¶ … Color is Your Parachute? 2016: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters & Career-Changers by Richard N. Bolles Bolles's What Color is Your Parachute? 2016 is a comprehensive, all-encompassing assessment of what it takes, the skills you need, the tips and reminders to help you find the career of your dreams. From polishing the resume to starting your own business and finding your mission in life, Parachute is a true catch-all for the novice job hunter and a superb refresher for those who are already on their course and are just in need of a little tap on the shoulder to get them back to running at optimum speed.

The first thing that Bolles aims at doing is to provide a "practical" manual not only for job hunters but also those looking to make a career change. That means it contains pragmatic, real-world advice and not nice-sounding academic theoretical concepts that turn out to be inapplicable in the real-world. Thus, the book begins with a run-down of what employers are looking for today in employees -- and it is not flattering. It notes that employers are myopic: they want a "perfect" employee today when just 8 years ago they would have "leapt" at any number of the candidates applying for a position now (p. 10). Plus, because there are so many more people looking for a job today than there were ten years ago, the time spent looking has greatly increased -- this on top of the fact that the length of time that one holds a job has decreased.

In short, the odds are against job hunters. Whether its finding a job that pays the kind of salary a middle-class family requires, learning the language of employers, or just getting the foot in the door, it's never been more difficult to find work.

The most important thing Bolles recommends is not to find a job that you can fit into but to find a job that fits you. To do this, you have to take stock of yourself, your inventory, what it is that you do and do well. What do you love? What interests you? Why does it fit you? Bottom line: don't rely on your resume to get you a job. In today's world, you have to build contacts and that means making contact with the persons actually doing the hiring.

When you get to their door they want to know why you're there, how you will help the company, what sort of person you are, and whether or not you're affordable. Basically, you have to be a good person, reliable, with the demonstrable skills needed to do the job, and the passion to perform. If you can't stand out from the other 200 applicants, you won't stand out and you won't get the job.

Staying cheerful, upbeat, optimistic and steadfast will ultimately help you to win out in the end. After all, if you can't be positive in challenging times, no employer will want you around because he or she knows there will come along someone who can be positive.

Bolles goes on to note that when it comes to building your resume, just use Google. Google knows what you've been doing better than you do. So Google your name and see what comes up. Then you should take care to censor anything that doesn't look to appealing. As Bolles indicates, the number of inappropriate pictures or comments that might appear on a Facebook page, for example, could actually cause you to not get hired. At the same time, one should use the Internet to his or her advantage. Bolles indicates that the Internet is a great place to assert yourself so that when your potential employer does begin to check up on you, he or she will notice an online presence that you have been cultivating for precisely this purpose: to look professional, knowledgeable, passionate about the work, and -- best of all -- someone who is savvy enough to put himself out there on the web to help others. Blogging and Youtubing are two great ways to get started.

Bolles goes on to describe how to add to your resume (even though he has suggested that this is the least effective way to a job). One would think that Bolles would dedicate a few more pages to covering that all-important step of how to meet the man or woman actually doing the hiring and establish that connection -- but perhaps that is where individual creativity and drive comes into play.

For instance, there is a chapter entitled "You Need to Understand More Fully Who You Are" and another entitled "How to Deal with Any Handicaps You Have." Some of it is repetitious -- as in going from "You Get to Choose Where You Work" (this after "What to Do When Your Job-Hunting Isn't Working") to "The Five Ways to Choose/Change Careers" to -- seemingly when all else fails -- "How to Start Your Own Business." In other words, Bolles attempts to paint a hopeful and optimistic picture with the kind of smart, up-to-date, self-help info that someone who is at the forefront of job-hunting can give -- but at the same time, he fails to really generate any substantial information that could actually promise to get one the job he or she wants.
This is not to say the book is unhelpful. For what it is, it is actually spot-on and full of good advice. But the best advice of the book isn't even really related to finding you the job you want -- it's about you and investing in yourself. That's the best advice possible in today's job market and it's a point Bolles can't make enough.

Part 2

This book is useful to a career counselor as it approaches some of the important questions and topics that job-hunters have today. With the economy teetering as it is all over the world and employers seeking someone in whom they can be confident they have a good hire, job-seekers have some important questions that they need to be asking and this book does a good job at posing and answering a number of them.

Therefore, this book should be recommended reading both for career counselors and job-hunters.

However, the book does give mixed signals at times. For instance, in one section it provides a graph of what employers are looking for in terms of a new hire: first and foremost, they want to hire from within. Last and least -- they want to look at resumes. What this should imply to anyone looking for a job is this: be prepared to start on the bottom and work your way up. Don't necessarily start off thinking that you will get hired for a top position if you're an outsider. Yet the book doesn't really go into this much. Instead it dedicates pages to perfecting your resume. Why? Didn't Bolles just state that resumes are the least effective approach to take? He absolutely did -- and it was a good point. But what Bolles does is give mixed signals by saying that and then showing how to perfect the resume nonetheless, as though by spending so much time on something so insignificant a modicum of hope is given the reader. In actuality, it is a misleading hope. Bolles should be upfront and honest (as he usually is): let the job-hunter know that in today's world, starting out on the bottom and being the best in the company is the best way to get the job you want. Start small and climb.

In a way, this is what Bolles teaches. The little things add up -- and that is what he implies when he spends the time discussing the ins and outs of making a CV look good -- whether it is utilizing the Internet to get your name out there or coming up with some volunteer work to make yourself look better. But this philosophy is really most applicable and pragmatic when considered in the context of finding the place where you want to work and then setting out just getting in the door and hired at any level -- even the lowest.

Bolles does note that part of getting hired and finding the job you want depends on finding out who you are as a person. And this goes hand-in-hand with being willing to start simple and build. For this reason, the book is good and worth reading by clients. But that doesn't mean everything in it needs to be taken as gospel truth. Some points that Bolles makes are really worth noting and others may be dismissed as just being part of what might be called "padding" the book.

The most important points that Bolles makes are those that can be hardest to swallow -- but they need to be made because they reflect the reality of today's job market. Gone are the days when you can enter into the market with credentials in hand…