What Color Is Your Parachute? 2017: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers

There is a self-examination type questionnaire that you can fill out, at Working Solo (www.workingsolo.com/faqstarting.html#Ans1). It encourages you to ask yourself the hard questions.

There is also a website called Checkster (www.checkster.com). Scroll down to the bottom of its home page. There you will see “Solutions. Talent Checkup.”

Just remember, it takes a lot of guts to try ANYTHING new (to you) in today’s slowly recovering economy. It’s easier, however, if you keep these things in mind:

There is always some risk, in trying something new. Your goal, I hope, is not to avoid risk—there is no way to do that—but to make sure ahead of time that the risks are manageable.

As we have seen, you find this out before you start, by first talking to others who have already done what you are thinking of doing; then you evaluate whether or not you still want to go ahead and try it.

Have a plan B, laid out, before you start, as to what you will do if it doesn’t work out; i.e., know where you are going to go, next. Don’t wait, puh-leaze! Write it out, now: This is what I’m going to do, if this doesn’t work out.

One final word of caution here: if you’re just graduating from high school, don’t go get a college degree in some career field just because you think that this will guarantee you a job! It will not.