What Color Is Your Parachute - A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers

Self-Inventory. You do a thorough self-inventory of the transferable skills and knowledges that you most enjoy using, so you can define to yourself just exactly what it is you have to offer the world.

You can describe yourself in terms of what you can do—your favorite functional/transferable skills. Or you can describe yourself in terms of what you know—your favorite knowledges or fields of interest. Or you can describe yourself in terms of the kinds of people you like to be surrounded by, or the kinds of people you like to help. Or you can describe yourself in terms of where you are most effective—the surroundings or working conditions that enable you to do your best work.

Take ten sheets of blank paper. Write, at the top of each one, just these three words: Who Am I? 2. Then write, on each sheet in turn, just one answer to that question. And only one. 3. When you’re done, go back over all ten sheets and expand now upon what you have written on each sheet. Looking at each answer, write below it, why you said that, and what turns you on about that answer. 4. When finished with all ten sheets, go back over them and arrange them in order of priority. That is, which identity is the most important to you? That page goes on top. Then, which is next? That goes immediately underneath the top one. Continue arranging the rest of the sheets in order, until what you think is your least important identity is at the bottom of the pile. 5. Finally, go back over the ten sheets, in order, and look particularly at your answer, on each sheet, to What Turns Me On About This? See if there are any common denominators, or themes, among the ten answers you gave. If so, jot them down on a separate piece of paper. Voilà! You have begun to put your finger on some things that your dream job or career, vocation, mission, or whatever, needs to give you if you are to feel truly excited, fulfilled, useful, effective, and operating at the height of your powers.