b y Luqman O. Obileye (26 th July 2009)

by

Luqman O. Obileye (26th July 2009)

20 April 2023 What Colour Is Your Parachute/MICA 2009 2

The Book

• This is a book written by Richard Nelson Bolles as a practical manual for job hunters and career changers to help them ‘take control of their lives’

• To succeed, he believes that we need:– Hope – Tools for discovering our truest vision for our lives

+– Practical strategies for finding a vision that work and a

mission

3What Colour Is Your Parachute/MICA 200920 April 2023

What Colour Is Your Parachute/MICA 2009 420 April 2023

Definition

• A parachute is a device used to slow the descent of a person or an object to Earth.

• It is a life-saving device, a survival kit, used by aircraft pilots and passengers.

• The word "parachute" comes from a French word with a Latin root: "para", meaning "against" or "counter" in Latin, and "chute", the French word for "fall". Therefore "parachute" actually means "against the fall".



The Survival Kit: What Do You Need?

Your experience and skills

Finding a Job is a match between:

What Employers

are looking for

Vacancy



“A person’s strength aren’t always on display. Sometimes, they require precise triggering to turn them on.”

Marcus Buckingham

Quote

‘He or she who gets hired is not necessarily the one who can do that job best; but, the one who knows the most about how to get hired’

Richard LathropWho’s Hiring Who?



Toolkit Buzz Words

Ability capacity to perform tasks/job

Skills expertness/practised ability

Attitude disposition, settled mode of thinking

Motivation willingness to exert high level efforts towards goals

Intuition a feeling not supported by research

Creativity inventiveness, imagination

Your Hobbies, Your Passion

• Take a hard look at your spare-time hobbies, over the years. Maybe, you have spent quite a bit of time on these, and become an informal expert.

• So, start thinking: is there any kind of work you could look for, related to those hobbies?

Can you give me some idea what kinds of hobbies might lead to jobs that would value my knowledge and experience?


What is Your Passion in Life?• What do I want out of life?• What do I want to give to this life ?• By the time I die, what do I want my gift to the world to

have been?• What is it about the world that I dislike, am most bothered

by, or hate the most; and would most love to correct, fix, or eradicate if I could?

• What is the product or service that I think my community, country, or the world, most needs – really, really needs?

• What is it that I would love to do, more than anything else in the world?

• What is it that most energizes me?


What are employers looking for?

1. Talent – transferable skills 2. Experience 3. Self-management skills4. Persistence5. People skills6. Responsibility


What are employers willing to pay for?


What are traits?• How you deal with time and promptness?• How do you deal with people and emotions?• How do you deal with authority, and being told

what to do at the job?• How do you deal with supervision, and being told

what to do at the job?• How do you deal with impulse vs self-discipline?• How do you deal with initiative vs response,

within yourself?• How do you deal with crises or problems?


Do you seem willing and eager to learn? Sometimes, a person can have all the experience in

the world but lack the enthusiasm that leads to doing a great job


What Makes You Unique?

• Write the three top skills that you think will be of greatest interest to a potential employer. And then, write out a brief description of a situation where you successfully used that skill, each on a separate page.

• to write the story: – what was I trying to accomplish? Why did I want to accomplish this?

What are the obstacles I faced, or the constraints under which we had to operate? What exactly did I do? What happened as a result? How did I know we were successful?


Each of us is blind – not to other people’s gifts, but blind to our own uniqueness.


The Virtues of Small Organisations

• Experts have claimed for years that small organisations create two-thirds of all new jobs. If that makes you prefer going after a small organisation, I have good news: they are much easier to get into than larger ones– You don’t need to wait until there’s a known vacancy– There is no Personnel or Human Resources Department– There’s no problem identifying the person-who-has-the power-to-

hire-you– You do not need to approach them through the mail, if you use your

personal contacts, you can get to see the boss– It is growing, there is a greater likelihood that they will be willing to

create a new position for you


Who is a Contact?

Every person you meet, stumble across, or blunder into, during your job-hunt, whose name, address, and phone number you have the grace to ask for.


Mid-Life Career Change: Finding a Life, a Meaning


Why do People Go on a Life-Changing Job Hunt?

• They suffer from burnout • They need time to smell the flowers• Some need to set their career path right, after straying from their

original plan, • Urge to earn more money• Searching for their mission in life or raison d’etre (as people mature

they start searching for meaning more than money).

The advantage of doing the life-changing job hunt is obvious: it makes you rethink your goals, really think about what you want to accomplish in this life, and it’s about getting in touch with who you really are. It requires time, effort and a lot of deep thought.


Know Thyself!

The road to a dream job is a road that passes first of all through you!


The Flower


What Transferable Skills Do You Most Enjoy Using?

• Your People Skills• Your Skills with Information (data)• Your skills with things?


Transferable SkillsData People Things

Synthesizing Mentoring Setting Up

Coordinating, Innovating Negotiating Precision Working

Analyzing Instructing Operating – Controlling

Compiling, Computing Supervising Driving – Operating

Copying Speaking, Signalling Feeding, Offbearing

Comparing Serving, Taking Instructions, Helping

Handling

“Flesh Out” Your Favourite Transferable Skills with Your Traits


Conclusion


Parachute is not for everyone. If you dislike thinking about your life, values, spirituality, and your goals, you will find What Colour Is Your Parachute ? incomprehensible. If you want a quick fix to your life/work problems, Parachute doesn't offer you a quick fix.


The most critical part of the book is the self evaluation section. This is a very structured process that can be used intuitively as well. Bolles asks you to write a few stories about yourself, then, what did you like and dislike about those stories? What did you do well, where did you fail or feel challenged beyond your abilities? These are the critical areas of the book that take time to get through, yet you can evaluate yourself and understand what you like, it is what you do best, usually.


Transferable Skills

You are defined not by your job title, but by the skills that you possess, which are transferable from, and to, any occupation you may happen to be involved in at the moment.


5 Tips to Starting a Second Career

1) Assess your likes and dislikes2) Research. Identify career fields where there's

opportunity for growth.3) Network4) Upgrade your skills and education5) Evaluate your finances. Change comes at a

cost (such as a pay cut)6) Don't let your age get in the way



‘What you have is God’s gift to you. How you use it is your gift to God and to those around you’

Anonymous

Contributions & Questions


Thank you for your attention


• Luqman Obileye• [email protected]• 0803 334 3253


mailto:[email protected]

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