“In today’s world, the person who gets hired is not necessarily the one who can do that job best; rather, it’s the one who knows the most about how to get hired”

This is a paradigm shifting book. In the world of career changes or job hunting, the Parachute Approach involves beginning with yourself instead of just the market. Getting the full experience of this book isn’t in reading it, but taking the time to perform the personal and professional exercises and research it prescribes. Even though only time will tell the true benefits of these methods, I certainly feel more confident about my pending career change.

Going beyond the included helpful information of the text, the practical exercises are an excellent guide to both understanding how to navigate the job market and, more importantly, make an honest assessment of the type of employment you should seek. From there it advises key approaches to preparing in terms of resume building, interview skills, salary discussions, and even starting business on your own. It is the most all encompassing book available.

Updated to include modern tools such as websites, apps, social media, and virtual platforms. Given its popularity, I imagine it will continue to be updated and it could be beneficial to pick up the most recent edition when actively searching for new positions over time.

First of all, that's a hot air balloon on the cover, not a parachute. Is anyone else bothered by this?? A hot air balloon takes you up, and a parachute helps you land safely on the ground. Not the same thing!! Also, where are any mentions of parachutes or colors in this book? I was honestly expecting it to be like other books based on fitting into a specific color family, but in regards to finding a career. Obviously you shouldn't judge a book by its cover which, in this case, is false on all levels. Instead, you do a flower diagram exercise inside comprised of petals to help you figure out who you are and where you'd like to work. So a more accurate title would be What Does Your Flower Say or something. Also, his grammar is horrendous. This man went to Harvard! Yikes. He does make a comment on it in the back that he does it on purpose, to be "conversational," but his erratic and incorrect use of commas drove me up the wall. If he pauses for breath that often, he must never get through a damn sentence. All the complaints aside, this is a decent book for finding a career. Probably more appropriate for older folks though. I did the petal/flower exercise, but I didn't do it fully the way he intended. Then again, I decided what I wanted to do right as I started this book, so then it wasn't totally relevant to me anymore. It just wasn't my style or anything that was particularly helpful to me, but I guess it's the number one job-hunting book for a reason.

This is the best job-hunting book I read so far! What makes it better is the author Richard Nelson Bolles is also a Christian. By reading this book, I understand more about the new job search techniques. I guess the hard part is really practicing it cause networking IS hard. I really appreciate the chapter about job interviewing, letting me know how it is like a "date," so I won't be as nervous. I think either way, you will still be nervous since our natural tendency is for the other person to like us whether we are compatible with each other or not. Kind of like I still rather every employer would want to hire me whether I'm fit for the job or not. :-P

Favorite Quotes (P.77-78): An interview resembles dating, more than it does buying a used car (you). An interview is two people trying to decide if they want "to go steady."
An interview is not to be thought of as marketing (yourself): i.e., selling yourself to a half-interested employer. Rather, an interview is part of your research, i.e., the data-collecting process that you have been engaged in, or should have been engaged in, during your whole job-hunt. While you are sitting there, with the employer, the question you are trying to find an answer to is: "Do I want to work here, or not?" You use the interview to find out. Only when you have concluded, Yes, do you then turn your energy toward selling (yourself). An interview is not to be thought of as a test. It's a data-collecting process for the employer, too. They are still trying to decide if you fit.

(P. 95) Remember, the hiring process is more like choosing a mate, then it is like deciding whether or not to buy a new car. "Choosing a mate" here is a metaphor. To elaborate upon the metaphor a little bit, it means that the mechanisms by which human nature decides to hire someone, are similar to the mechanisms by which human nature decides whether or not to marry someone. Those mechanisms, of course, are implusive, intuitional, nonrational, unfathomable, and often made on the spur of the moment.

I wish this book would have told me something other than it did. I knew I was an artist with day jobs in everything from bar tending to accounting, married to another artist with a day job in civil service, trying to survive and feed our kids. I guess this book can't help someone make it easier financially in this world that makes no sense to someone who might have autistic tendencies. I had a hard time taking the time needed to focus on working on the flowers.

This book was super helpful and guided me through what I considered at first uncertain times. I would recommend 100%.

It was interesting to read overall and get an update on the job search process in 2022. I found the petal exercises to be quite helpful and just a good approach to understanding what I want next.

This is a book your parents nag you to read a million times before you finally give in and give it a shot just to get them to stop. That's not to say this isn't a very helpful book. I would recommend it to anyone looking to make a career change or trying to find their way in the job world. Don't tell my dad, but he was right about this book.

n  Review originally published January 2004n

Are you in the market for a career change or just getting started in the job market? What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles has been around for thirty years and is updated annually and can help you do just that.

If you plan to search the Internet for a job, according to Bolles, only about 10% of Internet job hunters is successful; the other 90% have to search elsewhere. Did you know that looking for a job in your local newspaper is one of the five worst ways to find a job? In his book, Bolles will explain to you the 5 best and 5 worst ways to look for a job.

Maybe a home business is something that interests you. In this chapter, you’ll find the three major problems of a home business, how to decide what kind of home business you want, and he also lists several helpful websites.

Whatever your job desires may be, this book could prove helpful to you in your search for finding and getting the right job.

Find this book and other titles within our catalog.

One of the important skills one should have in our modern society is the ability to look and be successful in getting a job. Unfortunately, many of us are not well-equipped nor skilled enough to navigate our way around the job market. Moreover some of us are intentionally or unintentionally misinformed by others on how we should go about the transition in between jobs. We are getting multitude of answers and finally get a job only to find out that we are not satisfied; then the cycle starts again.

But good news! There is a book that can help us not just only to get a job but find ourselves as well. What Color Is Your Parachute? 2015 by Richard N. Bolles gives us an insightful view of what is happening in the current job market. This book is updated yearly so you can be sure that the information is always fresh and most of the time relevant. If you are not looking for a job, you can still benefit by gaining the knowledge of what you really want to do. As a result of this you may begin to question your existence in your current role and find yourself a more fulfilling place work for.

Here are just several of the reasons why you should consider reading this book:
1. If you want to get an understanding of why there are still so many unemployed people while employers are still finding it hard to fill in their vacancies, this book will enlighten us.
2. You will get a better understanding of your situation. You will realize that not every employer will like you, but there are several or many employers who are looking for someone who is exactly like you. Your task is to look for them.
3. It will teach you that just using your resume and sending it to different employers is not the most effective way to get an invitation for an interview.
4. This book will guide you to understand who you really are.
5. Written in a very engaging style, this book will make you feel like you are with a sage who will guide you all the way to your successful job hunting.

This book is primarily recommended for the following:
1. Job hunters
2. Those who have friends or family members who are looking for jobs
3. Career coach or counselors
4. Anyone who wants to understand themselves better

Just another tip: This book demands a lot from its reader. For you to get the full benefit from this book, you've got to do the exercises, particularly the Flower Exercise. These exercises will really help you a lot.

Certain sections of this book are interesting, such as the section about the changing landscape of employers and job-seekers; however, the author could've spent more time writing about how to more effectively network, especially given that this seems to be the crux of his strategy for job-seekers, and less time about how to find the right career.

Seriously, this book is one of the best selling career self-help guides? I find that hard to believe. My issues with this book:

1) Awkward, and at times incomprehensible, sentence syntax. Dick Bolles comes across as a doofus with too much time on his hands who just decided to sit down and write a book, and not as a job-market-savvy consultant.

2) Seriously stupid advice. "Try a search engine, like Google, or Yahoo, or your favorite one if you have one." Yeah, thanks for the advice, Dick. I never thought to Google jobs in my field. It gets worse; he has you draw pictures of flowers and fill in all sorts of diagrams and tables to help you find the job that's right for you. What do you do if you already know where you want to work and are having a hard time getting into those jobs? This book does not say.

In all it was a huge waste of my time to read this book, I'd have been better off finding jobs, writing cover letters, and tweaking my resume. I guess if you've never, ever had a job that's required a resume and cover letter before, this book may be helpful, but most of the advice Dick Bolles provides is obvious and useless.

Loved it then and love it now.