Customer Reviews

The Job-Hunter's Survival Guide: How to Find a Rewarding Job Even When "There Are No Jobs"

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Richard Bolles, author of WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE?, the perennial best seller for over 30 years, has hit the target for job hunters in this dismal economy. This 100-page book provides a telling story of what to do to survive in this market and the most practical and wise advice available.

His analysis of the 18 approaches to obtaining a job is frank and challenging. Using reliable statistics, he ranks the five worst approaches and the five best ones.

But more, Bolles reminds the job-seeker not to simply look for the job he or she has already had, but rather to seek the dream job that is still available in the marketplace.

It takes work but the rewards are brilliant. I highly recommend you follow this author's approaches. It will be the best money you've invested in yourself in a long time.

I found the information in this book to be intriguing, I wasn't really expecting to read anything that I hadn't heard before, but I did. I haven't gotten a job yet using these skills but I've only had the book for a very short time.

My only problem with it is that I feel it doesn't give a step by step guide. A big thing he talks about is self-inventory but you have to jump around the book to really get the whole picture of how to do it. I know it's a shorter, boiled down version of his "What color is you parachute" book but I felt it could have flowed better.

I struggled with how I should review this book, because it is obviously not designed to be a comprehensive guide to job-hunting. It's like the "Cliff's Notes" version of "What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers", which is the best-selling book by the same author.

I'm not sure why someone would invest $10.00 on this book instead of just paying about $15.00 more and getting the full book (What Color is Your Parachute). So here is my opinion:

1. The information in this book is sound-- it tells you the best job-hunting strategies in a very abbreviated manner

2. This book is a good choice for anyone who doesn't want to wade through a long job-hunting guide.

But my honest recommendation would be that you just spring for the extra couple of bucks and get the complete guide instead of this little one.

Here is a basic job-hunting guide for the growing number of people who are unemployed, and don't have the time, or desire, to read a lot of details.

Among the first things you should do is to do a Google search of your name, to see what the Internet says about you. If there are any drunken, or racy, photos of you on Facebook, for instance, restrict their availability or delete them, now. You can plan on a potential employer doing the same search.

After that, take some time and do a through self-inventory of what you do best and enjoy most, and your skills that are most transferable. What did you like most about your last job? What would be your dream job? (Please don't say "A job with high pay and no responsibilities.") That way, you can be absolutely detailed about the type of job you are seeking, and use that to focus your job search.

Most people want to limit their job-searching to replying to online job vacancies, mailing resumes, answering newspaper ads or using private employment agencies. Their rate of success is small, so don't make them your only job-search methods. Much more effective job-search methods include asking your network for job leads, knocking on the door of any employer that interests you (whether or not they have a vacancy), and using the Yellow Pages, alone or with others in a job club, looking for fields of interest.

Before you get on the Internet, know what kind of job you are seeking. There are a seemingly infinite number of sites to visit, including omnibus search engines, sites with jobs in specific fields, and social networking sites. Pick just a few sites, and monitor them (jobs are frequently cross-posted to multiple sites). If a site allows you to fill out a profile, or post your resume, do it. You never know who will read it. Employers prefer to fill vacancies from within, before they advertise for the opening, and deal with a bunch of semi-qualified candidates. If they already have your resume, or have seen you work as a temp or contract employee, your chances have greatly increased.

This book is short, and excellent. To those who bemoan the total lack of available jobs, the author asks "Have you done anything more than rely on the Internet or Sunday want ads for your job searching?" It is very much recommended for all job seekers.

It's short, concise, and to the point. Bolles provides hope (Ch. 2 - "How to Find Hope in the Midst of a Brutal Downturn") and inspiration to tired, poor, huddled masses of the unemployed yearning to draw a salary yet again. He also shows that there are always jobs out there, whether they are in the open market or the "hidden" market.

The most useful section of his book is probably CH. 4 - "The Best and Worst Ways to Look for a Job". In it, he discusses the 18 ways one can go about finding a job. Be sure to look at page 51, which contains an illustration of the ways a typical employer fills a vacancy and the ways a typical job hunter looks for a vacancy (they are exact opposites of each other).

"The Job-Hunter's Survival Guide" was certainly eye opening for myself, a recent college graduate. I would not classify it as the only job search book to read, but any unemployed person should read this book in tandem with other books that focus on interviews and the like.

Short, sweet and to the point. Filled with MANY great ideas and tips for job-hunting in this (or any) economy. Personally, I didn't think there would be a lot of new things to learn, but I was WAY off. It gives real direction on how to look for a job besides the usual sending your resume via internet. If your unemployed, you must read this book!

As most of the reviewers note, this is NOT the annual What Color is your Parachute. When you're unemployed, the price difference between the two books matters. Of equal importance, there are many people who don't want to read Parachute. It's wordy, daunting, and just plain impossible for those who are not oriented to the printed page.
This little book just might be the answer. You might convince an unemployed student, son or daughter, neighbor or friend that putting several hours into this book might be rewarding. As a career counselor, I don't hesitate to recommend this small book.
I find Bolles most persuasive when he presents material with percentages. Example: in this book, he has a chapter on The Best and Worst Ways to Look for a Job. The options range from 7% success rate (mailing out resumes) to 86% success (sorry - you'll have to read the chapter - I'd feel funny giving it away). I think this way of organizing material is easily read and converted to action.
About those best and worst ways to get a job: there seems to be a correlation between the amount of work, including soul-searching, that one is willing to put in and the higher percentage of success. The author does not promise an easy path.
I cannot think of a $10 investment that holds this much promise if you are in a vocational crossroads.

Subtitled "How to Find Hope and Rewarding Work, Even When `There Are No Jobs'", this short (100 pages or so) volume provides insightful, fact-based advice on the state of the current job market along with some practical realities about how to seek and find your best position in these crazy times. Bolles (the author of the ubiquitous "What Color is Your Parachute?" for 30 plus years) says of this little tome, "The most essential stuff is in here." Quoting the questions he feels the frustrated job seeker is likely to have, he provides solid insights and quotes percentages on the success of all kinds of job search methods. In addition, there is a panoply of useful websites for personal insight, job search, company research and related guidance. The book includes his famous "flower" for general career targeting and then applies it in reverse to identify the individual's "dream job." A skills inventory is also available to aid in identifying one's most significant abilities. The book closes with a short, impactful review of the entire process entitled "A Plan of Action When You're Out of Work." The back cover calls the book "One Hundred Pages of Lifesaving Advice for People Out of Work." I agree.

This guide is helpful, but it starts off completely on the wrong foot. In Chapter 1, page 1, Richard Bolles, who is no economist and has no real understanding as to why America is in the "recession" it's in, nonetheless boldly advances the blame-the-victim thesis that it is the American people -- not the international and global bankers, not the treaties signed by our present and former Presidents and not the greedy global corporations and the Elite who run these institutions -- who have brought on this terrible jobless trouble by over-spending and by being greedy -- for which he now offers a remedy. Bolles' lack of respect for the American people and his ignorance of global corporate structure certainly are on display here. This opening salvo, nothing but made-up drivel, almost caused me to close the book and never open it again.

The guide is helpful in that it provides a lot of online computer tips even while the author asserts contradictorily that the odds are against you if think computers are going to get you a job. What counts is who you know.

The last section of this guide, however, was the most disappointing and the most dreadful. The last section, or last chapter, has to do with a complicated procedure involving you writing six fictional stories that display your transferable skills in order to find your dream job (yeah, right). He gives an example which is very good, but it merely demonstrates his own ability to write a good story. Even the instructions he provides as to how follow-through with this method are brittle, tight, and distancing. I felt like a sausage being shoved into a slicer -- and all of a sudden, too. Throughout the guide, the tone is casual and personal in almost every chapter, but just when he reaches the climactic moment of the book in which everyone can enjoy the discovery of her or his dream job, Bolles begins to write as if he were a technical writer trying to advance a computerized crossword puzzle for the reader to follow, and he doesn't seem interested any more to engage his audience any deeper. Maybe the tone is "off" here because he really rushed this chapter through and wasn't really in touch with himself as a whole person -- let alone the whole self of any one reader.

The book is ten bucks and, frankly, it's worth that much -- for the online tips, at least, but, on the whole, it's not much more than a helpful finger pointing. Bolles makes a compelling statement in the penultimate chapter that you "shouldn't decide what work to do until you first know who you presently are." But after he writes these words, his follow-through in "Looking for Your Dream Job" is an utter failure -- particularly on the self-inventory and self-discovery score.

Bolles never did promise the reader here a Bible for Your Dream Job -- no, he certainly didn't.

I bought this book for my son who was recently laid off from his job. It is shorter than "What Color is Your Parachute" but has the same basic information. I think it is very helpful in this tough job market to get this kind of practical advice.