1-Page Summary

In What Color is Your Parachute?, career expert Richard Nelson Bolles (1927-2017) shares insights from over 40 years working in the career development field.

(Shortform note: The book’s title was inspired by a joke. When the author was told in a meeting that some people in his organization were “bailing out,” he wrote “what color is your parachute?” on a blackboard to remind himself to address the subject. Neither the parachute nor its color is a metaphor for the job-hunting process.)

The Current State of the Job Market

Since the 2008 recession, many aspects of the job-hunt have changed⁠—jobs take longer to find, don’t last as long, and involve technology. However, certain aspects of the job-hunt haven’t changed. There are still plenty of jobs available, and job-hunting is still fundamentally about compatibility between an applicant and an employer⁠—both parties have to like each other.

What Job Should You Try For?

The first step to finding a job is to focus on yourself⁠—what do you want to do? You can research career options online and take assessments and tests, but the most effective way to find out what kind of job you’d like is to self-reflect using the flower exercise.

The flower exercise involves looking at yourself from seven different angles: compatibility with people, workplace conditions, skills, purpose, knowledges, money, and location. In the exercise, each angle will be visually represented by a flower petal. When you’ve finished the exercise, you’ll end up with a one-page diagram of your flower that contains a visual summary of your personality as it relates to your career:

what-color-is-your-parachute-petals.png

Petal #1: Compatibility With People

The goal of this petal is to figure out the kinds of people you like or don’t like working with, whether they’re people who work at your company or people you interact with as part of your job.

The entries on this petal will be a list of adjectives that describe people and/or a list of Myers-Briggs or Holland typologies.

Petal #2: Workplace Conditions

The goal of this petal is to figure out what kind of conditions and locations you most prefer working in.

The entries on this petal will be a list of descriptions of your surroundings.

Petal #3: Skills

The goal of this petal is to figure out what your favorite skills are.

The entries on this petal will be a list of functional skills (verbs), optionally accompanied by adverbs or objects. Don’t include nouns⁠ (like “psychology”)—nouns are knowledges and will be addressed on Petal #5.

Petal #4: Purpose

The goal of this petal is to figure out the mission or purpose of your life.

The entries on this petal will be a description of what facets of the world you want to improve and some details, or a philosophy of life.

Petal #5: Knowledges

The goal of this petal is to figure out what knowledge you currently have that most excites you.

The entries on this petal will be a list of nouns.

Petal #6: Money

The goal of this petal is to determine how much money you need and/or want to earn from your job.

The entries on this petal will be the level you want to work at, a salary range, and benefits.

Petal #7: Location

The goal of this petal is to figure out where in the world you’d most like to live if you had the choice and to resolve any potential conflicts with your partner about where she’d like to live.

The entries on this petal include geographical factors and names of specific cities or places.

Two Approaches to Finding a Job

Now that we have a better sense of who we are and what we want, we’ll use this knowledge to find work. There are two approaches to finding a job, and the second is far more effective:

There are five steps to using your flower diagram:

1. Determine possible career paths. Write your top three knowledges and five skills on a sheet of paper and show the list to people you know and ask them what jobs or fields your list points toward. Ideally, speak to some people working within your knowledges. For example, if one of your knowledges is gardening, speak with a gardener.

2. Research possible careers. In step 1, someone might have told you about a job that sounds perfect, but you won’t know if it really is perfect until you learn more. Therefore, the next step is to conduct informational interviews with people who are currently doing the job. Ask them how they got into the field, what they like and don’t like about it, how much training the job requires, what some related careers are, and who else you might talk to.

3. Find out what organizations hire for the job. Brainstorm broadly. For example, if you want to be a teacher, you’ll think of schools, but also consider things like corporate training, military bases, ESL associations, and so on.

4. Find out what specific companies hire for the job. Make a list of companies that you think look interesting (regardless of whether or not they have open positions). To do this, keep talking to people⁠—friends, family, and informational interviewees⁠—and look online using search engines and LinkedIn.

5. Research specific companies. It’s important to research companies for two reasons: 1) to learn about an organization’s culture, working style, mission, and how you can be an asset to them, and 2) to determine if you would like working for that company. To research, look online, read company materials, test-run companies by signing up with a temp agency or as a volunteer, and keep conducting informational interviews.

Ideally, after going through the five-step process, you’ll have discovered the existence of a job that meets the requirement of multiple petals. However, if that job is completely different from any jobs or fields you’ve worked in before, you might have trouble securing it because you have no experience.

In this situation, the best course of action is to move into your dream job in two steps⁠—first, switch fields, then, switch job titles, or vice versa. For example, if you’re an architect and you want to become a music teacher, instead of going directly to a music teacher role, find a stepping stone job such as designing soundproof practice rooms so you can gain experience in the field.

Online Presences and Resumes

Now that you know what job you’d like to do, the next step is to find an opportunity. The first thing to do is assess your online presence, because these days, employers learn just as much about you from the internet as they do from your resume.

There are four steps to creating a work-friendly online presence:

1. Delete. Search yourself and read all the results. Delete anything you or anyone else posted that doesn’t show you in a favorable light.

2. Bolster. Add information to your existing online profiles to make them more complete and keep them updated. LinkedIn is a particularly important one.

3. Add. Put more information about yourself online. Join online forums and groups, start a professional blog or video series, and create new professional accounts on sites such as Twitter.

4. Summarize. Now that you’ve increased your online presence, you want to create a summary of the information for those who don’t have time to look through everything. You’ll do this by creating a resume. To create a resume, brainstorm a list of all your skills, experiences, and so on, consulting your flower if necessary. Write your resume content and format it professionally. Then, post the resume online. You can post it on major job boards such as Monster or on specific companies’ websites. You can also send it to specific postings or employers.

Interviewing

Once your online presence or resume has secured you an employment interview, the next step of the job-hunt is to ace that interview. There are some guidelines for interviewing:

Before the Interview

1. Research the organization. Read the about page and press releases on their website, look for a file on the company at the library, and conduct informational interviews.

2. Test-run technology if you’re doing a video or phone interview.

3. Prepare samples. Bring relevant samples of work you’ve completed in the past.

4. Prepare a list of general skills. There are some general skills that all employers want, such as dependability, commitment, and trainability. Before your interview, make a list of these types of skills and an experience in which you’ve demonstrated that skill.

During the Interview

1. Keep your word. If you asked for the interview, don’t let the interview run on longer than the time you initially asked for.

2. Remember that interviews are a two-way conversation. An interview is a chance for you to learn about the employer as much as it is a chance for them to listen to you.

3. Speak and listen in equal measures. If you talk too much, employers might think you’ll ignore their organizations’ needs. If you listen too much, they might think you’re hiding something.

4. Prepare for common questions. Every question an interviewer asks you is related to one of these five underlying questions:

No matter the question, try to give an answer with information that addresses some of the above questions.

Since interviewing is a two-way conversation, you’re going to have approximately the same five questions for the employer:

5. Answer all questions within 20 seconds to two minutes.

6. Reassure the employer that you’re not a risk. Bad hires are expensive⁠—don’t do anything that suggests you’ll be a bad hire, such as showing up late.

7. Behave appropriately. Dress professionally, avoid nervous habits, be confident and polite, and demonstrate positive character traits.

8. Never speak badly of anyone. If you bad-mouth previous co-workers or employers, that suggests that you might do the same about your potential new employer and co-workers.

9. Concentrate on the future. Employers ask about past experiences in the hope of predicting how you’ll act in the future. Whenever you answer a question, try to anticipate what future behavior the employer is trying to predict and address it.

10. Assess the interview’s progress. Once you start getting questions about the distant future (where do you see yourself in ten years), you can assume the interview is going well. Now, ask more questions about the job such as what are the duties, who would you report to, and how does training work?

11. Ask final questions. After your final interview, if you like the employer and you think she likes you, ask about the next steps such as when you’ll hear back from her. Also, ask for business cards, or names and addresses, so you can send thank-you notes later.

After the Interview

There’s one to-do right after an interview: Send thank-you notes to everyone you meet, not only the person you interviewed with.

After Learning the Results

If you’re invited back for another interview or offered a job, congratulations! If you’re not, don’t be discouraged. Just because one employer didn’t hire you doesn’t mean another won’t.

Salary

Congratulations, an employer likes you, you like them, and they’ve offered you a job! Now, it’s time to discuss salary and benefits.

There are six secrets to negotiating salary:

1. Research industry-standard salaries. Research salaries so that when an employer gives you a number, you know if it’s near the top or bottom of her company’s range. To research, search online, conduct more informational interviews, or find out what competitors or the government pays people in similar positions.

2. Wait for the opportune moment. Discuss salary only after the employer has decided she wants you⁠. This puts you in a better position to negotiate.

3. Be prepared to negotiate. It’s your right.

4. Get the employer to mention a figure first. If an employer asks you for a number, respond by asking for her number⁠—she came up with the job, so she must have some idea in mind.

5. Work the range. The bottom of your asking range should be near the top of the employer’s. For example, if an employer’s range is $40,000-$45,000, your range might be $44,000-$49,000.

6. Negotiate benefits. Benefits include life or medical insurance, vacation, and retirement contributions, and these can add 15-28% to a salary. As with salary, before going into an interview, you should know what you want.

Once you’ve finished all your negotiations, get everything you’ve discussed in writing and signed. Otherwise, an employer or supervisor might try to go back on what they offered.

Working for Yourself

Another option for a career change is to start your own business. Some people want to start a business because there’s something in particular they want to do; others simply want to work for themselves.

If you don’t know what kind of business you want to start, follow these four steps:

1. Brainstorm. Review your flower diagram, your resume, make lists of things you like and are good at, and search online.

2. Research. Learn how to start and run your own business. There are many online resources such as Free Agent Nation and federal small business tips.

3. Assess your skills. Find out what skills you need to run a business by conducting informational interviews. Then, compare the skills to your flower diagram to figure out what you’re missing. Either learn the missing skills yourself or find someone to help.

4. Solicit feedback. Talk to your partner about your business idea⁠—a business will affect her too. Once you’ve considered her feedback and everything you learned during the above three steps, make your decision.

What If It’s Not Working?

Sometimes it takes a long time to find a job. No job-hunting strategies work 100% of the time, and sometimes the odds are stacked against you⁠—for example, by law, a company might have had to post an opportunity publicly, but privately, always intended to hire the owner’s son.

If your job hunt isn’t going as well as you’d hoped, it’s important to manage:

Hire a Career Coach

If you want personalized help with your job search, you can hire a career coach. It’s best to stay away from firms because they’re often scams.

There are three steps to finding your ideal career coach:

1. Track down three coaches. Research career coaching online and ask people you know for recommendations. Churches and schools sometimes have free options available.

2. Set an initial appointment with three potential coaches. Ask them about their program, their experiences, their certification, their success rate, their fees, and their contract, if they have one. Some red flags: they’ll do all the work for you, they don’t have much experience, they claim a 100% success rate, and they charge a fee upfront (often scams).

3. Assess. If you liked one of the coaches, sign up with them. If you didn’t, for any reason, find another three and repeat the process again.

Cater to the Job Market

The parachute approach involves learning about yourself and then finding or creating a job you’ll enjoy. However, if you’re desperate, you can try starting with the needs of the job market. There are certain jobs, called hot jobs, that researchers think will see a lot of growth and new opportunities. Use the Occupational Outlook Handbook or other projection sites to find out what they are.

Chapter 1: The State of the Job Market in 2020

In What Color is Your Parachute? 2020, career expert Richard Nelson Bolles (1927-2017) shares insights from over 40 years working in the career development field. The original edition was published in 1970 and has been updated every year since 1975.

Because job hunting, at its fundamentals, is about learning who you are and what to do with your life, this book is valuable for people in all stages of life and career.

Shortform Note

What Color is Your Parachute was written in 12 chapters and three appendices. We've reorganized the chapter order to be more coherent and logical. As a reference, here's a mapping of our chapter numbers to the original book:

The book’s title was inspired by a joke. When the author was told in a meeting that some people in his organization were “bailing,” he wrote “what color is your parachute?” on a blackboard to remind himself to address the subject. Neither the parachute nor its color is a metaphor for the job-hunting process.

What’s Changed in the Job Market Since 2008

Since the last major recession in 2008, the job-hunt has changed and the pre-recession job-hunting strategies many of us are familiar with are no longer effective. Here are some of the changes to the job market since 2008:

What Hasn’t Changed in the Job Market Since 2008

After reading the above, you might be thinking that things aren’t looking good. However, there are two elements of the job market that haven’t changed and will probably never change:

1. There are still plenty of jobs available. You might feel like few jobs exist because of what you hear in the media or because you haven’t been able to get hired. However, the media tends to exaggerate the negatives, and the fact that you haven’t got a job probably has more to do with your approach (which you can change) than any universal job shortage.

2. The fundamental goal of the job hunt is to figure out if the job-hunter and employer are compatible. Think of a job hunt like dating instead of marketing. As job-hunters, we tend to be overly concerned about whether an employee likes us, but it’s just as important that we consider if we like them. If we don’t, and we take a job with them anyway, we’re eventually going to “lose” the job by quitting later because we’re unhappy.

How to Find A Job

The first step in finding a job is to figure out what you want to do. This applies regardless of whether you’re a high school graduate trying to decide what to study in college or someone who’s been working in the same field for years.

When you’re upheaving your career, try to keep other things in your life, such as your faith, values, or character, constant. Changing everything all at once is hard.

There are a few methods for researching new career directions. Method #3 is most important, but you can use all of them if you’d like:

Method #1: Online

To learn more about what jobs and occupations exist, look at online job information sites such as O*Net OnLine. These sites group careers or jobs by categories, and once you’ve found a category you’re interested in, you can delve deeper. Keep in mind that O*Net only covers about 900 job titles, but far more exist.

Method #2: Assessments and Tests

Career assessments can give you some information about what you might be interested in. In some cases, they may even point you towards an exact career. It’s important to keep in mind the following though:

Method #3: The Flower Exercise

The flower exercise involves looking at yourself from seven different angles: compatibility with people, workplace conditions, skills, purpose, knowledges, money, and location. In the exercise, each angle will be visually represented by a flower petal. When you’ve finished the exercise, you’ll end up with a one-page diagram of your flower that contains a visual summary of your personality as it relates to your career:

what-color-is-your-parachute-petals.png

(Brain researchers have discovered that when you’re trying to make life decisions, it’s effective to write down what you know about yourself on a single piece of paper.)

As you work through the flower exercise, separate your identity from your job title. Don’t think of yourself as a mechanic or a writer, think of yourself as a unique person who has skills, experience, and knowledges.

Chapter 2 will cover the detailed steps to filling out the flower diagram, and in subsequent chapters, you’ll use the information in the flower diagram for your job search.

Prioritizing

Throughout the flower exercise, you’ll be making notes on scrap paper that will allow you to fill in each petal on your final flower diagram. Many of the exercises involve making lists of items that you’ll need to prioritize. Prioritizing is important because when you’re looking for a job, you probably won’t find a position that encompasses every single thing you want. Since you can’t have everything you want, it’s important to know what you value most and least.

The best way to prioritize is to compare the options two at a time, as if they were teams in a round-robin tournament. When only considering two choices, which one do you like better? Then, rank the options based on how many times they won out over another option. If you have a tie, compare the match between the two tying options and give the winner an extra point. (For example, if item #2 and item #5 both won four times, return to your list and find where you compared #2 and #5. Give the winner an extra point.) You can access an electronic “prioritizing grid” here.

Chapter 2: The Flower Exercise

Chapter 1 covered the current state of the job market and some methods for finding a job. Chapter 2 covers Method #3, the flower exercise, in more detail.

To start the flower exercise, draw a flower diagram modeled on the graphic in Chapter 1 or purchase the companion workbook to What Color is Your Parachute?, which contains the flower diagram and all the worksheets involved in filling it out.

Petal #1: Compatibility With People

The goal of this petal is to figure out the kinds of people you like or don’t like working with, whether they’re people who work at your company or people you interact with as part of your job. This is important because the people around you either give you energy or drain it.

The entries on this petal will be a Holland Code (more on Holland typologies in worksheet #1) and a list of adjectives and/or Myers-Briggs typologies that describe people. Be specific with your entries. An example petal might read: Holland Code—RIS, polite, elderly, Myers Briggs ISTJ, detail-oriented, team players.

There are two worksheets involved with filling out this petal:

Worksheet #1: What’s Your Holland Code?

Dr. Holland came up with the theory that every career attracts certain types of people, or a specific “people-environment.” Therefore, if you can figure out what kind of a people-environment you prefer, that knowledge can direct you towards a specific career.

There are six people-environments:

The Holland theory says that everyone would have the potential to excel at all six people-environments if our life spans were unlimited, but most of us tend to excel in only three, based on how we grew up.

Your Holland Code is the three letters that represent your preferred environment. You can find your Holland Code in three ways:

Write your Holland Code on Petal #1.

Worksheet #2: Who Energizes or Drains You?

On a scrap piece of paper, create a chart with the following four columns:

Column A: Jobs you’ve had so far. Column B: The kind of people you worked with at those jobs that annoyed you. Column C: Top five worst types of people to work with. Column D: Top five best types of people to work with.
Here, write a list of all the jobs you’ve ever held. Here, write a list of ten types of people who annoyed you at previous jobs. List them in any order and don’t use names. For example, you might have been frustrated by coworkers who always came in late or were passive-aggressive. Here, write the top five kinds of people you don’t want to have to work with, in order of priority. Use the prioritizing grid. Here, write the opposite of the items in column C. You don’t have to write the exact opposite. For example, instead of writing “people who aren’t passive-aggressive,” you might write, “people who are straightforward.”

Transfer the list in column 4 onto Petal #1.

Petal #2: Workplace Conditions

The goal of this petal is to figure out what kind of conditions and locations you most prefer working in.

The entries on this petal will be a list of descriptions of your surroundings⁠—physical surroundings only because you’ve already covered people surroundings in the first petal. An example petal might read: somewhere with lots of natural light, flexible hours, standing desks, a short commute, air conditioning.

There is one worksheet involved with filling out this petal:

Worksheet #1: Ideal Environments

Like Petal #1’s worksheet, this worksheet will involve reflecting on what you don’t like and then considering the opposite.

On a scrap piece of paper, create a chart with the following four columns:

Column A: Jobs you’ve had so far. Column B: Working conditions you don’t like, in any order. Column C: Top five worst working conditions. Column D: Top five best working conditions.
Here, write a list of all the jobs you’ve ever held. Here, write a list of ten conditions that you didn’t like working in and/or that decreased your productivity. For example, perhaps you didn’t like working in an office that was near a door because every time it slammed loudly, it distracted you. Here, write the worst five items from column B in order of priority. Use the prioritizing grid. Here, write the opposite of the items in column C. Again, you don’t have to write the exact opposite. For example, you might write “quiet” instead of “not beside the door.”

Transfer the list in column 4 onto Petal #2.

Petal #3: Skills

The goal of this petal is to figure out what your favorite skills are. These skills should be transferable to any field and they’re probably related to your natural talents and abilities. However, while filling out this petal, it’s more important to list skills you love using than skills you’re good at.

The entries on this petal will be verbs or verbs accompanied by adverbs or objects. An example petal might read: write, mentor, accurately organize documents, teach children, speak, analyze, coach, edit, typeset, research.

What Is a Skill?

“Skill” is a commonly misdefined word, even among employers and HR departments. There are three kinds of skills, according to Sidney Fine:

Petal #3 focuses on functional skills and traits. We’ll cover knowledge-based skills in Petal #5.

Each of the three types of functional skills contains a hierarchy. For example, mentoring is the highest form of people skills while helping is the lowest. Typically, if you have a higher skill, you also possess all the skills below it. For example, if you can mentor, you can also help people. It’s best to emphasize your highest skill in the hierarchy because exercising higher-level skills gives you more freedom (for example, you can choose your schedule as a mentor but not as a customer service rep). Additionally, fewer people have higher-level skills, so there will be less competition for jobs requiring those skills.

There is one worksheet involved with filling out this petal:

Worksheet #1: What Are Your Functional Skills?

Most people don’t know what their functional skills are. If you do know, write them directly on your flower diagram. If you don’t, do this exercise. Here are the steps:

1. Write seven stories about seven moments in your life. Don’t choose something big like graduating from college; instead, choose a brief moment that you enjoyed. When choosing, consider, for example, stories that: aren’t work-related, demonstrate you acting differently than you normally would, or are difficult, exciting, unusual, or fun. If you really can’t think of anything, describe jobs or roles that you’ve enjoyed. Each story should have:

2. Carefully reread each story and figure out what functional skills you used in each to achieve your goals. For example, in the puppy story, you used some of the following skills: train, research, solve problems.

3. Look for a pattern of which functional skills keep recurring. Assuming that you followed the guideline to write stories about truly enjoyable moments, these are your favorite skills because you keep using them.

4. Prioritize functional skills. Narrow the list down to your ten favorite skills (the ones you like exercising, not the ones you think will be most useful). Then, use the prioritizing grid to put them in order of importance.

5. Qualify functional skills with traits and objects. Create a list of your strongest traits. Remember that traits describe how you do things, for example, how you communicate. (To come up with the list, you can take a Myers-Briggs test, or take a Values-in-Action assessment.) Then, combine your traits and skills and add an object if necessary. For example, if the skill is “communicate,” you might specify that you can “communicate authoritatively with children.” These phrases will be your go-tos during job interviews.

Transfer your list of functional skills and accompanying traits or objects to Petal #3.

Petal #4: Purpose

The goal of this petal is to figure out the mission or purpose of your life. You’ll consider your spiritual values and moral compass.

The entries on this petal will be a description of what facets of the world you want to improve and some details about those facets. Be specific. An example petal might read: improve the lives of children living in unsafe homes.

There are two worksheets involved with filling out this petal:

Worksheet #1: Nine Facets of Purpose

There are nine facets of human purpose. All of them are worthwhile and important, but you’ll likely be drawn to one in particular.

  1. Beauty. When you’re gone, do you want the world to be more beautiful than it was when you were born? Would you do this through music, flower arranging, or another art form?
  2. Physical health. Do you want to leave behind a legacy of feeding the hungry or contributing to the population’s fitness?
  3. Resources. Are you worried about the world’s consumerism and would prefer to see people being happy for what they have rather than always wanting more? How, specifically?
  4. Morality. Do you want the world to be more honest and fair than it is now? What areas of the world, or which populations, do you want to focus on?
  5. Love. Do you want the world to be more compassionate? Towards who or what?
  6. Entertainment. Do you want to cheer people up and distract them from their problems? Do you want to make people laugh? What kind of entertainment are you specifically interested in?
  7. Environment. Do you want the earth to be in a better state when you leave than when you arrived? Which particular environmental movements speak to you?
  8. Spirituality. Do you want the world to have more faith and love in God? Which people, and what parts of life?
  9. Knowledge. Do you want the world to know more as a result of your time in it? In what subjects?

Choose the facet that speaks the most to you and write between a paragraph and a one-page essay about it. If you’re struggling with this exercise, move on to worksheet #2. If you know exactly what to write, transfer your essay, or a summary or your essay, to Petal #4.

Worksheet #2: Philosophy of Life

If you have trouble choosing a purpose, ruminate for a while. Eventually, an answer should come to you, even if it takes a year.

If you’re totally uninterested in choosing a purpose, then approach this petal differently. Write a “Philosophy of Life.” It should be no more than two pages and should address what you think about the meaning of life. Why do humans exist and why do you personally exist? Consider things such as beliefs, free will, happiness, stewardship, values, and so on.

Write a summary of your philosophy of life on Petal #4.

God and Your Mission

Your beliefs contribute to who you are and what makes you unique, so it’s important to consider them as you self-assess. The author believes that our purpose is inherently related to God⁠—a “mission” is something you feel called to do, and this call comes from God. If you’re not Christian, you can translate the following ideas into whatever’s meaningful for you.

The author has divided finding your mission into three stages:

1. Get to know God. Everyone on the planet shares this mission, but the way in which you pursue it is unique to you. During this stage, keep in mind:

2. Improve the world. Again, everyone on the planet shares this mission, but the way in which you pursue it is unique to you. During this stage, keep in mind:

3. Use your talents in a setting you enjoy in order to do things God needs done. During this stage, keep in mind:

If you keep your mission in mind while job searching, you’ll not only end up with a career you like, but you’ll also understand the point of your life.

Petal #5: Knowledges

The goal of this petal is to figure out what knowledge you currently have that most excites you. If you like, you can also include a list of what you’d like to know. This will help you figure out what fields or industries you might like to work in.

The entries on this petal will be nouns. An example petal might read: how to change a tire, Japanese language, gardening, psychology, beekeeping.

There are three worksheets involved with filling out this petal:

Worksheet #1: What Do You Enjoy?

On a scrap piece of a paper, answer the following questions:

Worksheet #2: What Do You Already Know?

On a scrap piece of paper, create a chart with the following four columns. Write down as much as you possibly can.

Column A: What you know from the jobs you’ve had so far. Column B: What you know from outside work. Column C: What fields, industries, or careers interest you. Column D: Other good ideas.
Here, write a list of things you’ve learned during your past work experience. Write down even things that seem simple or that you take for granted. For example, if you worked as a bookkeeper, still write down bookkeeping. Here, write things that you learned because you were interested in them and things you learned in school, at conferences/workshops, in online courses, or in the world. For example, you might have taken a course in comedy writing or organized your wedding. Here, write down which sectors interest you. There are six broad categories of work: agriculture, finance, information, manufacturing, services, and technology. Each of these categories breaks down further. If you need help brainstorming, look at the tools on O*NET OnLine. Write down a few options. Remember that no jobs or industries last forever so it’s always important to have a backup plan. Here, write down any miscellaneous knowledge you have that wasn’t covered in the other columns.

Worksheet 3: Determining Your Favorites

On a scrap piece of paper, create the following chart. This chart is a prioritizing aid that will help you figure out your most important knowledges. You’re going to rank the knowledges you came up with in worksheets #1 and #2 by how much expertise and enthusiasm you have about them.

Box A: Here, write the topics that you have expertise in but don’t have enthusiasm for. Box B: Here, write the topics that you have both expertise and enthusiasm for.
Box C: This box is for subjects that you neither have expertise nor enthusiasm for. This box is optional⁠—you won’t pursue any of the activities in this box, so if you fill it out, it’s just as a warning. Box D: Here, write the subjects that you have enthusiasm but little expertise for.

If you’re doing this worksheet with your partner, get them to fill out the chart too. Then, together, make a list of your top twenty factors, alternating your and your partner’s factors in priority sequence. For example, your top factor is somewhere sunny and her top factor is somewhere French-speaking, write French-speaking, then sunny, then move on to both of your second-most-important factors. Stop after ten factors.

Now that you have either your own or a combined list of top factors, over the next ten days, ask everyone you meet if they know of anywhere in the world that has all, or at least most of the top, factors. You can also try the website Teleport to brainstorm, or if you really can’t decide or agree with your partner, throw darts at a map. Transfer the top five places and the top five factors to your petal diagram.

An Expanded Flower: Rich Feller

Career professor Rich Feller put together his flower in 1982. He added four extra elements to his flower to make it more effective for himself⁠—he keeps a regularly updated list of ten things he wants to 1) give, 2) do, 3) learn, and 4) have.

Exercise: Reflect on Your Flower Diagram

The flower exercise helps you determine what you’d like to do for work.

Chapter 3: Two Approaches to Finding a Job

In Chapter 2, we explored different methods for figuring out what you’d like to do for work. In this chapter, now that you have a better sense of who you are and what you want, you’ll use this knowledge to find work.

There are two approaches to finding a job: the traditional approach and the parachute approach, which is far more successful. No matter which approach you take, you should spend as much time searching for a job as you would working a full-time job.

The Traditional Approach

The traditional approach involves searching the job market to find a job by using one, some, or all of the following ten techniques. They’re listed in order of worst to best:

(Note: the author writes that the figures and stats above are derived from a mix of studies and his own impressions.)

If you’re looking for something more temporary, you can join the gig economy. List your house on Airbnb, drive for Uber or Lyft, and so on.

The Parachute Approach

Unlike the traditional approach, which starts by studying the job market, the parachute approach begins with studying yourself (via your flower diagram). If you’re starting with the job market, the best you can hope for is to confine yourself to an existing job description. The parachute approach helps you find a job where you can truly be yourself.

Advantages of the Parachute Approach

The parachute approach has several advantages over the traditional method:

Using Your Flower Diagram

There’s a five-step process to using your flower diagram, and many of the steps will involve informational interviewing.

Informational Interviewing

Information interviewing involves talking to people who work in fields, for companies, or at jobs you think you might be interested in.

The best way to find someone to interview is via a “bridge-person.” A bridge person is someone you know who has a connection to a person or organization you’re interested in. To find bridge-people:

Step #1: Determine Possible Career Paths

There are a few steps to using your flower to direct you towards career paths:

Step #2: Research Possible Careers

The careers you came up with in step 1 might sound perfect, but you won’t know for sure until you try them. As a result, the next step is to talk to people who are already doing the job and find out what it’s really like via informational interviews.

In an informational interview, ask the interviewees the following:

Keep in mind that not everyone will see the job or field the same way. You may have a different experience in a job than your interviewee did.

If you learn that a career requires a lot of training, consider shadow professions. Shadow professions are jobs that require less training than a professional specialty but are in the same field. For example, a paralegal is a shadow profession of a lawyer.

Step #3: Figure Out What Kinds of Organizations Hire for the Types of Jobs You Want

Brainstorm the kinds of places that hire for the job you're interested in. For example, if you want to be a teacher, you’ll think of schools, but also consider things like corporate training, military bases, ESL associations, and so on. Consider places that hire both full-time and temporary employees.

Step #4: Figure Out What Specific Companies Hire for the Types of Jobs You Want

It doesn’t matter if companies have open positions at this point; you just need to make a list of organizations that you think look interesting. You’ll likely want to focus on smaller companies (fewer than 100 employees) and newer companies.

Step #5: Research Specific Companies

Researching companies is very important. You do this for two reasons: 1) to learn about an organization’s culture, working style, mission, and how you can be an asset to them, and 2) to determine if you would like working for that company. (Most people don’t find out if they like a workplace until after they’ve already started working there when it’s too late to turn back.) Here’s how to conduct your research:

What If I’m Offered a Job During the Five-Step Process?

It’s unlikely that you’ll be offered a job while you’re working through the five-step process, but it’s good to be prepared in case it does happen. If you’re desperate for a job, take the job. If you’re not desperate, it’s best to wait until you’ve completed the whole process. Remember that the goal of the flower exercise and parachute approach isn’t just to get yourself any job, it’s to find your dream job.

Tell whoever’s offered you the job that you’re still in the researching phase and want to finish the whole process before making a decision. Explain that you want to be sure you’ve found a place where you can be the most helpful, which any potential employer should appreciate. Say that your initial impression of their company is that you’d like to work there and promise to get back to the employer once you’ve finished your research.

Post-Assessment

Ideally, after going through the five-step process you’ll have discovered the existence of a job that meets the criteria of multiple petals. If your job matches only one of your petals, at best, you’ll be bored. If it matches all seven petals, it’s a dream job. When choosing which petals to prioritize, consider survival (in which case you’d choose the money petal) and your stage of life (if you’re older, you might prioritize the purpose petal).

Two-Stepping

Jobs are two-headed entities; they represent both what you do and what field you do it in. If your flower leads you to a dream job that’s different from both what you do and the field you do it in, it will be hard to get that job because you don’t have any experience. You might be able to network yourself into moving directly, but it’s easier to change one thing at a time.

For example, if you’re an architect and you want to become a music teacher, you’ll have trouble going directly to the music teacher role because if an interviewer asks you if you have any experience working as a teacher, or in the field of music, you’ll have to say no to both. If, however, you find a stepping stone job such as designing soundproof practice rooms, then you’ll be able to acquire some experience in the field.

Exercise: Find Bridge-People

A bridge-person is someone you know who also knows people or organizations you’re interested in.

Chapter 4: Online Presences and Resumes

Now that you know what sorts of jobs you’d like to do, the next step is to secure those jobs. In this chapter, we’ll learn about how our online presence affects our job search and how to create a resume.

Before the internet, the only information an interviewer had about you was what you put on your resume. As a result, you had a lot of control over what you shared. These days, however, your internet presence will reveal a lot about you. Almost all recruiters will look you up online and almost 60% of employers have rejected job-hunters based on what turned up on their social media (bad spelling and grammar, prejudice, inappropriate content, and so on). Trying to stay off the internet won’t do you any good either⁠—47% of employers won’t invite an applicant in for an interview if she doesn’t have a social media presence.

However, the inevitable googling can work in your favor⁠—almost 45% of the time employers will like an applicant’s online presence and offer them a job. Therefore, you should take measures to make yourself more presentable online. There are four steps:

Step #1: Delete

In this step, you’ll take down or delete any information that doesn’t present yourself positively:

  1. Make a list of adjectives that you’d like people to use to describe you professionally, such as “dedicated” or “passionate.”
  2. Search yourself and read all the results. Delete anything you or anyone else posted that doesn’t match your list of adjectives. If you don’t know how to delete posts, search how to do it⁠—you’re not the first person to want to remove something unflattering from the internet.
  3. It’s hard to completely delete something from the internet. Be prepared for anything you’ve ever posted online to come up, even if you’ve taken it down.

Step #2: Bolster

In this step, you’ll round out the information that already exists online:

1. Fill out online profiles completely. For any and all online profiles you might have (Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on), fill out every field of the profile. Don’t leave any sections blank unless you have a really good reason.

2. Update your profile at least once a month. An outdated profile is unprofessional.

3. Use LinkedIn. 500 million people use it worldwide, and it’s the first place an employer will look when deciding whether or not to interview you. Additionally, this is the first place headhunters look when they’re searching for people. To use LinkedIn most effectively:

Step #3: Add

In this step, you’ll add more information about yourself to the internet. There are a few ways to do this:

  1. Join online forums and groups, whether on LinkedIn or other sites.
  2. Start a professional blog and update it regularly. Most of the time, employers are more interested in down-to-earth blogs, such as how-tos, rather than philosophizing.
  3. Get on Twitter. Whenever you tweet, pay particular attention to the hashtags that employers are likely to search for.
  4. Upload professional videos to YouTube, such as yourself giving instructions on how to do a skill.

Step #4: Summarize

In this step, you’re going to summarize all the wide-ranging online information about yourself into a resume. Here are the steps:

1. Brainstorm a list of all your skills, experiences, and so on. Be as quantitative as possible. Consider the following brainstorming questions:

2. Choose a professional format. Some industries expect to see certain conventions in a resume, but for the most part, there are no hard and fast rules for resume formatting. Here are four options:

3. Write the contents of your resume. There are some dos and don’ts:

Dos:

Don’ts:

4. Post your resume publically. You can post your resume on major job boards such as Monster or on specific companies’ websites. (Unfortunately, many companies don’t look at resumes posted on their sites.)

5. Send your resume to specific postings or employers.

Exercise: Assess Your Online Presence

Many employers will factor what they learn about you online into their decision to interview or hire you.

Chapter 5: Interviewing

Once your online presence or resume has secured you an employment interview, the next step of the job-hunt is to ace that interview.

There are several guidelines for interviewing:

Before the Interview

There are four things you should do before the interview:

1. Research the organization. Employers are interested in how much you know about them, so if you come into interviews with a good handle on what the organization does and values, employers will be impressed and flattered. Read the about page and press releases on their website, look for a file on the company at the library, and conduct informational interviews to learn about the company.

2. Test-run technology. If your interview is via video chat such as Skype, practice using the chat software with a friend to sort out technical hiccups and any issues with how you come across on camera.

3. Prepare samples. Bring relevant samples of work you’ve completed in the past.

4. Prepare a list of general skills. No matter what kind of job you’re applying for (or trying to get created for you), there are some general skills that all employers want, such as dependability, commitment, and trainability. Before your interview, make a list of these types of skills and an experience in which you’ve demonstrated that skill.

During the Interview

During an interview, an employer will be evaluating what you say and how you behave. Keep in mind that the only goal of the first interview is to get yourself a second interview⁠—you’re not trying to get hired yet. Here are some tips:

1. Keep your word. If you asked for the interview, tell the interviewee how much of their time you’ll take up. Choose an oddly specific time, such as 19 minutes, because it sounds precise, and then keep to it. Set a vibrate timer for two minutes before your time limit and when it goes off, wrap up by saying that you’re sticking to your time limit and you like to keep your word. This creates trust and impresses the employer. Unless the employer begs you to stay, leave on time.

2. Remember that interviews are a two-way conversation. An interview isn’t purely about marketing yourself⁠—you should learn just as much about the employer as they learn about you. Start the interview by asking questions about the organization, and only if you like it should you move on to marketing yourself.

3. Speak and listen in equal measures. Studies show that people who talk and listen equally are hired more than those who talk too much or listen too much. The author suspects that this is because if you talk too much, you seem like you might ignore the organization’s needs. If you listen too much, you seem like you’re trying to hide something.

4. Anticipate common questions. Every question an interviewer asks you is related to one of these five underlying questions:

Try to answer all questions with information that would answer some of the above questions.

Since interviewing is a two-way conversation, you’re going to have approximately the same five questions for the employer:

Employers are nearly always going to ask you to tell them about yourself. This question is a test of how you handle an open-ended situation⁠—your answer will reflect how you might respond to open-ended challenges on the job. Here are some tips for answering this question specifically:

5. Answer all questions within 20 seconds to two minutes. Studies have revealed that this is the ideal amount of time to spend per question.

6. Reassure the employer that you’re not a risk. During an interview, an employer is trying to figure out if you’re going to be good for the company⁠—bad hires are expensive. The employer may be just as nervous as you and they’re probably worried about the following in particular:

Employers have two concerns: challenges and solutions. They want you to be a solution, not a new challenge. They want you to be worth more than they pay you.

As part of your research, try to figure out who the employer would consider to be a bad employee. Then, in the interview, demonstrate that you’re nothing like the hypothetical bad employee. For example, if the employer has had problems in the past with people showing up to work late, arrive early for your interview.

7. Behave appropriately. An employer is observing all your actions on a small scale (for example, whether or not you’re fidgeting) because these actions might transfer into your large-scale behavior, such as how you do a job. It might take them only 30 seconds to 2 minutes to see something small that will bias them against you. Therefore, pay attention to details. Employers will be looking at:

Some of these judgments will feel petty and unfair, but that’s just how the world works.

8. Never speak badly of anyone. If you bad-mouth previous co-workers or employers, that suggests that you might do the same about your potential new employer and co-workers. If you had a conflict with a previous employer that you know will come up eventually, try to address it in advance.

9. Concentrate on the future. Employers want to know how you’ll behave if you’re hired. The only way of finding that out is to ask about how you’ve acted in the past and assume you’ll act the same way in the future. Therefore, every time you answer a question, try to anticipate what future behavior they’re trying to predict and address it.

This approach works on illegal questions (race, sex, age, and so on) too. For example, if an employer asks about your health, probably what they’re really asking is how much work you’ll be able to get done. You can address that question instead by talking about your productivity.

10. Assess the interview’s progress. Typically, an employer will start by asking you about the distant past (education) and then move slowly forward in time until the distant future (where do you see yourself in ten years). Once you start talking about the future, then it’s time to ask more questions about the job such as what the duties are, who you would report to, and how training works.

11. Ask final questions. After your final interview, if you like the employer and you think they like you, ask about the next steps. You can ask outright if they’ll offer you the job. Or, you can ask when you’ll hear from them and if you can follow up if you don’t hear. Some employers don’t like being asked about follow-ups ⁠(it opens the door for nagging⁠), but it can also be a safety net⁠—they’re not responsible for remembering to get back to you.

At the very end of the interview, thank your interviewer and shake her hand firmly. Ask her, and everyone you met, for their business cards, or, if they don’t have cards, ask them to write down their names and addresses. You’ll use that information to spell their names properly on the thank-you cards you’re going to send in the next step.

After the Interview

There’s one to-do right after an interview: Send thank-you notes to everyone you meet, not only the person you interviewed with. There are six reasons to send a thank-you note:

After Learning the Results

If you’re invited back for another interview or offered a job, congratulations! Move on to Chapter 5: Salary. If you’re not:

1. Don’t be discouraged. Employers are distinct individuals and one’s opinion doesn’t have any effect on another’s. They all have different requirements, so if you haven’t been hired by a few, that doesn’t mean you’re generally unhirable. Additionally, there are big differences between small and new companies and large and old ones⁠—large companies tend to be losing jobs, while new ones tend to be creating them, and at large organizations, you may have to go through layers of HR or administration before reaching the person who would actually hire you.

2. Optional: Solicit employer feedback. If you don’t get a second interview or an offer, you can try contacting employers (if they seemed nice) and ask if they could give you any advice on what to do in the future. There’s a good chance they, or their legal advisor, won’t provide feedback. If they do, though, thank them profusely.

Exercise: Prepare for the First Interview

It’s important to prepare for an interview in order to make the best first impression.

Chapter 6: Salary

Congratulations, an employer likes you, you like them, and they’ve offered you a job! Now, it’s time to discuss salary and benefits.

There are six secrets to negotiating salary:

1. Research industry-standard salaries. When researching, keep in mind that geographical region will play a factor. There are a few resources you can explore:

The goal of this research is that, when an employer offers a figure, you’ll have a sense of whether this is near the top or bottom of their range. This research might take a few days of work, but if it gains you an extra $15,000 a year (which the author says isn’t unrealistic), then, of course, that’s worth the time.

2. Don’t discuss salary prematurely. It’s in your best interest to avoid discussion of salary until after the employer has decided she wants you⁠—at this point, she knows why you’re the ideal candidate and how much she needs you, which puts you in a better position. If the interview goes very well, she might offer you something higher than she’d originally planned.

If an employer brings up salary early, this is how you handle it:

3. Negotiate. Most employers won’t tell you the top of their range. They hope to get you for a lower amount. You, of course, want the opposite. It’s your right to try to secure the highest number in the range.

4. Don’t mention a figure. Whoever mentions a figure first usually loses. (The author says this is an observable if not completely understood phenomenon.) If an employer asks you for a number, respond by asking for her number⁠—she came up with the job, so she must have some idea, and you’d like to hear it.

5. Work the range. The bottom of your asking range should be near the top of the employer’s. For example, if an employer’s range is $40,000-$45,000 (find out the range using the research tactics above), your range might be $44,000-$49,000.

Once the employer gives you her range, say that you justify a salary in your range because of your productivity, what you can contribute to the company, and so on.

If you can’t agree on a salary, you might consider working part-time for their full-time salary. For example, if you need $100,000 and they can only pay $60,000, you might work for $60,000 three days a week.

6. Negotiate benefits. Benefits include life or medical insurance, vacation, and retirement contributions, and these can add 15-28% to a salary. As with salary, before going into an interview, you should know what you want. Settle on salary before moving on to benefits.

Once you’ve finished all your negotiations, get everything you’ve discussed in writing and signed. Otherwise, the employer might sincerely forget what you’ve discussed or pretend to forget the discussion, or a supervisor might say that the interviewer wasn’t allowed to offer you what she did.

Exercise: Negotiate Salary and Benefits

It’s your right to negotiate salary and benefits.

Chapter 7: Working for Yourself

Another option for a career change is to start your own business, an option 80% of people consider at some point. Some people want to start a business because they have a dream⁠—for example, they want to write music. Others simply want to be their own boss and don’t care what they do as long as they do it for themselves.

There are some things to know about starting your own business:

If you don’t know what kind of business you want to start, follow these four steps:

Step #1: Brainstorm

There are a few options for brainstorming:

Step #2: Research

Research how to start and run your own business. There are many online resources such as Free Agent Nation and federal small business tips.

Step #3: Assess Your Skills

Find out what skills you need to run a business, which of those skills you currently possess, and how to acquire the skills you’re missing.

Step #4: Solicit Feedback

Seriously consider everything you learned during your informational interviews and consult your partner. Starting a business will affect their life too. Once you’ve considered all feedback, if you still want to start a business, do so, even if you encounter naysayers. There is risk, but you can manage it by creating a backup plan⁠—if your business doesn’t work out, what will you do next?

Chapter 8: What to Do When It’s Not Working

Let’s say you’ve tried everything in all the above chapters and you’re still not employed. Chapter 7 looks at what to do next.

Manage Depression

Throughout the job-hunting process, it’s important to take care of yourself. It’s normal to feel depressed or discouraged when you’re unemployed and job-searching⁠—one study found that the longer you’re unemployed, the more intense these feelings become. Additionally, the job-hunting process itself can intensify your negative feelings⁠—job hunting is a lot of mental work.

There are eleven ways to improve your mental health while you’re unemployed:

  1. Sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep, you feel sad. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re sad because you don’t have a job or sad because you’re tired. If you’re feeling sad, try sleeping, and even if there’s some greater underlying reason for your unhappiness, you’ll probably feel at least a bit better.
  2. Maintain our physical health. Drink water, exercise, and eat properly (including vitamins).
  3. Improve our surroundings. A messy space can contribute to our feelings of sadness. Clean up your home and put things in their place.
  4. Go outside. Seeing nature will make you feel better.
  5. Think about others. There are always people in the world who are in a worse place than you are. Volunteer at an organization that helps people, such as a food bank or hospital.
  6. Reconnect with your friends. Your friends will be important to your job hunt, but more importantly, social interaction contributes to your happiness.
  7. Go on staycations. This encourages you to think about the opportunities you have, not focus on the ones you’ve lost.
  8. Learn a new skill. Read a book, watch or video, or take a class in something you’ve always wanted to learn. If you don’t have any ideas, learn about ideas themselves⁠—learn about the mind.
  9. Unload your feelings. Feelings are harder to manage internally. As soon as you say them aloud, they lose power. Just make sure that whomever you talk to about your feelings is discreet.
  10. Hit something. Punching a pillow or a punching bag is a good way to get rid of anger. Anger often contributes to sadness.
  11. Be grateful. Every day, make a list of what you’re grateful for. When we’re unemployed, we tend to focus on negatives such as what we’ve lost and what’s wrong with the world. Instead, focus on positives⁠—you may not have a job right now, but you have plenty of other important things.

Additional Job-Hunting Advice

There are no job-hunting techniques that work 100% of the time. If you’re not getting job offers, it may not be because you’re doing something wrong. Sometimes, employers will have already decided on a candidate but have to go through the hiring process because the government or company insists that the position be advertised everywhere. In a situation like this, you’re not being turned down because you did something wrong; you’re simply caught up in an employer’s game.

It is possible, though, that there’s something more than sham interviews going on. If you’ve been job-hunting unsuccessfully for a long time, it’s time to consider: overcoming specific hurdles, hiring a career coach, or catering to the job market.

Overcome Two Hurdles

Bias

Every single person in the world has something that will hurt their chances of being hired. Whatever your issue is may turn off certain employers, because employers are people and they have biases, but it won’t turn off all employers. While some employers will care more about what you can’t do than what you can, most employers care most about your skills. If your issue doesn’t affect your ability to perform your skills, then it shouldn’t matter to employers.

To remind yourself that there are lots of things you can do, make two lists, one of skills you have and one of skills you don’t (or don’t have yet). Consult your flower or lists of skills such as this one of action verbs. When you’re finished, choose five things from the skills-you-have list that you love to do and then write out experiences that prove how you exercised that skill, ideally recently.

Specific Biases

Employers are forbidden by law from discriminating against certain groups of people, but they may do it anyway, whether consciously or not. The best way to handle biases is to address them and focus on what you’re capable of. Here are some common biases:

Shyness

Shyness is the second major impediment to a job hunt and affects a lot of us. Culturally, we’re trained not to be egotistical, so we sometimes tend too hard in the opposite direction. This can lead to coming across as ungrateful⁠—we don’t care about our skills and gifts. You can find the balance by paying attention to others⁠—when you notice your own skills, also notice those of others.

Career counselor John Crystal says that the cure for shyness is having fun. This is because when you’re enthusiastic and excited about something, you forget to be shy. Therefore, only have conversations and look for jobs you’re really excited about.

There’s a three-step process to curing shyness, started by John Crystal and finessed by Daniel Porot. It’s called PIE and involves practicing the three types of interviews: practice/pleasure, informational, and employment.

Practice or pleasure interviews are conversations with people about subjects you’re passionate about. To practice these, choose a topic that’s unrelated to work and try to talk with people you don’t know. For example, if you love to dance, try talking to a dance instructor. Questions will probably come naturally for you if you’re enthusiastic about a subject, but if they don’t, try asking how the person became involved with the topic, what they like most and least, who else you should talk to about it, and if they’ll introduce you to those people. You can bring a friend to a practice interview if you like.

Informational interviews are conversations with employees or experts who know a lot about the job or industry you’re interested in. See Chapter 3 for more details.

Employment interviews are conversations with employers, ideally, the people who will hire you rather than people who work in HR. For more detail on this kind of interview, see Chapter 4.

Hire a Career Coach

If you’ve followed all the above advice and you still haven’t found a job, you might want to consider getting some additional help from a career coach.

There are three kinds of career coaches:

  1. Good people who are good at their jobs.
  2. Good people who are bad at their jobs.
  3. Bad people who are trying to scam you. These bad counselors tend to be involved with executive counseling firms rather than working on their own.

You can fairly easily avoid firms, but it’s more difficult to figure out who’s good and who’s bad at their job. Good and bad are also relative⁠—the coach who’s best for you isn’t necessarily the coach who’s best for your friend. Therefore, you’re the only person who can decide which coach is the most compatible with you. The author never recommends specific people and the list of coaches on his website should be treated as a reference, like the Yellow Pages, rather than as an endorsement of specific coaches.

There are three steps to finding your ideal career coach:

1. Track down three coaches. If you want to meet face-to-face, restrict the search to your geographical area; if you prefer phone or video counseling, you can consider anyone anywhere in the world. (But keep in mind you may not have a coach’s full attention if you’re meeting virtually, because you can’t see what else they might be multitasking on while they’re speaking with you.) To find these three coaches, use the internet and ask people you know for recommendations.

2. Set an initial appointment with three potential coaches and ask about the fee for the first appointment. Scammy firms nearly always offer the first appointment free so they can draw you in, but some individual counselors also offer a free initial consultation so that there’s no pressure on either of you to keep working together if you don’t click. In your initial meeting, ask about:

3. Assess. If you liked one of the coaches, sign up with them. If you didn’t, for any reason, find another three and repeat the process again.

Cater to the Job Market

Throughout this summary, the goal of the job-hunting process has been to learn about yourself and find out what you’d most like to do, and then find a job that matches. However, if you’re desperate, you can try catering to the job market.

To go this route, research projections/hot jobs, which are jobs that researchers think will see a lot of growth and new opportunities. Use the Occupational Outlook Handbook or other projection sites. The Handbook has a list of similar occupations, which can also be helpful if you don’t like or aren’t qualified for something on the hot list.