(FORTUNE Magazine) – Thanks, as always, for the many astute and informative comments you've sent me over the past few months--and apologies that it has taken so long for a sampling of them to find their way into print. This time around, the Better Late Than Never Award has to go to Richard Keating and Aaron Becker at Metropolitan Life Financial Services, who weighed in last December on a column that had appeared the previous February. Worth the wait, though: The topic of that original column was whether executive coaching pays off in real dollars and cents, and Metropolitan's experience strongly suggests that it does. The company put part of its retail sales force through an intensive coaching program, and afterward found that productivity among those salespeople increased by an average of 35%, while 78% of the sales reps embarked on the pursuit of a new license or professional designation, and 50% identified new markets to develop. Perhaps most important, Metropolitan has retained all of the salespeople who had the coaching--a big deal, since industry statistics show that each rep who leaves a company with three years' experience costs $140,000 to replace. In all, Keating writes, the program, which cost about $620,000, delivered $3.2 million in measurable gains.

Done right, coaching clearly works. But a word to the wise: One thing no competent coach would do is use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test to steer a person toward one job or another. Having mentioned this assessment tool in the Dec. 24, 2001, column, I got hundreds of letters from coaches who worried that my correspondent, Just Charlie, was approaching the test in the wrong spirit--and that certain incompetent or unscrupulous career advisors and HR departments are using the MBTI in spurious ways, such as trying to pigeonhole people into lines of work. Writes Janelle Metz, a career counselor at San Francisco State University: "The MBTI was never constructed to give career advice. Rather, it was designed to help people learn how they gather information and how they make decisions."

Whether you're extroverted or introverted, whether you take an empirical or an intuitive approach to information, whether you're more inclined to rigidity or spontaneity, logic or emotion--the MBTI gauges all this and assigns you to one of 16 personality types. Knowing your type can be useful at the office (and knowing what type your boss is can't hurt either). "I've seen the MBTI do wonders in helping co-workers understand differences in their work styles," writes Marie McIntyre, a career counselor in Atlanta. "For one thing, it gives them a neutral language to use in discussing their differences. It's much nicer to say, 'I'm an introvert, so I probably need to think about this quietly for a while,' than to say, 'Would you please shut up so I can think?' " She adds, "The problem comes when people try to use this or any other test in the wrong way or for the wrong purpose. And there is a kind of a cultlike feeling about some of the organizations that do nothing but sell MBTI services." True.

While we're still (sort of) on the subject of coaching, let's hear from Mark Horstman, managing partner of Horstman & Co. in Fredericksburg, Texas, which does leadership development consulting. He takes issue with the idea (March 18) that a boss should need to hire a coach to criticize an employee's bad habits, and he pooh-poohs the notion of praising an employee before and after giving negative feedback. "The old sandwich technique--a good thing, then a bad, then another good--trains folks to listen for the bad to follow the good every time, and consequently to miss or devalue the good." Instead, he says, a boss would do better to identify the offending behavior briefly and clearly, describe what's wrong with it, and ask that the person do the right thing. "The organization ought not to be spending hours dealing with a behavioral issue, fairness and compassion notwithstanding," says Horstman. "I love my team, and I give them this kind of feedback all the time"--with nary a coach in sight.

The March 4 column, which made mention of the fibs that have a way of turning up on people's resumes, brought a barrage of letters from hiring managers slack-jawed with amazement at the untruths that candidates have tried to get away with: imaginary Ivy League degrees, lofty titles that never existed, stratospheric salaries that were sheer wishful thinking. Still, it's a bit startling to see what ADP, the General Motors of the background-checking business (see www.avert.com), found when it analyzed the 2.6 million resumes verified by the company in 2001. Fully 44% of job candidates described their past employment quite differently than their former bosses did, and 41% of education records varied from what job applicants claimed. Almost a quarter (23%) of professional credentials turned out to be phony too. Something to keep in mind while perusing the resumes in your in box.

A bit of housekeeping: For anyone who may be interested, the paperback edition of my book If My Career's on the Fast Track, Where Do I Get a Road Map?: Surviving and Thriving in the Real World of Work (Quill/HarperCollins, $12.95) is now in stores. It's been revised and updated to reflect the current less-than-ideal job market.

Next time, more reader comments on what can be done about women managers' below-par salaries; how to assure that a former employer gives you a halfway-decent reference; and finding affordable health insurance for the self-employed. Thanks, all.

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