What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles, Carol Christen, Jean M. Blomquist

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    Here are a few other things you can do to develop your job-search skills and increase your awareness of the world of work:
• Listen to guest speakers and ask them how they got into the work they’re doing.
• Attend career days.
• Continue exploring job possibilities: visit friends or relatives in job settings, develop new contacts and conduct information interviews, or do volunteer work in an area that interests you.
• Attend open houses at community colleges or local universities. Tell college representatives about your interests and ask about possible majors—and prerequisites for those majors—or training programs.
• Go to conferences or meetings of professional organizations that happen near you. Contact the membership officer of professional organizations to find out when the meetings are and if you can come as a guest. As a high school student, you may be able to attend conferences for free.
    Job Shadowing
    You can learn more about jobs that fit your interests and skills by job shadowing—which means following a person doing a particular job for a day. You might shadow a business executive, a nurse, an architect, a teacher, or an actor. You see everything they see and do: sit in on meetings, phone calls, or contacts with clients or agents; watch them work at the computer or design table; listen to how they teach math to third-graders or prepare their lines for a performance. Job shadowing gives you a real feel for what the day-to-day work is like in a particular profession or job. It also lets you experience the work environment firsthand, which helps you figure out whether you’d like to work in that particular setting all the time.
    Job shadowing can be either informal or formal. In the case of informal shadowing, you simply ask a parent, acquaintance, or someone you’ve done an information interview with if you could shadow them to learn more about their work. Start with a half day—that’s much easier on the person you are shadowing. If the work really interests you, ask for additional time on another day that works for them.
    Formal job shadowing is usually done through a school, career center, or other organization. TheNational Job Shadow Coalition, for example, is a joint effort of America’s Promise, Junior Achievement, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Labor. Their yearlong shadowing effort kicks off on Groundhog Day (February 2) each year. Throughout the United States, students shadow workplace mentors to see what different jobs entail and how what they’re learning in school relates to the workplace. Past workplace mentors include former president George H. W. Bush, former secretary of state Colin Powell, Monster CEO Jeff Taylor, and Today Show anchor Matt Lauer, Al Roker,and Ann Curry. (For more information on the Job Shadow program and job shadowing in general, see the resources section .)

PARACHUTE TIP
It’s impossible for you to pick a single job for the rest of your life—whether you want to or not. The world of work is changing too much for you to possibly choose a job that will last your entire life. The Occupational Outlook Quarterly reported that you will probably have ten different jobs between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight. And at age thirty-eight you will likely be in the workforce at least another thirty to thirty-five years. We mention this to reinforce that by doing career planning, you are not picking a job for life. First, you’ll want to learn what you want to do to earn a living when you leave school, whenever that is.

    Job shadowing is an excellent way to check out jobs that might match your parachute, particularly your potential dream jobs. You also may find someone who would be willing to be your mentor in a particular field.Mentors are so helpful, you’ll probably want more than one. Mentors can help you recognize and develop the skills you have that will be most valuable in a particular field as well as give you