What Color Is Your Parachute

In Short

Support career transitions with interview and job search tools
Best for: Career transition resources
What Color Is Your Parachute is a structured tool for coaching and facilitation. Support career transitions with interview and job search tools. It provides a repeatable framework that can be adapted to individual, team, and leadership development contexts.
Type of tool: Career transition resources
Expected outcomes:
- Improved ability to support career transitions with interview and job search tools
- A concrete action or development plan to take forward from the What Color Is Your Parachute process

In Detail

What Color Is Your Parachute is a professional development resource designed to help coaches, leaders, and facilitators support career transitions with interview and job search tools. It sits within the category of Career transition resources, making it particularly useful for practitioners working on capability development, team performance, and individual growth in organisational settings.

In practice, What Color Is Your Parachute is delivered as a 4-step process. The process begins by complete the Flower Exercise: map your ideal role across seven petals (favourite skills, favourite subjects, preferred w. The session closes by design a targeted job search or career transition plan from the flower. The structured approach ensures that participants move through a consistent experience while leaving room for the facilitator to adapt pacing and depth to the group's needs.

What Color Is Your Parachute is most valuable when practitioners need a reliable, repeatable approach that can be adapted to different contexts without losing its core structure. It bridges the gap between conceptual understanding and practical application, making it a durable addition to any coaching or facilitation toolkit.

How to Use

Richard Bolles' career planning framework. 1. Complete the Flower Exercise: map your ideal role across seven petals (favourite skills, favourite subjects, preferred working conditions, preferred people, preferred values and goals, preferred salary and level, preferred geography). 2. Identify the role that best matches the full flower. 3. Use the job interview commandments and mistakes lists as practical coaching tools. 4. Design a targeted job search or career transition plan from the flower.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Directly addresses the challenge of support career transitions with interview and job search tools through a structured, repeatable approach Adaptable to different seniority levels, team sizes, and organisational contexts Generates actionable insight that participants can apply immediately in their work	Effectiveness varies based on the facilitator's skill level and familiarity with the tool Requires adequate time for both the exercise and a meaningful debrief to realise full value May not be appropriate for all cultural contexts without adaptation

Created by Richard N. Bolles

When to Use

This tool is suited to the following coaching and facilitation contexts:

Context	Relevant
Individual Coaching	✓
Team Coaching
Leadership Development
Facilitation / Workshop	✓
Online / Virtual

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