Book Review - What Color Is Your Parachute?

My family just relocated to another state, so I went to the book store and bought another copy of an old favorite, Richard Bolles What Color Is Your Parachute?. The book is more than just a plan for getting a job – it is a step by step guide for visualizing where you want to be and how you are planning on getting there. Richard Bolles main thesis is that you look inside to find out exactly where you want to work and what you would like to do. Then, instead of just answering ads from the internet or the newspaper, he implores readers to talk to friends and family or even just use the yellow pages to hunt down companies that might have jobs that you would like to do. You then call the company and ask for an informational interview. (Bolles coined the term in the late sixties with the first edition of the book). Much of what Bolles recommends in his book (which is revised each year) seems obvious by today’s standards because his ideas have been very widely accepted by job hunters everywhere.

Before I go too much further, I need to admit that I have managed to find just about every job I’ve ever had through ads in the newspaper/internet or via a job board. I have spent most of my career working for local governments or large associations. They tend to post their jobs. Nevertheless, I always turn back to What Color Is Your Parachute when I’m ready to start job hunting. Doing the exercises which involve look back on past successes and visualizing your ideal job scenario (down to the working environment and the office décor) has always helped me focus and given me some good chunks of information that have proven to be useful during interviews. My last job, where I was very happy, ended up mirroring the description of the “ideal” job I created using the exercises in the book.

What Color Is Your Parachute was originally published in the late sixties as a career manual for college students. Richard Bolles is an Episcopal priest and wrote the manual to help students in his campus ministry. Some critics of the book claim that it is too religious. I did not find this to be the case, there are about five pages that refer to God in the book total. The book is updated each year to keep up with the latest trends. The 2006 edition of the book provides some useful advice on starting a business as well as more information on internet job searching. Bolles also has a website that has links to some good sources of information for researching companies.

I am a true Parachute fan and would recommend the book as a resource for your next job hunt.