What Color Is Your Parachute?

Wants everyone to be like them
Has a high sense of “all the saints” worshiping God together	Has a high sense of “the individual alone with his or her God”
Believes in learning from others	Believes in confronting others
Renounces manipulation of others, and lets them have their own beliefs	Desires to manipulate others into accepting their every belief
Wants God’s forgiveness toward those who have harmed them or follow other gods; forgives readily	Wants God’s vengeance toward those who have harmed them or follow other gods; often has low, long-simmering anger, masked beneath a smile
Focuses on what one can give, out of faith; anxious to give others benefits	Focuses on what one gets out of faith; anxious to get for themselves the benefits
Faith is primarily a matter of actions; words are used only to interpret one’s actions	Faith is primarily a matter of words used as tests or orthodoxy. Shibboleth and sibboleth.
Is well aware that their faith may have some unhealthiness to it	Doesn’t even dream their faith may be unhealthy

If unemployment pushes us to rethink our faith, we should find not only our depression lifting, but also our understanding of faith increasing. That is a great gift. Depression is oftentimes a messenger bringing gifts, if only we open our eyes to see it.

Appendix C. A Guide to Choosing a Career Coach or Counselor

IF YOU DECIDE YOU NEED ONE

All readers of this book divide into two families, or groups. The first group are those who find the book is all they need, particularly if they do the exercises in chapter 13 successfully, on their own.

The second group are those who find they need a little bit of extra help. Either they bog down in their effort to complete the whole book, or they start the exercises in chapter 13 and then get stuck, at some point. So they want some additional help.

Fortunately, there are a lot of people out there, anxious to help you with your job-hunt or career-change, in case this book isn’t sufficient by itself. They go by various names: career coach, career counselor, career development specialist, you name it. They’re willing to help you for a fee—because this is how they make their living. That fee will usually equal the fee charged by other types of counselors in town, say a good psychologist. That will range from about $40 an hour in rural areas, on up to … you don’t want to know. The fee may be charged by the hour (recommended) or as one large lump sum up front (definitely not recommended). And most towns or cities of any size have free or almost-free help, too, even though it’s likely to be in a group and not face-to-face with an individual counselor. For “free,” or “almost free,” see Susan Joyce’s marvelous website (job-hunt.org, or as she likes to say, “job dash hunt dot org”) for the section called Networking and Job Search Support by State, at http://tinyurl.com/7a9xbb.

Now, about those coaches or counselors who charge to help you. There are some simply excellent ones, out there. In fact, I wish I could say that everyone who hangs out a sign in this business could be completely recommended. But—alas! and alack!—they can’t all be. This career-coaching or career- counseling field is largely unregulated. And even where there is some kind of certification, resulting in their being able to put a lot of degree-soundin’ initials after their name, that doesn’t really tell you much. It means a lot to them of course; in many cases, they purchased those initials with their blood, sweat, and tears. (Although a few, sad to say, got the initials after their name by mail-order or after one long weekend of training. Tsk, tsk. But, oh well, no different I suppose from a lot of other professions. Some people are always looking for shortcuts.)

I used to try to explain what all those initials meant. There is a veritable alphabet-soup of them, with new ones born every year. But no more; I’ve learned, from more than forty years of experience in this field, that 99.4 percent of all job-hunters and career-changers don’t care a fig about these initials. All they want to know is: do you know how to help me find a job? Or, more specifically, do you know how to help me find my dream job—one that matches the gifts, skills, and experience that I have, one that makes me excited to get up in the morning, and excited to go to bed at night, knowing I helped make this Earth a little better place to be in? If so, I’ll hire you. If not, I’ll fire you.

How to Lose Your Shirt (or Skirt)

So, bye-bye initials! Let us start, instead, with this basic truth:

All coaches and counselors divide basically into three groups:

a) those who are honest, compassionate, and caring, and know what they’re doing;

b) those who are honest but don’t know what they’re doing; and

c) those who are dishonest, and merely want your money—large amounts, in a lump sum, and up front. These are often so-called executive counseling firms—some executive counseling firms—rather than individual counselors.