It's all about relationships.(THE LAST LAUGH)

OK, sometimes I'm a little slow. I'd spent three days in February taking notes on a half-dozen presentations at the annual conference of College and University Work/Family Association (CUWFA). Its theme "Strategic Partnerships in Work/Life" should have been a tip-off.

Finally a veteran of many such conferences explained it to me. "It's all about relationships," she had figured out.

Call it networking, mentoring, staying in contact--many women excel at relationships, having been socialized to its expectations and benefits. The rest of us are still learning the nuances, or just getting around to admitting its value.

Women on the move

Over the course of 16 years, our database has grown to more than 25,000 subscribers, and it's great to chart their career progress via their change of address notices. Even better, occasionally we receive first-person articles containing career insights shared by subscribers, which we include in our "In Her Own Words" section.

Another source of data is our "Women on the Move" section. Knowing many of the big players after hearing their conference presentations, I often recognize names appearing there. More often than one might imagine, I've noted there's some kind of previous connection between the new employee and those making the hire, even external candidates.

When career counselors or search committees speak of a "fit" between candidate and campus, you can bet they're trying to describe a meshing of values and styles. What better way to have discovered them than by sharing the adversity of a grad school program or a committee assignment?