What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens, Fourth Edition: Discover Yourself, Design Your Future, and Plan for Your Dream Job (Parachute Library)

Helpful for my college junior daughter, with lots of current research, this was a fun workbook to prompt family discussions and reflection!

It is the book I ordered so there's that...

Thank you for a quick turn around! I am excited for my daughters to read this book!

I got this as a gift for a young man, and it's hard to say whether he will benefit from it. I'm sure he will if he reads it, but I have my doubts about that. It was disappointing to receive the book and see how unattractive the book is, especially as it's not cheap. Almost any book is greatly enhanced by clear readable type and good quality paper. Books with small type just seem like too much work to read, though the reader may not quite know why they are put off.Also, I have a feeling that since this is directed at young people, it should have been edited to half the length. Most non-fiction is way too wordy anyway. If the author only has a half-inch thick book's worth to say, I don't see why publishers make them pad it out to an inch. Short and simple would attract a teenager far better. Maybe the publisher will read this and reconsider!

I have given away so many copies of these "parachute" books. Young people need to figure out what is a good match with their temperament and personality before investing too much money in preparing for a career they will later hate.

I bought this book for my 20-year old niece, who needs to clarify and confirm her career interests. She found the book very useful and started by doing all exercises in Part 1.This book is for self-motivated, driven adolescents. The book cannot help unmotivated lazy loafers.Also, this book does not mention, address or list any personal limitations or weaknesses; career choices should take these into account.Finally, the book mentions that ADHD adolescents should use senior guidance to complete exercises.

I've been an advocate of the main 'What Colour is Your Parachute?' books for managing career and life changes for tens-of-years (helped me tremendously through life events like Redundancy). But now there's a simplified version for young people and it's amazing.One of the biggest hurdles young people face is finding their place in the world ... and I think it can overwhelm them, causing a type of paralysis that can spiral into bad mental health places. When I left education the choice and scope for employment options was more limited - it was likely to be in your immediate neighbourhood or close by; and if you'd said you wanted to be an Astronaut or even a Writer you would likely get a clip round the ear and told to focus on reality. But I think one of the overwhelming things for young people is now the answer to everything is "YES!" - if you want to be an Astronaut here is what you need to do to make it reality; if you want to be a Writer, here's what you need to do; if you want to work anywhere in the world, here's what you do. And for young people that can be like looking at an all-you-can-eat banquet where they are not only overwhelmed by choice, they don't even know themselves enough to know what they want. And so many young people just feel paralysed - they make a choice which they begin, but then realise is wrong so they change; but the change they interpret as a failure. And if this pattern repeats, it can lead to stress and poor mental health. This is where 'Parachute for Teens' comes in ...It starts not by looking at jobs/available options and fitting you to those options, but by helping young people to understand themselves first. So the majority of the process is about answering the question 'who am I?'. And when you understand who you are (something more difficult for young people because that person is still forming) then you can start to see what career opportunities are suited/you'd like. They quote the example of a man who took the traditional Career Profiling tests at his College, the results of which told him to avoid any manual or engineering-type jobs and so he ended up in a different job that he hated. He never even did DIY, until one day he was forced to and found he *loved* it - left his job, set up his own business and became very happy; he hated the Profiling test because of all the years he felt he lost. 'Parachute' works the opposite way around: it helps you understand who you are, and then helps you look at career options where you are drawn more towards your skills, interests, and personality.It is American-based, so you just need to put aside the Americanisms when it comes to the job search parts, but everything is relatable and has equivalents so it's easy to find the path here.It's something I'd strongly suggest a young person works through with someone in a mentoring position, just so there's someone to soundboard off but it's not essential (*and if you're the Mentor, remember to use open questions ... it's not your role to be saying "well, I think you'd be rubbish at 'x', use 'why do you think you'd be ...' ;o) ).But 'Parachute' generally is always full of positives in difficult times - re job applications the Author found people directed to him who had been long-term unemployed, were actually no longer even applying for jobs; the process of constant failure had made it something they mentally felt they could no longer do. What he says in the main Parachute books is to treat job applications like lottery tickets - throw them out wherever you wish; his philosophy being when you buy a lottery ticket is it the end of the world when the ticket fails or do you just buy another one. Do that with Job Applications - because one day your application will succeed. But the *sure* thing is if you don't have a ticket you'll never win - if you're not applying, then you won't get a job.Parachute as a whole enables you to look at life change, career change, as something you're in control of (even if the change is enforced) and that the journey can be enjoyable instead of filled with fear. I can't recommend 'What Colour is Your Parachute' highly enough for the Adult world, but this version helps young people negotiate that difficult transition from education to employment, Teen to Adult, in a version specifically designed for them. Can't recommend highly enough!