In our latest coaching books article we highlight another classic to get you a job and take you to the top.
What Color is your Parachute – 2022 edition
With the subtitle Your Guide to a Lifetime of Meaningful Work and Career Success this book is billed as ‘the world’s most popular and best-selling career guide, with timeless advice, up-to-the-minute insights, and more than ten million copies sold over fifty years’. The latest edition of ‘What Color is Your Parachute?’ by Richard Nelson Bolles (1927–2017) has recently hit the shelves.
In a post-Covid world, today’s job market is increasingly challenging. Graduates face a shifting economic landscape and seek work that both pays and inspires. Meanwhile, advice is needed not only for workers who are laid off mid-career, but also for people searching for a better work-life balance. In this climate, claims the book’s website, “The time-tested advice of What Color Is Your Parachute? is needed more than ever.”
The new edition has been fully revised by Vanderbilt University Career Center director Katharine Brooks. It features advice on job seeking strategies such as building an online resume, making the most of social media tools and internet-based job search techniques, excelling at virtual interviews, and on salary and benefits negotiation. There are even tips for introvert job seekers. Building on the wisdom of the original author, this edition updates the famous ‘Flower Exercise’ (which shows job seekers the seven ways of thinking about themselves) and demystifies the entire job-search process, from writing resumes to interviewing and networking.
Indeed, when the book was first published, “it revolutionised the concept of job hunting,” Brooks explains in the introduction. “Unlike traditional guides to the job market, it helped job seekers understand themselves first, then find the jobs that fit, using a mix of good-humoured advice and practical strategy.”
The Parachute Approach sets a level playing field for all job seekers in any job and their ‘holy grail’ to find a job that fits their passions and fulfils their life mission, she continues: “In Richard’s writings, you see his compassion and respect for all workers. His emphasis on the importance of choosing your career and not letting the job market choose it for you. His encouragement to take the time to do a thorough self-evaluation before hitting the job market. And his belief in the importance of all careers, from pipe fitters to harp builders to doctors.”
The book scores also on its lively and interesting approach. The “Ten Commandments of Job Interviews” for example recommend you even to ask if the company can offer you the chosen job. And if you like ‘Schadenfreude’ do not miss the “Ten Greatest Mistakes in Job Interviews.” These include “talking only about yourself and the benefit the job will give you in the interview”, and at the other end of the scale, being a ‘job beggar’, hoping for any job, however humble.
In short, writes Time magazine, “What Color Is Your Parachute? is about job-hunting and career-changing, but it’s also about figuring out who you are as a person and what you want out of life.”
