Real Simple Magazine has just featured one user manual that’s worth reading – how to be plugged in without being impolite.  Hap tip to Yahoo! Shine for the highlights, which contain advice from some of the business in the tech-etiquette business: 1. You’re walking down the street and listening to your iPod when you run into someone you know. ...

Most people have to check references in some shape or form, whether it’s for a candidate or a babysitter.  I don’t know about you, but until I wrote Success for Hire I never really knew how to do it. Here's what I learned:While you can e-mail a reference initially, connect either in person or by phone with at least one reference for ...

My new book, Success for Hire (ASTD Press) features employee recruitment and retention practices that a lot of people think they know but in reality, don’t put into practice.  One of those practices is effective in-person interviewing, which can ensure that you hire the right candidate the first time around.  The next time you speak ...

I love this post from Michael McKinney at Leading Blog.  It’s based on a new book from Alvin Felzenberg, The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game.  Felzenberg devised six criteria to best describe various U.S. presidents’ contribution to history.  Based on this exercise, he ...

A WCW reader writes:  “Dear Alexandra, I’ve read your advice about the right way to leave your job, and I think it’s good.  Only trouble is, the people I work with aren’t exactly helping me out.  I gave them six weeks notice so that I could find and train a replacement, but no one except me seems to feel this major urgency to hire ...

Here’s a disclaimer before you start reading this post.  I’m not writing it to brag or leave you thinking that I’m the greatest colleague or employee of all time.  I’m trying to make a point, so I hope you will look at it in that light.  Now that said, I’ve often been told that I am really great to work with.  Some people ...

On Chris Russell’s Secrets of the Job Hunt blog, Phil Rosenberg offers some smart info on getting what you need from recruiters.  Phil suggests that in order to develop successful relationships with recruiters you must adopt the attitude that you work for them, not the other way around.  His tips include: Give recruiters information ...

And no, I’m not talking about your mental state early last Sunday morning when you stumbled into your apartment after a late-night jaunt downtown.  I’m talking about your writing.   I’m amazed by how many typos I see everywhere, on everything, lately.  Typos on resumes.  Typos on street signs.  Even typos on birth ...

A reader e-mailed the following question:   I recently gave my company a month’s notice as I planned to move to a new city and pursue a new career.  A few weeks later, the company gave out the second installment of our bi-annual bonuses, and I did not receive mine.  The company did well this year and my accounts posted increased ...

Every year, I get asked by one media outlet or another how to handle the office holiday party.  This year, I decided to share the advice I and others provided to the Wall Street Journal last weekend:   “We spend so much time communicating on Blackberries and e-mail, the office party is a rare opportunity to really meet the people who ...