Parachute Guru: we will miss you

Job Hunter's Bible (2014)

How sad to lose Dick Bolles who died this year on 31 March. He is best known for having spent almost fifty years working on one great legacy: writing the pre-eminent handbook for job seekers, "What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career Changers".

I so enjoyed his practical mindset, his simplicity of approach, his direct style of writing, and the continual development of his work in each edition of "Parachute". Each year there was something new and valuable in the book, so each year I would invest in the latest version.

Of late I transitioned to the eBook. However, I also have Parachute as an audiobook, and audited his eParachute course on Udemy.

Not only have I lent clients my older versions of Parachute, but I have encouraged clients to take his eParachute MOOC on Udemy (view here), which is pretty good too.

Dick Bolles was a man of many talents. He completed his undergraduate degree in Physics (chemical engineering) at MIT and Harvard, then felt a call to the ministry and did a Masters in theology at New York's General Theological Seminary. He was an episcopalian minister for many years before being made redundant and, in his next role, being tasked with aiding jobless theologians of various stripe into new roles (Vitello, 1 April 2017; Jacobs, 10 September 2015).

What started as a self-help photocopied booklet segued into Parachute. He remained a minister until 2004. Oh, and wrote books. And lectured. And presented at conferences. And won many awards. In 2014, he delivered his wisdom to Google as an invited lecturer (here).

He was such a lovely man, and a great contributor to the field of helping people to help themselves into rewarding work. He was also kind enough to become a LinkedIn contact with a career practitioner all the way away in New Zealand.

While I think his son Gary has been working as editor and keeping the infrastructure going for some time with both Parachute and The Job Hunters Bible (here), Dick himself will be sorely missed.

Kua hinga te totara i te wao nui a Tane


Sam

References:

• Bolles, R. N. (2017). What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career Changers. USA: Ten Speed Press.
• Jacobs, E. (10 September 2015). Richard Bolles: The man who shaped careers advice. Retrieved 8 April 2017 from https://www.ft.com/content/c2102dea-52ea-11e5-8642-453585f2cfcd
• Job Hunter's Bible (2014). Home Page Background Image. Retrieved 8 April 2017 from http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/
• Talks at Google (5 May 2014). Dick Bolles: How to Decide what you'll be doing Five Years from Now. Retrieved 8 April 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeP6Pm3Xf-8
• Udemy (2016). The eParachute Introduction to Your Career and Job Search. Retrieved 8 April 2017 from https://www.udemy.com/the-eparachute-introduction-to-your-career-and-job-search/learn/v4/overview
• Vitello, P. (1 April 2017). Richard Bolles Dies at 90; Wrote ‘What Color Is Your Parachute?’. Retrieved 8 April 2017 from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/richard-bolles-dead-what-color-is-your-parachute.html?_r=0