Choosing a career path is a major decision. Discovering your talents and natural abilities is a top priority for college students. What type of work are you passionate about? Many college students simply aren’t sure what type of career to choose. These students might find some guidance in a top-notch career advice book, several of which are discussed below.

What Color is Your Parachute? – This has been the world’s best selling job-hunting book for over three decades – more than 10 million copies have been sold. Will the author Richard N. Bolles help you discover which career is best for you? He might! The book helps you identify your passions.

What Color is Your Parachute?

After you choose the right career, check out Bolles’ great advice for getting a job. The author provides tips for finding your dream job without depending on ads, agencies, or online job postings.

College Majors Handbook with Real Career Paths and Payoffs: The Actual Jobs, Earnings, and Trends for Graduates of 60 College Majors – This practical guide, written by Neeta P. Fogg, is a great resource when making career choices. The book is based on a U.S. Census Bureau study of 150,000 college graduates. It provides extensive information about careers available to students with different majors. It shows the specific jobs actually obtained by graduates holding various degrees. You’ll learn which interests and abilities are best suited to each major. The book also covers job responsibilities and salaries

College Majors Handbook with Real Career Paths and Payoffs: The Actual Jobs, Earnings, and Trends for Graduates of 60 College Majors

The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success – The book’s author, Nicholas Lore, is a well-respected authority in this field. The book received high praise from a large number of readers. Be prepared to do some work; the book includes exercises and “things to do.” The exercises push you to think long and hard about your career options.

The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career For a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success

This book is one of the best at helping you accurately assess your strengths, talents, and natural skills. It’s an excellent resource to help you evaluate your life and your objectives. The book places an emphasis on finding a career that will lead to a lifetime of satisfaction and success. Yes, there is more to a job than money!

Have No Career Fear: a College Grad’s Guide to Snagging Work, Blazing a Career Path and Reaching Job Nirvana – This handy book is filled with advice from recent college graduates and professionals. Hilarious puns and jokes spice up the book and make for an enjoyable read. The book’s numerous tips help you find the right career while teaching you how to be more inventive, aggressive, and persistent when looking for a job.

Have No Career Fear : A College Grad's Guide to Snagging Work, Blazing a Career Path, and Reaching Job Nirvana

How to Get Any Job with Any College Major: A New look at Career Launch – This book challenges you to evaluate your values, beliefs, and skills. Hopefully you like a challenge! The author Donald Asher argues against the notion that only brainy graduates with specialized majors obtain high paying, visible jobs. He makes the assertion that liberal arts majors can also snag lucrative and fulfilling jobs.

The book teaches college graduate how to promote their skills and advises them about the skills that are most valued by employers. Asher teaches recent college graduates how to convince influential people to help them establish their careers. The book also provides detailed instructions such as how to make contact and get interviews.

Another great book, entitled Conversations: Find your niche! was reviewed last year on this blog. Check out that review here.

Obviously, choosing a career path is a major decision. These great career help books can help you make the right choice. It is certainly worth the time and effort to check them out.

This was a guest post written by Len Dreifort

Len Dreifort writes about jobs in nursing, as well as jobs in several other career fields, for Work Coach Cafe.

Conversations by Joseph Twelves

A Problem Far Too Common
Conversations by Joseph Twelves

In middle school, you’re asked what do you want “to be when you grow up”. In high school, you meet with guidance counselors and take aptitude tests to try to figure out the “right fit” for you. In college, you are switching majors left and right trying to figure out what to get your degree in. And too often, you will find yourself stuck in a job that you hate just to pay the bills… purely a means to an end.
These are the scenarios that are far too common when, believe it or not, it IS possible to decide on a career and have it be the right match. The odds of ever working in your dream job are truly slim if you simply drift into whatever comes along. On the other hand, the odds of winding up doing exactly what you want approaches 100% if you combine a proven career decision method with the simple steps needed to find your passion.
Here are the three key tools found in Conversations: Find Your Niche! that can help:
1) A demonstrated research and decision-making procedure called the Find Your Niche Roadmap
2) Focused, in-depth interviews with 150 working professionals from the full spectrum of career fields about the nature of their jobs all in a fun, conversational format
3) Six special appendices offering you an invaluable collection of critical career information and hard to find resources that will save you months of research
This is the key information you need to understand the career landscape and make an informed decision. The vicious cycle of being unhappy in your job, not knowing what to do, but having to provide for yourself and your family is not a pleasant one. The key is to either prevent this from happening, or if you are already in this position, stop it now!
Join the conversation, find even more resources to help you on your journey, and make this problem far less common.