What Color Is Your Parachute 2018 by Richard N. Bolles copy

(Give them 15 bad points)
You want to learn how to do this for yourself; you’re going to
be job-hunting again, you know. That’s the nature of our world
today. Job-hunting is a repetitive activity in human life.
If you don’t like the counselor, period!
(Give them 150 bad points)
I don’t care what their expertise is, if you don’t like them,
you’re going to have a rough time getting what you want. I
guarantee it. Rapport is everything.
If you ask how long this particular counselor has been doing
this, and they get huffy or give a double-barreled answer, such
as: “I’ve had eighteen years’ experience in the business and
career counseling world,”
(Give them 20 bad points)
What that may mean is: seventeen and a half years as a
fertilizer salesman, and one half year doing career counseling.
Persist: “How long have you been with this firm, and how long
have you been doing formal career coaching or counseling, as
you are here?” You don’t want someone who’s brand-new to
advising job-hunters. They may call this “their practice,” but
what they mean is that they are practicing…on you.
If they try to answer the question of their experience by
pointing to their degrees or credentials,
(Give them 3 bad points)
Degrees or credentials tell you they’ve passed certain tests of
their qualifications, but often these tests bear more on their
expertise at career assessment, than on their knowledge of
creative job-hunting.
If, when you ask about that firm’s success rate, they say they
have never had a client who failed to find a job, no matter what,
(Give them 500 bad points)
They’re lying. I have studied career counseling programs for
more than forty years, have attended many, have studied records
at state and federal offices, and have hardly ever seen a program
that placed more than 86% of their clients, tops, in their best
years. And it goes downhill from there. A prominent executive