What Color is Your Parachute?

Editor's note: The Library Round Table features several guest columnists from the Northfield Public Library. This piece is from Jamie Stanley, reference librarian.

What Color is Your Parachute?—40 years and going strong!

Are you familiar with What Color is Your Parachute by Richard N. Bolles? This book has been in continuous print for 40 years and is still considered a core title on the subject of job searching.

In 1995, the Library of Congress placed What Color is Your Parachute? on its list, “25 Books that Have Shaped Readers’ Lives.”

One of the reasons that this book remains a perennial best seller with over 10 million copies sold is that each new edition has combined the core principles of the book, specifically the “what” and the “where” of job hunting, which Bolles believes have not changed much, with significant changes in the “how” component of the job search in the digital era.

The 2012 edition of What Color is Your Parachute? has been reorganized around the concept of job-hunting as a survival skill, as it is widely acknowledged that conventional job-hunting skills used in the past are now inadequate. The new edition of this book also includes a chapter titled “Networking in the Age of Social Media.”

The Northfield Public Library has a copy of both the 2012 and 2011 editions of What Color is Your Parachute?, along with an excellent collection of other books on all aspects of job hunting. A list of titles most recently acquired by the library is available in the Business and Employment Resources area on the second floor. Copies are also available on request by contacting the Help Desk in Adult Services at 507-645-1802.