What Color Is Your Parachute? 2018: A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-changers

I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend. My expectations of it were low. I thought it was going to be a jobs manual related mainly to the USA. How wrong I was.This book addresses the task of finding a new job in such a detailed, thorough way that it could more properly be called a life review. In fact, the author suggests you do treat unemployment as a chance for a life review, and fully appreciates how hard that can be. It explains that few people nowadays can expect or get a 'job for life' - the average life of a full time job is between 1 and 5 years, and that's not just amongst the under 25s.The book contains chapters that you could see in other job-hunting books, but possibly not all in one: How to find Hope, Seven Secrets about the Jobs Market Today, The Best and Worst Ways to Look for Jobs, Life/Work Planning - Planning a Campaign of Attack, Understanding Yourself, Social Media, Five Ways to Change Career, CV Tips, How to Deal with Problems on Your CV, Starting Your Own Business.The book really excels at statistics - explaining how many jobs are actually advertised in the old fashioned way, and how many vacancies are really filled by that method - hardly any. I particularly like the fact that all the statistics, and there are many, are clearly backed up by referenced figures. For example, the fact that looking for employers' job postings on the internet has only a 4-10% success rate. This was a complete revelation to me.The author shows deep understanding about how it actually feels to be unemployed and makes sensible practical suggestions. For example, this is the right time to keep fit, even if you can only afford to run; this is the right time to keep your place tidy, and not to live in chaos; this is the right time to catch up on our reading, perhaps especially anything that might help in your job search, but keeping your mind open avoids that 'I'm a sad victim of redundancy' syndrome.There's an entire section on the spiritual aspects of tackling unemployment, which the author leaves you to apply to the rest of the book if you choose. So many manuals either proselytize their own brand of spirituality, whether New Age, Christian, whatever, or they are 100% bound in the commercial jobs market. This man was for many years an ordained Christian minister - however his approach to spirituality is applicable whatever your belief system. For me it was one of the best parts of the book.Suitable for anyone looking to get a new job, change jobs or find more meaning in their work/life balance. Be prepared to do the exercises in order to get the best from this book. Get the up-to-date version if you can, because the statistics and many links are reviewed annually. In these uncertain months following the Brexit vote, it's good to have the online links for the latest picture if you can. Although this book was written in the USA with that market in mind, in my view, any intelligent reader could adapt the ideas to the UK market, especially now that so much job-hunting is done online.Very clearly laid out and suitable for those with a visual disability.

A quick review to say that, while I love this book - I borrowed a very old copy and was really inspired by it, so decided to get the most up to date version - I sent this particular one back as it is missing a lot of what helped me in the previous editions.It's a 'hard times' edition for the recession, and as such is streamlined and very practically focussed, with punchy chapters on e.g. interview advice, CVs etc. That may be just perfect for a lot of people but what I bought the book for was the really (for me anyway) helpful chapters that talk about what sort of thing you want to do with your life, with advice and exercises to help you think about your values and goals; just what I need at a time when i'm trying to re-think my career. In the 2010 edition this is largely absent, save for a brief chapter at the end, so it wasn't for me and i'll probably try and get the 2009 edition intead, but if you're looking for very practical jobhunting advice, this could be helpful - as long as you remember it's very US-focussed.

I feel this book is probably selling more on reputation that its actual content.Firstly, it's rather skewed towards the US job market. The links are US-focussed and the writer is constantly banging on about "vets", which, for the uninitiated, are army veterans rather than veterinarians.Secondly, the exercises included are probably replicated better and in a more straightforward manner in rival publications such as "How to get a job you love" (John Lees). Here they look rather dated.The supposed updates for 2015 involve taking the original book from 30 years ago and putting lots of vague case studies in about people who have started online businesses.In summary, I was disappointed with this book. It offers little in the way of practical advice but fills its pages with philosophical bumf. Not very useful.