking or you aren't. Dr. Phil could take a note from Bolles' direct yet congenial style.

Don't bother with the hardcover. You need the paperback. This is not a sit-on-the-shelf book, but a get-down-to-business book, and you'll appreciate the flexibility while at work or on the train.

I fully recommend, "What Color Is Your Parachute" by Richard Nelson Bolles.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

While I don't think "What Color is Your Parachute" is a perfect book, it is certainly an excellent starting point for anyone embarking on a career path. As a professional coach, I find that is particularly well-suited to young people starting out and older people making career transitions.

The major strength of the book is that it provides a systematic roadmap from confusion through finding a job that is well matched to both your talents, passions and the needs of the market place. Many career coaching approaches neglect focusing on introspection and finding out what skills you most enjoy using and instead focus on what you are good at, but don't necessarily enjoy. Mr. Bolles does a good job of balancing all of these areas.

I also like that this book gets into matching more than just skills to a career choice. It looks a geographical preference, working environment preferences and categories of skills such as working with people, information and things. Knowing what ratio of these basic categories of tasks is best for you is a simple, but valuable insight. So are the intangible aspects that come along with a particular kind of work.

Another thing that Mr. Bolles does that I appreciate and find a lot of value in is looking at peak experiences inside and outside of work and mining them for both skills and values. I think this is an important key to finding the right work and a way to override negative scripts that often drive our behaviors unconsciously. This is also important information for finding the right key words to put in the resume for good emotional punch.

This book also makes the realities of the job market very clear. Whether people like it or not, networking, research on companies and being prepared is important. So are having a good marketing plan, concrete goals and time commitments around the various job related tasks. We spend a lot of our time at work, so to me this makes perfect sense and avoids a lot of unnecessary pain further down the road.

I tend to think of a job as something that pays the bills, but doesn't necessarily lead to fulfillment in and of itself. This book is more about career building i.e. finding work that has meaning to you and providing a path where you can evolve and grow. If you are only looking for a job, this might be more than what you want to take on. However, if you are looking for happiness in the work you do, this is an excellent starting point to get some momentum that will take you in the direction of your dreams.

I think maybe this author is a little too comfortable with how successful his book has been in the past, because this edition was so overstuffed with anecdotal and sometimes patronizingly excessive information that I had a hard time actually finding useful stuff. It's in there, but you really have to weed through a lot of fluff to find it. I much preferred the "Cool Careers for Dummies" book, which actually gives practical ways for you to look "inward" and figure out what you want to do with your life. Plus, they have realistic, straightforward information about careers that might interest you. Mr. Bolles may have a lot of experience and think that readers are hanging on his every word, but I did not buy the book to read it for pleasure, I just want to find a career, and some practical ways to get me there without all of the useless banter.

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