John Lees

John Lees is one of the UK’s best-known career strategists. He has written 15 books on work and career management. How To Get A Job You Love was twice listed as WHSmith Business Book of the Month and regularly features as the best-selling careers book by a British author. His books have been translated into Arabic, Polish, Georgian, Japanese and Spanish.

John acknowledges Richard Nelson Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?, as a major influence. John’s work as a career strategist was inspired by the creativity, wisdom and generosity of 125 hours’ teaching from Dick Bolles at two of his summer workshops in Bend, Oregon, and a decade of continuing support and encouragement. Dick Bolles wrote the preface to the current edition of How To Get A Job You Love.

As a career coach, John specialises in helping people make difficult career decisions – difficult either because they don’t know what to do next, or because there are barriers in the way of success. John Lees Associates helps career changers across the UK, and John is a regular keynote speaker at UK events, has presented at the world’s largest international career conferences and delivered workshops in the USA, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, Switzerland and Germany.

John has written careers columns for Metro and People Management and thought leadership pieces for The Times and The Guardian. He appears regularly in the national press with features in Management Today, Company, Cosmopolitan, Prospects, and Psychologies, His coaching work has been profiled in Coaching at Work and The Sunday Times. TV appearances include the BBC interactive ‘Back to Work’ programme, BBC 2’s ‘Working Lunch’, Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’, and ITV’s ‘Tonight – How To Get A Job’). He is a regular blog contributor to Harvard Business Review online and in 2012 wrote the introduction to the HBR Guide to Getting the Right Job.

John is a graduate of the universities of Cambridge, London and Liverpool, and has spent most of his career focusing on the world of work. He has trained recruitment specialists since the mid-1980s when he was Chief Executive of the Institute of Employment Consultants (now the IRP). He has worked with a wide range of organisations on career management issues including: British Gas Commercial, The British Council, CIPD, Fairplace, Harrods, Hiscox, The House of Commons, Imperial College, The Association of MBAs, Lloyds Banking Group, Marks & Spencer, NAPP Pharmaceutical, Oakridge, Tribal, and business schools across the UK. John is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals, a NICEC Fellow, and was a founding Board Director of the Career Development Institute.

Alongside his day job, John serves as an ordained Anglican priest. John is married to the poet and children’s writer Jan Dean. They live in East Devon.