What Color Is Your Parachute? 2001: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers (What Color is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-changers) - Softcover

Bolles, Richard N.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580082424 ISBN 13: 9781580082426

Publisher: Ten Speed Press, 2000

Synopsis

A guide to discovering personal goals and interests explains how to apply that information toward obtaining satisfying employment

About this title

Review

For three decades Richard Nelson Bolles's annually updated and revised Parachute has been cheerfully advising people that the best way to find a job or make a career change isn't to answer a job ad and/or send in a CV. That way, the statistical odds are heavily stacked against success. Instead he advocates a creative three-pronged approach. You are in charge so be proactive and sell yourself. First identify your talents (and of course you've got lots). Then work out where you would like to apply these transferable skills. Lastly, decide how you will pursue organisations which interest you. Thereafter it's down to your efforts: "Successful job hunting is a learned skill. You have to study it. You have to practice it. You have to master it, just like any new skill. And master it thoroughly because you'll need it all the rest of your life", says Bolles.

An ordained Episcopal priest, Bolles was canon pastor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Made redundant in 1968, he created another career by publishing the first edition of Parachute in 1971--then little more than a newsletter. Today it is published in 10 languages world-wide and bought by 20,000 people a month. It's an immensely detailed, friendly book whose attractive layout includes coloured fonts, nice historical sketches and lots of easy-to-read grids, charts and even the odd poem. Useful Internet site addresses abound. And although Parachute is American, most of Bolles's advice is just as applicable in Britain as in the US. Bolles evidently means to be inspirational and is. He's also down to earth. Once you get into an interview you are much more likely to get the job if you don't reek of aftershave, perfume or garlic and if you've had a bath and pressed your clothes, he points out. --Susan Elkin

From the Author

Parachute went from 560 pages to just 235 in this edition.
For much of 1998, The 1998 What Color Is Your Parachute? was the second best-selling business paperback in America. But, at 560 pages, I had a feeling people weren't reading it, except in bits and pieces. Its size was just too intimidating. So, for the 1999 edition (now out) I rewrote the entire book, summarizing where I could, writing shorter sentences where I could, and as a result, reduced it to just 235 pages in the main body of the book. Much more manageable. Here's a typical reaction from a reader: "For the past 20 years, I have purchased or been given a copy of your annual edition/rewrite. In my opinion, the 1999 edition is the best, easiest to read, briskly written, humorous, personal, practical, jam-packed with hints and helps, and 235 pages, excluding the appendices. You have returned the book to the reader and now for the first time in many years, I will strongly encourage people who buy this book to read the entire thing. I am in awe of the masterpiece you have produced." (Jim Kell, Texas)

Edition details

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1580082424
• ISBN 13: 9781580082426
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368