A Week's Worth

• Concerns of an economic slowdown tempered investor enthusiasm on Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial fell 0.5 percent for the week.

• Job seekers had better use spell-check if they want to be hired. A recent survey shows that 84 percent of executives will reject a job candidate who has just one or two typographical errors in his or her résumé. The survey of senior executives at the nation's 1,000 largest companies was released by OfficeTeam, an administrative staffing firm.

• Want to seal the deal? Hire an agent. That's the answer found in a series of studies designed by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and colleagues. One study involved students reading excerpts of a negotiation for a book advance by an author and then by an agent using identical words. Participants rated the author more likable when the agent did the talking. "An agent or recruiter can say things that you could never say about yourself, and can shield you from interpersonal frictions," Dr. Pfeffer said in the school's Knowledgebase Newsletter.

• Inside scoop: When a staffer leaves the Monitor, the send-off traditionally comes with farewell speeches and ice cream. Similar sweet sentiments are common in other workplaces. Nearly three-quarters of workers share cake, cookies, or candy to mark special occasions, according to a study by The Marlin Co., a workplace communications firm.