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player ready...Author Richard Bolles wants people who are out of work to remember that most people are working. And most companies are hiring.
“People die, people move, people get sick,” Bolles said from his office in the San Francisco Bay area. “Jobs are always being created.”
It’s a comforting perspective that Bolles has earned through 75 years of life, four major recessions and three decades of studying the subject. It may also be why his seminal book, “What Color is Your Parachute?”, is enjoying a rebirth 30 years after it was published.
The “job-hunter’s bible” is back on the New York Times best-seller list for advice paperbacks (No. 12) after dropping off 13 years ago. It has sold 7 million copies and earned a spot (alongside the Bible) on the Library of Congress’ “25 books that shaped people’s lives.” The 2003 edition was released this fall.
Despite annual revisions and a complete rewrite last year, the book’s messages are the same as they were in 1972: You can find work that you love, and you probably won’t find it by just sending out resumes and answering ads.
Bolles clung to this belief even when the hyperactive job market of the 1990s contradicted him. Back then, young and inexperienced people could e-mail a resume in the morning and get a response by the afternoon.
“Anybody who came into the job market in 1990 didn’t have any idea that there’s a cycle,” Bolles said. “It takes an entirely different job-hunting method when the economy is in the doldrums.”
Bolles doesn’t promise to help anyone land a job in 10 easy steps. Looking for work takes time, effort and a willingness to change tactics when you’re not getting results, he says.
The methods that Bolles suggests are based on the notion that people should find out what they love to do, then get a job that allows them to do it. The “life-changing job search,” as he calls it, cracks the job market wide open. The emphasis here is on skills, many of which apply to all sorts of industries.
“I would guess [job hunters] would have to take two full weekends to do homework on themselves,” Bolles said. “They’d have to ask `What are my skills?’ Then go deeper, `What skills make up this skill?'”
“If they say, `I’m a machinist,’ that’s a big mistake. They ought to say, `I’m a person who is good at . . . ‘ Then they start to see a pattern: `I was always able to bring a project in ahead of time.’ Or, `I have a keen eye for detail.'”
Bolles understands that persuading employers to hire you without direct experience is difficult, which is why he suggests avoiding recruiters and human resources’ folks altogether. This is nearly impossible with a large company.
But smaller employers too busy to even post their latest job opening (about 70 percent of all jobs are not advertised) may be more inclined to consider someone without direct experience, particularly if the person shows enthusiasm and initiative.
Finding those employers takes effort and nerve. If you’re looking to speed up your job search, Bolles recommends an exhausting regimen of four face-to-face meetings or 40 telephone calls a day.
If you’ve tapped out the companies with whom you have some sort of connection through friends or colleagues, grab the Yellow Pages and start making cold calls.
As any salesperson knows, the high-volume method brings lots of rejection, which is why most job seekers avoid it.
So Bolles suggests using the salesperson’s coping strategy: Think of every “no” as bringing you one step closer to a “yes.”
Bolles says that losing a job can be a “secret nudging of the spirit” that’s ultimately positive. “There has to be some soul-searching and it might be soul searching they’d never have done in their whole life. The process can be redemptive.”
Tips for finding–and not finding–a job
After 30 years of studying which job-search methods work and which don’t, “What Color is Your Parachute?” author Richard Bolles gives his top and bottom five best ways to look for work:
Best:
– Do a life-changing job hunt. This means finding a career that suits your passion. It takes time and effort but has an 86 percent success rate.
– Comb the Yellow Pages. In a group with other job seekers, target fields that interest you, then call those employers and ask if they’re hiring. This method has an 84 percent success rate.
– Same as above, but by yourself. For some reason, doing this alone has a 69 percent success rate. Bolles isn’t sure why but suspects that friends offer ideas and options that someone alone may not notice.
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– Knock on doors. Finding a company that interests you, even if it hasn’t posted a vacancy, and asking about a job has a 47 percent success rate.
– Get referrals. Getting job leads from family, friends and professional contacts has a 33 percent success rate.
Worst:
– Use the Internet. Bolles pegs the success rate at a meager 4 percent.
– Mail resumes at random. Only 7 percent find work by sending unsolicited resumes to employers.
– Answer ads in trade journals. Also a 7 percent success rate.
– Answer local newspaper ads. Success varies depending on skill level. For high-paying jobs, it’s about 5 percent; for others, it’s as high as 24 percent.
– Use employment agencies and search firms. These also have a 5 percent success rate for senior-level jobs, but the figure rises to 28 percent for other positions.
Seattle Times