What can you give your daughter, niece, or friend when she graduates? You can give her the information she needs to build a successful career. Here are three books that will help her to quickly learn the do's and don'ts of the workplace.

1) Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers by Lois Frankel, Ph.D. This book starts with a quick self-assessment that helps the reader to understand the areas that she needs to work on. For example, readers look at how they sound, how they look, how they market themselves, and how they play the game of business. Each of the 101 mistakes has a brief explanation (1-2 pages) and practical coaching tips.

2) Hardball for Women: Winning At The Game Of Business by Pat Heim, Ph.D. This book clearly explains issues for women at work and shows how men and women tend to look at business differently. It also gives some great insight into why some women have trouble working with other women. At the end of each chapter, the reader gets practical tips on how to deal with workplace problems.

Both Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office and Hardball for Women are written by women who own consulting companies that specialize in training companies and individuals. These books are available at all major book retailers.

3) Why Can't You Communicate Like Me? How Smart Women Get Results At Work by Laura Browne. This book starts with a quick self-assessment so the reader can understand how she likes to communicate (whether she's Bossy, Bubbly, Brainy, or everyone's Buddy). The practical tips in the book help the readers to get better results and build better relationships with everyone at work. Each section of the book is written for a different communication type to make it easy to understand.

Why Can't You Communicate Like Me? is available from Barnes & Noble online, www.bn.com. The publisher currently is running a graduation special: you can order an autographed, personalized copy directly from www.inyourfaceink.com by writing "autographed copy" in the comments section. Be sure to list the recipient's name and your name. (This offer is good through June 30, 2006.)

All of these books will help your recent graduate build her career and will be appreciated long after the other graduation gifts are forgotten.