Added: Path to the Top: Strategies for Women Seeking a Board Seat

Our latest home page feature:

Landing a board seat requires a more subtle strategy than a job search, advises careers author Sarah E. Needleman of the Wall Street Journal. This is because they want to find you, not vice-versa. So, how exactly do you make yourself locatable and noticeable?

Needleman cites statstics "telling a story of slow progress": Women held 14.7% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies in 2005, up from 13.6% in 2003 and 6.9% in 1995, according to a report from Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit group that researches women's career issues.

In her feature, Needleman surveys successful corporate women to learn the tricky approaches to positioning yourself for being selected for a position you can't apply for.