Week 9- What Color is Your Parachute Chapter 7

Everybody wants to know the best way to get a job. Though many strategies have been discussed in this blog, none has had better results than the Self-Inventory strategy.

The Self-Inventory strategy is described in the book What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles. In the book, Bolles states that if the Self-Inventory strategy is followed, “[it] works 86% of the time” (111). That is a very high turn out when comparing it to other strategies discussed in earlier chapters.

The knock for this strategy and one of the biggest reasons most job-hunters don’t follow it, is because it has many steps and could be considered “busy” work. However, anybody who wants to succeed in landing a job should follow the strategy to a T because it has shown so much success in the past.

The Self-Inventory strategy is completed in six steps:

1. Mental Preparation- The process of breaking down who you are, at the bare minimum, as a job-hunter. What skills/experiences/assets do you provide a company?
2. One Sheet of Paper- Write every single significant thing you know about yourself on a single sheet of paper. This creates the beginning of your Flower Diagram which I will discuss in my blog next week.
3. A Number of Worksheets- These are your Flower’s “Petals”. These are the sheets you may use to organize your ideas to get to the final single sheet of paper. Make sure they are disposable.
4. Some Kind of Graphic or Picture- Pictures and Diagrams are significant to the learning process of humans. Be sure to have a drawing, picture or diagram on your single sheet of paper to help retain the most information as possible.
5. A Prioritizing Instrument or Grid- Creating a Grid or some way to identify what parts of the job take highest priority. This can be any part of a job from the people you want to work with to the tasks you do not want to have to do. Prioritize to find what you’d be willing to sacrifice for a specific job.
6. Prioritizing the Petals- Simply which part of the job should take priority? What order should they go in? Then from there, find the job that fits most closely to your desires.

Some of the steps are more complex and take longer than others, but all must be completed in the correct order to ensure the 86% success rate.

The Self-Inventory strategy may be a time consuming and redundant effort, but it will pay dividends in the end, so start making that flower and prioritize what you want.