WORK WITH PASSION: How to Do What You Love for a Living

Sloganeering gabble from a California career consultant--launched under false What Color Is Your Parachute? colors. (For readers chary of their time: there are also lots of blanks to fill in.) The idea, guessable from title and subtitle, is that everyone has a passion--maybe a secret passion--and some sort of ""genius""; but ""in order to discover your passion and release your power, you must accept yourself as you are,"" and so on. That takes about a third of the book, and it's where most of the self-tests appear. Next there are exercises to set goals that match your passions. (Apart from writing your epitaph and making lists, you have a collage assignment: ""Your passion will be on the collage, symbolized perhaps, but it will be there."") Then comes ""targeting the work you are really interested in""--with an explanation of the Standard Industrial Classification Manual and additional work-sheets. Shortly we get to researching ""the organizations and people you want to know more about""--and lots of varied low-down on establishing contacts: some of it good business sense (""focus on the section of the company. . .""), some of it common sense spun out (""If you want to talk to a television producer, watch the show. Study it, Make notes""). One of the better sections concerns advice calls or interviews--plus and minus personal, industry, and company questions (and when to ask those ""minus,"" problem-probing ones). Dismissively introduced, there are also examples of various kinds of rÉsumÉs. In any case, this is practical advice only incidentally--and in no way comparable to Richard Bolles' pithy and precise Parachute.