What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles Paperback—432 pages (October, 2002) Ten Speed Press Reviewed by Will Phillips This is certainly a strange title, yet it is the world’s best manual on job hunting and career change. Richard Bolles spent a good deal of his life as a minister and in that process not only was involved in helping other ministers re-think their careers, but also parishioners. In this book, he has captured the concepts, tools, and methods that he used as a career counselor. The book was first published in 1970 and continues to have updated editions published every three to four years. At last count, What Color Is Your Parachute was selling 20,000 copies a month, since it first came out until the present day. There are few books in any field that stand heads and shoulders above all others, but this is clearly one. Although other career counseling and job finding books may have a little more depth or detail here or there, no book covers it in such a sophisticated, clear, humorous, and powerful way as Dick Bolles’ book. For those who are in a hurry, the book begins with a large number of random hints on how to hunt creatively for your job. For those who are more disciplined the remainder of the book takes a systematic approach to help you understand what your real talents are, where to apply them, and, finally, how to find the right person who can hire you. The book also gives you references on how to obtain a quick job hunting and career changing map. This is a large foldout, which does not come with the book. But, once again, for those who are impatient, it gives a very quick way of answering these three basic questions: 1) your talents, 2) where to use them, and 3) how to find a job. An extraordinary amount of detail is presented, along with good strategies on how to make all of this work. Having used this book in my own business—Career Perspectives, a lifework planning firm which I founded in Boston in the ‘70’s—I can say unequivocally that these materials continue to be at the very top of the list. Here’s the dilemma. In order for you to get the real benefits of what’s in this book, you actually have to have the discipline to pursue the exercises that are outlined. Invariably, people who read the book love it and fail to follow through on the exercises. At times, it is difficult for people to analyze the exercises in the most powerful way when they are looking at their own life and career. For this reason, I cannot too highly recommend finding an experienced "Parachute" coach to help you in this process. On an irregular basis, REX conducts a LifeWork workshop using these materials, along with other unique REX tools such as our Personal Strategic Planning Cards to help you plan your life and your work.