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First published in 1970, What Color Is Your Parachute? is now in it's 35th printing. This book is a detailed guide for those who are going through the agonizing process of job hunting or changing careers. This book has now sold over 9 million copies, and in 2006 Fortune magazine said: 'Parachute remains the gold standard of career guides.' It's author, Richard Nelson Bolles, has become a real guru in the job search arena, having probably advised more people through the 35 versions of his book than almost anyone in the business. Unlike many reprints, the various iterations of Parachute aren't just a re-issue of the same text year after year. As our job market has evolved, Richard Bolles has refocused the book to address current issues of concern to job hunters, applying fresh insight and experience with each edition.

Initially a more traditionally conceived step-by-step approach to developing resumes, interviewing and job hunting, today's version of Parachute is an in depth and very practical look at the whole job search process. Richard Bolles has moved the topic of changing jobs and/or careers into the realm of self-reflection, coupled with a consideration of the difficult and baffling factors of today's job market.

The book looks at the best and worst ways to job hunt, to get and succeed in an interview, and how to make the most of your network of friends, family and current or former colleagues. More than that, Parachute helps you understand the nature of today's job market, and, if you haven't been in the 'hunt' for a few years, this is an eye-opening view of the changes that have taken place over the years. Employment cycles run from too many people seeking jobs to not nearly enough people to fill the jobs available, and this book is up-to-date on where things stand in 2007. Because these cycles have a dramatic impact on the hiring behavior of employers, Parachute reflects what you are facing right now. (That's a good reason to make sure you are using the latest edition of this book.)

The 2007 edition of Parachute helps the reader look at the process of job search and career change as a personal evolution, moving beyond finding work to looking at some of the deeper drivers of each person's career motivation. This book seeks not to stop with a list of things to do, but rather to continue past the 'to do's' with guidance for readers on taking a serious look at how what they love to do and what they are good at doing can merge into a fulfilling career.

This version of Parachute is more interactive than ever, with many ways of analyzing where you are in life and what motivates you, along with the practical analysis of potential career opportunities matched to your skills and those things that you are simultaneously good at and find fulfilling. The book talks about discerning your transferable skills, strongest traits and fields of interest, or what Bolles calls 'fields of fascination.' Bolles is trying to help the reader go beyond matching what they have always done to creating a whole realm of possibilities based on the things that are critically important to them.The book provides numerous models and methods to get to the heart of what kind of work in what kind of career field will not only pay the rent, but also make you happy.

Probably one of the most unique aspects of What Color Is Your Parachute? is the introspective focus, looking at a job and career search from the filter of your values, the kind of people you want to associate with, working conditions and even the geographical preferences ... all designed to help you find a job that in every way is a career that will be lasting and meaningful to you.