Week 10- What Color is Your Parachute Chapter 8

Last week, I discussed the self-inventory strategy that has been proven to be very successful for job hunters attempting to land that first job. Although the process is time-consuming, it has been proven as one of the most effective (yet most underused) way for people to land a job. In the book, What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles, he describes one of the many strategies of the self-inventory strategy.  

One of the strategies for the self-inventory strategy is known as the flower exercise. The “flower” is you and how you work in the work environment. The flower has seven “petals” or seven sides of how you fit into the workplace that are significant for you to answer.

The seven petals are people, workplace, skills, purpose, knowledge, salary and geography. The petals and their goals are listed below:

People- To avoid past bad experiences at with people at work by finding a better picture of the people you want around you in the workplace.

Workplace- To state the working conditions and surroundings that would make you the happiest through a description of physical surroundings

Skills- To discover what your favorite functional skills are that can be translated to any field of interest, not just those you can do best but the ones you love to do most.

Purpose- To know the moral compass or spiritual values by which you can guide your life through some definition or purpose of your life.

Knowledge- To summarize all that you stored in your brain to find some guidance for which field you would most enjoy working in.

Salary- To gain a realistic picture of how much money you will need to earn, or want to earn at whatever job you find by looking for a range of salary.

Geography- To define in what part of the country or world you’d most like to work and live in by defining a clearer picture about what you hope for in life.

The author is very helpful in letting the reader reaching all of these goals by giving them facts, worksheets and inside information about many industries. It would be very beneficial to all to heed his advice and follow the worksheets, especially for new job hunters. Just remember, it is a lot of work, but it is for you to have a better job that you will hopefully keep for a very long time.