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What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens, Third Edition

Discover Yourself, Design Your Future, and Plan for Your Dream Job

Author Carol Christen, Richard N. Bolles
Ebook
Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed | Ten Speed Press
On sale Apr 21, 2015 | 192 Pages | 9781607745785
Grades 6-12
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This updated career guide for teens draws on the principles of What Color Is Your Parachute? to help high school and college students zero in on their favorite skills and find their perfect major or career.

No idea what you want to be? No worries! This fun, rewarding guide draws on the time-tested principles of the career classic What Color Is Your Parachute? to help you discover your passions, skills, and potential college majors and dream jobs. 

Why now? Because when you identify your interests and passions early, you can make informed decisions on what additional schooling (and tuition debt) makes sense for your chosen field. 

With fresh updates on the specific challenges of today’s job-market, this new edition features activities and advice on information interviewing, social media, internships, and more. Most importantly, it’s packed with big-picture advice that will set you up to land the job that’s perfect for who you are—and who you want to be.
CAROL CHRISTEN is a career strategist who has provided life/work planning and job-search skill training to people since 1979. Specializing in working with teenagers, Carol lives along California’s Central Coast. View titles by Carol Christen
© Glenn Jones
Richard N. Bolles has led the career development field for more than 40 years. A member of Mensa and the Society for Human Resource Management, he has been the keynote speaker at hundreds of conferences. Bolles was trained in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in physics from Harvard University, a master’s in sacred theology from General Theological (Episcopal) Seminary in New York City, and three honorary doctorates. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Marci. Visit jobhuntersbible.com. View titles by Richard N. Bolles
Discovery Exercise
How to Find What You Love to Do:  Identify Your Skills

Scan your mind back over the last month. Did you complete any tasks successfully? What were they? Did you enjoy them?

You begin to identify your skills by looking at your life. Think about projects you have completed, recent problems that you solved, your hobbies, and the activities you do for fun. These can be experiences from your school, volunteer work, paid work, or free time. Select a project or activity you’ve enjoyed that had an outcome—writing a paper, helping to organize an event, or learning something new, such as a sport or hobby.

Rich Feller, professor of career development and author of the book Knowledge Nomads and the Nervously Employed, says that 70 percent of our skills come from challenges, 20 percent from watching others, and 10 percent from classes and reading. Pick a story to write from any of these three categories. If you’re stumped about what might make a good skills story, look particularly at challenges you have overcome. Once you’ve thought of a story, write a short paragraph that describes how you completed your project or worked out a solution to the problem you had. (Need a little inspiration on what kind of story to write? See the Student Example on page 12.)

Now give your project, problem, or activity a title. Then answer these questions:
Goal or Problem: What was your goal—that is, what were you trying
to accomplish, or what was the problem you were trying to solve?
Any time you have a goal that challenged you, you’ll find lots of skills.
Obstacles: What made achieving your goal (or solving the problem) difficult? How did you overcome these obstacles?
Time Frame: How long did it take you to achieve your goal or solve your problem? Using an overlong time frame can often hide skills.
If solving a particular problem took several years, pick an especially challenging part of that problem.
Outcome: What happened? Did things go as you expected, or did something unexpected happen?
Copyright © 2015 by Carol Christen and Richard N. Bolles. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
“Discover and explore your personal path with the help of this excellent book. Use Christen’s step-by-step exercises, along with careful planning and hard work, to launch a
successful career.”
—Steven Roy Goodman, educational consultant and coauthor of College Admissions Together
 
“After long nights of losing sleep and worrying about what career would both satisfy me and benefit my life in the future, I found my answer among the many informative and interactive pages of this book. It has lead me down the right track toward the profession of my dreams and taught me a lot about myself along the way.”
—Alison Mantell, college freshman at Montana State University

About

This updated career guide for teens draws on the principles of What Color Is Your Parachute? to help high school and college students zero in on their favorite skills and find their perfect major or career.

No idea what you want to be? No worries! This fun, rewarding guide draws on the time-tested principles of the career classic What Color Is Your Parachute? to help you discover your passions, skills, and potential college majors and dream jobs. 

Why now? Because when you identify your interests and passions early, you can make informed decisions on what additional schooling (and tuition debt) makes sense for your chosen field. 

With fresh updates on the specific challenges of today’s job-market, this new edition features activities and advice on information interviewing, social media, internships, and more. Most importantly, it’s packed with big-picture advice that will set you up to land the job that’s perfect for who you are—and who you want to be.

Author

CAROL CHRISTEN is a career strategist who has provided life/work planning and job-search skill training to people since 1979. Specializing in working with teenagers, Carol lives along California’s Central Coast. View titles by Carol Christen
© Glenn Jones
Richard N. Bolles has led the career development field for more than 40 years. A member of Mensa and the Society for Human Resource Management, he has been the keynote speaker at hundreds of conferences. Bolles was trained in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude in physics from Harvard University, a master’s in sacred theology from General Theological (Episcopal) Seminary in New York City, and three honorary doctorates. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Marci. Visit jobhuntersbible.com. View titles by Richard N. Bolles

Excerpt

Discovery Exercise
How to Find What You Love to Do:  Identify Your Skills

Scan your mind back over the last month. Did you complete any tasks successfully? What were they? Did you enjoy them?

You begin to identify your skills by looking at your life. Think about projects you have completed, recent problems that you solved, your hobbies, and the activities you do for fun. These can be experiences from your school, volunteer work, paid work, or free time. Select a project or activity you’ve enjoyed that had an outcome—writing a paper, helping to organize an event, or learning something new, such as a sport or hobby.

Rich Feller, professor of career development and author of the book Knowledge Nomads and the Nervously Employed, says that 70 percent of our skills come from challenges, 20 percent from watching others, and 10 percent from classes and reading. Pick a story to write from any of these three categories. If you’re stumped about what might make a good skills story, look particularly at challenges you have overcome. Once you’ve thought of a story, write a short paragraph that describes how you completed your project or worked out a solution to the problem you had. (Need a little inspiration on what kind of story to write? See the Student Example on page 12.)

Now give your project, problem, or activity a title. Then answer these questions:
Goal or Problem: What was your goal—that is, what were you trying
to accomplish, or what was the problem you were trying to solve?
Any time you have a goal that challenged you, you’ll find lots of skills.
Obstacles: What made achieving your goal (or solving the problem) difficult? How did you overcome these obstacles?
Time Frame: How long did it take you to achieve your goal or solve your problem? Using an overlong time frame can often hide skills.
If solving a particular problem took several years, pick an especially challenging part of that problem.
Outcome: What happened? Did things go as you expected, or did something unexpected happen?
Copyright © 2015 by Carol Christen and Richard N. Bolles. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Praise

“Discover and explore your personal path with the help of this excellent book. Use Christen’s step-by-step exercises, along with careful planning and hard work, to launch a
successful career.”
—Steven Roy Goodman, educational consultant and coauthor of College Admissions Together
 
“After long nights of losing sleep and worrying about what career would both satisfy me and benefit my life in the future, I found my answer among the many informative and interactive pages of this book. It has lead me down the right track toward the profession of my dreams and taught me a lot about myself along the way.”
—Alison Mantell, college freshman at Montana State University

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