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Parachute?
2011 A Practical Manual
Edition for Job-Hunters and
Revised and
Updated Career-Changers
Annually
R ich a r d N. Bol l es
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard
to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not
engaged in rendering professional career services. If expert assistance is required, the
service of the appropriate professional should be sought.
Copyright © 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000,
1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984,
1983, 1982, 1981, 1980, 1979, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1975, 1972, 1970 by Richard Nelson Bolles
The drawings on pages vi-vii, 43, 57, 201, 248, 248-49 are by Steven M. Johnson,
author of What the World Needs Now.
Illustration on page 71 by Beverly Anderson.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Revised Edition
Part I
Finding a Job . . .
1 There Are Always Jobs Out There 3
Appendices
Appendix A:
Finding Your Mission in Life 269
Appendix B:
A Guide to Choosing a Career Coach or Counselor 288
Appendix C:
Sampler List of Coaches 304
Index 329
1. http://ask.metafilter.com
xii Preface
—Dick Bolles
P.S. This book is substantially rewritten and updated every year, as you
probably know. People ask how I keep up, so let me briefly tell you. I come
from a newspaper family, and have a voracious appetite for information.
I read four newspapers every day (the New York Times, the San Francisco
Chronicle, USA Today, plus a local paper), three news or business maga-
zines every week (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, and Newsweek), and
I relentlessly search the Internet, daily. Also, four times a year, for five
days in a row, I do nothing but interact with job-hunters, gathered in my
In This Internet Age, Why Do Job-Hunters Still Want a Printed Book? xiii
xiv Preface
I think a lot about gratitude. I didn’t get here, alone. I do not stay here,
alone. I am not inspired, alone. I am not able to write, alone. Everyone
of us is part of a community; I like to say I’m a member of an earthly
orchestra (I’m the piccolo player).
I thank God that I am still in splendid, vigorous health, that I still
have all my marbles and wits about me, that I love to write more than
ever, that I love to help people more than ever—and that I am enchanted
by every moment of my life with such a wondrous woman as my wife,
Marci. We laugh together, all day long.
Now I know that life is serious: we only get one shot at it, so far as we
know. And that should lend a solemnity to life, that prevents us from
just taking it casually. I have experienced my share of tragedy, on this
Earth; sometimes I felt that I would never recover. So I empathize with
everyone going through hard times. But still, there is a lot of humor to be
found, day by day, in the ridiculous way we humans sometimes behave.
I love laughing. I particularly love laughing at myself. So does Marci.
Laughter keeps us young.
I’m grateful for my family, and I want to name them here: I’m grate-
ful for my dear sister Ann Johnson, and for my own dear children, and
their families: Stephen, Mark, Gary, and Sharon, plus their most-loving
mother, my former wife, Jan, not to mention my former stepdaughter,
Dr. Serena Brewer, whom I helped raise for twenty years. I’m grateful
also for Marci’s two grown children, Adlai and Janice, with their mar-
riage partners respectively, Aimee and Marcel, and Marci’s one-year-old
grandson, Logan. I love them all dearly.
My especial thanks to Marci for playing hostess to the Five-Day
Workshops we conduct quarterly, in our home in the San Francisco Bay
xv
xvi
Dick Bolles
RNB25@aol.com
www.jobhuntersbible.com
P.S. My thanks also to all the folks over at Ten Speed Press here in the
San Francisco Bay Area of California. (Ten Speed, now an “imprint”
of Crown Publishing in New York City, just moved into new digs out
here on the West Coast, at: 2625 Alcatraz Avenue #505, Berkeley, CA
94705.) Anyway, my profound thanks to Phil Wood, who as I mentioned
earlier was my friend and publisher for forty years; he is now publisher
emeritus; Aaron Wehner, current publisher; and to George Young, Kara
Van de Water, Lisa Westmoreland, and Betsy Stromberg. My thanks also
In Gratitude xvii
xviii
In Gratitude xix
P.S. Speaking of “playful,” over the last thirty-five years a few critics
(very few) have claimed that Parachute is not serious enough (they object
to the cartoons, here, which poke fun at almost everything). On the
other hand, a few have complained that the book is too serious, and too
complicated in its vocabulary and grammar for anyone except a college
graduate. Two readers, however, have written me with a different view.
The first one, from England, said there is an index that analyzes a
book to tell you what grade in school you must have finished, in order to
be able to understand it. My book’s index, he said, turned out to be 6.1,
which means you need only have finished sixth grade in a U.S. school
in order to understand it.
Here in the U.S., a college instructor came up with a similar finding.
He phoned me to tell me that my book was rejected by the authori-
ties as a proposed text for the college course he was teaching, because
(they said) the book’s language/grammar was not up to college level.
“What level was it?” I asked. “Well,” he replied, “when they analyzed it,
it turned out to be written on an eighth grade level.”
Sixth or eighth grade—that seems just about right to me. Why make
job-hunting complicated, when it can be expressed so simply even a
child could understand it?
R.N.B.
xx
Part II
Finding a Life . . .
CHARLES DICKENS
A Tale of Two Cities
The job-market is a mess, right now. People have lost jobs they thought
would go on forever. Whole households have been plunged into financial
ruin. Hunting for a job is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The
future, to many people, looks bleak. Welcome to “Normal.”
Yes, this is what always happens after a Recession. It’s just been
worse, this time, because this has been a bad Recession. Really really
bad. There’s still a tremendous amount of misery, out there. When you
talk to those who are unemployed, as I do constantly, you feel the kind
of pain that strikes at the very heart of why people want to live. Or
not live. So many souls are living quiet lives of desperation. Their job
is gone. Their home is gone. Their dreams are gone. Their savings are
gone. Their plans for retirement are gone. Their hope is gone. And they
feel heartbroken, abandoned, forgotten. To see what disastrous events
in the economy, like a Recession, or disastrous events in nature, like the
Gulf oil spill, have done to so many people’s lives, is to weep. You hear
discouragement and despair, on every side:
“There are no jobs out there, I know, I looked. I went on the
Internet every single day. After two months, I gave up.”
“I’m hearing all the experts say we are entering into a jobless
recovery. They say some people are just going to have to get
used to being permanently unemployed. I think they’re
right. I can see a grim future ahead for me. It is the death of
all my dreams; all I’ll have after this is a series of regrets.”
“I heard there are six people out of work for every vacancy
that appears; those odds mean my situation is hopeless.”
4 Chapter One
Well, I’m glad you mentioned that Figure. It has led to more mischief
in people’s understanding of what’s going on, than I can possibly tell you.
Part of the problem is its title. Instead of calling it “the unemployment
figure” we would be far better off if we called it “The Relative Size of
the Employed U.S. Workforce.” Once a month, after the end of each
month, the government does something like a “sounding” (think Mis-
sissippi riverboat) to measure the size of the employed workforce at the
end of that month. They then subtract that figure from the figure at the
end of the month before that, and tell you if the employed workforce has
shrunk or grown overall that month, and by how much. If the workforce
has grown, that means there has been a net number of jobs added that
month to the U.S. workforce, and the government will tell you how
many. On the other hand, if it’s shrunk, then obviously jobs have van-
ished that month; and again the government will tell you how many.
And that’s the figure these past two or three years that has been causing
6 Chapter One
February 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 726,000 people, since the end of the previous month.
During the month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change
at the end of the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,360,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 3,006,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
March 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 753,000 people, since the end of the previous month.
During the month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change
at the end of the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,172,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,717,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
April 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 528,000 people, since the previous month. During the
May 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 387,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 3,980,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,554,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
June 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 515,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 3,776,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,558,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
July 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 346,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,059,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,392,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
August 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 212,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,029,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,387,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
8 Chapter One
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 225,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,010,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,480,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
October 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 224,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 3,966,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,506,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
November 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had grown by 64,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,176,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,415,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
December 2009
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Workforce
had shrunk by 109,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,073,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,497,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
By the end of that month, the overall size of the employed U.S. Work-
force had grown by 14,000 people, since the previous month. During the
month, jobs were lost, jobs were found, but the net change at the end of
the month was the figure above.
But as JOLT reported, during that month 4,080,000 people found jobs.
And at the end of that month, 2,724,000 vacancies remained unfilled.
Yeah, I know. All of that made your head hurt. And I know you’re
bright, and you certainly got the point by the third month, above; but I
droned on, because I wanted to convince you that this can’t be explained
away as only happening for a month or two. This never changes, month
in, month out: even in the worst of economic times there are always
vacancies out there, jobs waiting to be filled; our problem lies in
where they are, what they are, and how we go about looking for them.
During and following a Recession, the methods we use successfully
to find a job when times are good—sending out resumes, plying the
Internet looking for job postings from employers—don’t work very well
at all when times are tough. We need new strategies, new thinking.
That’s what this book is about. A lot of people are finding jobs; why
shouldn’t you be among them?
10 Chapter One
Conclusion
For now, I hope this is your major takeaway from this chapter:
Even during hard times, people in the U.S. have been finding
new jobs by the millions, this month and every month. Moreover,
even after that, millions of vacancies remain unfilled. Now maybe
these jobs are located in a different place than where you’ve lived
for just ages. And maybe the job-titles are different from what
you were looking for. But somebody wants the skills you have;
maybe in a different location, maybe under a different job-title.
But somebody wants you.
All of this is an opportunity for you, if you are willing to roll up
your sleeves, and spend some decent time doing some hard work
Just wanted to say Thank You for your book, it was such an
encouragement to me when I was laid off last February after
nearly 25 years with the same company. I learned some practi-
cal things that seemed to help, in fact I went on four interviews
in a two-month period and was offered three jobs, one because
a former coworker had recommended me to the company, the
others I found online. The hardest thing was deciding which
one to take, but the answer was pretty clear and so now I’ve
been at my new job for 6 months and it is going very well.
Thanks again.
—A Former Job-Hunter
12 Chapter One