To get ahead on the job, you might spend time hobnobbing with your boss on the links. But you can be sure that a better long-term investment is to stow the clubs and spend a grand on polishing your career skills.

When Kim Walker became an associate dean at Indiana University, Bloomington, two years ago, she was asked to make speeches to raise funds for arts and music projects. She went to the trouble of painstakingly preparing her presentations word by word, and even added PowerPoint slides to drive home her points, but she still wanted to improve her delivery.

So Walker flew to San Francisco to attend a seminar in public speaking run by speech coach Patricia Fripp (www.fripp.com). The two-day course, which Walker paid for herself, cost about $350, plus another $600 for travel, food and lodging. From Fripp, Walker learned a new technique for structuring speeches -- "like a coat hanger on which you hang your ideas" -- and scrapped her detailed scripts for a couple of index cards listing key points. Her new delivery was a hit with local business leaders, to whom she presented a plan to raise funds to promote cultural events and attract tourists. Walker is now in greater demand as a speaker..."