About
CAROL CHRISTEN
Hi, I’m Carol Christen, author of What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens. Welcome to the website for the 4th edition of the book.
I’m a career strategist. I’ve worked with teens, young adults and mature ones to help them choose careers, find education or training and get jobs for over 40 years. I have run highly effective employment programs, taught career planning at the university level and done trainings on how to use the Parachute process in this country and abroad.
One of my biggest career frustrations is that in the United States, we do very little to help our youth identify and gain qualifications for their first jobs and careers.
In 2004, the late Phillip Wood, founder of Ten Speed Press and the first commercial publisher of Richard N. Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute? asked me to write a version of that book for teens and young adults. I was offered an incredible opportunity to take my knowledge of Parachute and decades of experience and weave them into a book that would lay out a process to go from clueless to employed; how to successfully transition from school to work. The first edition was published in 2006.
In a country that has few safety nets, assisting young adults to discover challenging jobs that fit their skills, aptitudes and interests, find the least costly ways of getting qualifications for those jobs, and ultimately get hired in well-paid jobs with opportunities for advancement (often called jobs of choice) is an issue of social justice.
Experience has taught me that getting the best job one can in any job in any job market (good, bad or pandemic), is a survival skill that every young adult needs to know.
If you have questions about career choice, creating an education or training plan or successful job search techniques that aren’t answered on this website or in What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens, please get in touch.