Dear Liz,

"So anyway, that was my old company's policy," said the breathless guy on the phone, whose name turned out to be Phil. "They used to tell us that we could have a LinkedIn profile, but we couldn't use the company's name. Paranoid much?"

"I'm trying to think of a possible...

Michael Hecht draws inspiration from the city leaders and planners who designed the all-new Chicago after the Great Fire in 1871. The Chicago fire was one of the great disasters of the age, destroying 3.3 miles of homes and businesses, killing hundreds and making one-third of the populace homeless overnight....

I don't know where the lady got my cellphone number, but I heard the phone ringing in my purse as I stepped into a cab, and I grabbed it and answered it without looking at the number.

"Is this Liz?" asked the lady.

"Yes," I said. "I'm sorry that...

My husband and I met at work, in 1984. We didn't start dating until 1986, but we know tons of people in common from the job where we met, a million years ago.

The other day, I was on LinkedIn and my husband was nearby. "Hey, look up that one...

A job-seeker is in a tricky position. You've got to get a job, and it's easy for your bossy left brain to take over and try to silence your trusty gut. So you're sitting in an interview with a supervisor, and your gut is screaming, "This guy is a toad!...

A lawyer called me to talk about an expert witness assignment. "My client is a great company, with really wonderful people," he said. "They ran into a stretch of bad luck, and made some mistakes, and now they're looking at a big lawsuit." "Run it down," I said.

The first...

I belong to the social media influence-scoring site Klout, although I couldn't tell you why. Klout is a site that tells you how influential you are online, although I'd say their algorithm is as suspect as can be. I'm not sure why the photos of my kids...

Outsourcing has been all the rage for 15 years, at least. There's a name for the industry that sprang up to take over the tasks corporations don't want to pay for in-house: Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO. There are lots of situations where it makes sense to outsource functions.

If...

In the election-night hoopla, I nearly missed the fact that Colorado voted in Amendment 64, a step in the direction of legalization of marijuana. We were the first state in the nation to do so. I saw the now-famous quote from Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in the paper the next...

I was eating lunch with my friend Dee when I got a text from my office. "Oh, shoot," I said. "I have to look at this text." "Do it," said Dee, and asked the waiter for some lemon for her tea. I read the text. "Youch!" I said. "The guy...

"My God, my God," says my friend Kristin on the phone, whispering so as not to be overheard by her cubicle-mates. "I am surrounded by zombies." "I guess you can't give me an example, right now," I said. "Let me get out to my car and I will," said Kristin....

The Facebook post was soothing at first. "Rosh Hashanah is a time of contemplation and reflection," it said. I was raised Catholic -- I don't know a thing about Rosh Hashanah, and I was interested. "It's a time of thoughtful listening," the post went on. "That's why I'm offering a...

Some dude called me today and yammered for 10 minutes about a product he wanted me to write about. The product is a software application that lets employers track their employees' movements online, in case anyone is goofing off by spending too long on eBay or ESPN.

"It's a...

My friend Genevieve and I were having dinner, and talking about our memories from school. Genevieve told me about her first big kid-school showdown, in fifth grade. Her teacher's way of teaching the kids definitions was to have the kids write down the word (say, albatross) and a dictionary definition...

Five or six years ago, before the recession began, I was getting a lot of calls from employers looking for philanthropic types. "We need someone to head up our giving programs," they said. I made introductions, and a half-dozen of my friends got jobs running corporate philanthropy programs.

Before...

Dear Liz,

I'm 30 years old and I've been out as a gay man for years with my friends. I haven't said anything at work, because it's a fairly conservative place and I'm not sure how my disclosure would change my relationships here (not to mention my career path). I've...

"This is going to be my year," said Joseph, a guy I'd just met at a networking event. "How so?" I asked. I thought maybe he was expecting a baby in his family or something. "I'm next in line for a promotion, and all signs point to Yes," he said....

Dear Liz,

I read every article of yours I can find, so you're the perfect person to advise me on a leadership issue in my 23-person firm (up from three of us 18 months ago). I still interview every job-seeker whom we're considering for a job here, and I've told...

Oh, spare me! Every day someone sends me an article talking about how employers are wringing their hands because can't find employees with the skills they need. Let's take a look at that little word at the end of the last sentence: need. Do employers really need all the skills...