Laborious

That's the first word that comes to mind when it comes to describing how one looks for a job -- a very painful reminder for millions of people on this Labor Day. Three decades ago, you just looked at the newspaper or went to an employment agency, submitted your resume and cover letter, if necessary, filled out an application, and hoped for an interview and job offer. During the expected mild recessions, competition was stiff, but everyone who sought jobs was hopeful that something would come through.

Today, the process is far more complex.

The classified ads have slim pickings and are often dead giveaways about the type of place that's offering a job. "Must know WordPerfect 5.2." (A lawyer who hasn't upgraded his equipment or software since the 1990s!) "Must have six arms and six legs and not be a clock watcher." (High stress, low pay.) "Fax resume to 555-555-5555." (Boss is not computer literate.)

Monster.com and careerbuilder.com are so late '90s and early 2000s. Indeed.com gets mixed reviews from users. Put in a term under the advanced search tool and you will get that term under everything you want and mostly don't want. LinkedIn is far better because there are jobs that are exclusively posted on it. If your LinkedIn profile is complete, with at least three recommendations, it's easier to get past the others who are applying for that job. When my husband applied for jobs on LinkedIn, he found that the rate of response was higher than through Dice.com, Krazoom.com and other job websites.

But applying for a job isn't enough. It turns out that people have to cultivate relationships and way that is supposed to be effective is through twitter.com. (This is in addition to signing up for tweetmyjobs.com.) Pundits who are already employed or successful freelancers claim that job seekers should follow others in their fields, preferably people at higher levels, and start twitter dialogs.

Then there is blogging. Writers, marketing experts and publicists should be tweeting and blogging regularly, preferably daily. But blogging is definitely something that should be on everyone's agenda. My husband works in IT security and has an occasional blog. Was it helpful in his job search? Yes and no. One hiring manager wanted to see samples of his writing. He explained that most of his writing was about security policy and that is confidential material. The hiring manager insisted, so my husband printed out his blog postings. It showed the hiring manager that he was up-to-date on issues in his field. Another interviewer had been following his tweets and was impressed. Unfortunately, that job was pulled before it could be filled, not an uncommon occurrence.

Networking groups have proliferated. Sadly, many are just support groups. The vast majority of attendees are those who are unemployed and can mainly help others by providing information on the corporate culture where they worked. That can actually be useful. Occasionally, they'll meet someone who can provide them with the name of someone who is still working there. What they have to watch out for are predators in the form of financial managers who want them to turn over their 401(k) plan investments and "help" them transition into an early retirement they can't afford, and people who have vested interests in luring them into thinking that their key to business success and financial independence is to buy into a franchise. The business plan is already there, they promise. (Yes, it is. So is the clause about the source of materials. And the clause about turning over 25 percent of the revenue to the person who started the franchise. Compare that to a royalty, residual or even one-time recruiter fee and it is a huge amount of money.)

The truth is that most start-ups and most franchises fail. (Remember Krispy Kreme Doughnuts? The building in Milford, Connecticut has been empty for at almost two years. It's as if a horrific homicide took place at 1440 Boston Post Road and no one wants to occupy that property.

What's the answer for job seekers? It's both luck and hard work. People can be doing all the right things and still spinning their wheels in this unfriendly job market. That said, anyone who isn't doing all the right things, regardless of how laborious they are, is not even staying in place, but is behind. My sister-in-law was told by a recruiter that she was unemployed too long. At that time it was about 18 months. She finally got a decent job in her field after 98 weeks of being out of work. My brother-in-law has worked about five months in his field in the past three years. A college friend has had a total of less than one week's paying work in nearly three and a half years. The managing editor who lost her job at a weekly newspaper is more aggressive, but she is surprisingly secretive about her food blog, yet most of the stories she pitches are about food. Did I mention that she only pitches to poorly paying markets and is earning a fraction of what she did before she lost her job? In comparison, my husband's "transition" period of seven months didn't seem that bad, and he got a full time job higher salary than he earned before. Well, he went to network meetings, applied for jobs online, blogged and tweeted. His laborious job search was non-stop. The others were more passive and didn't use every available tool. That's the difference. And today he is enjoying Labor Day as he should -- a day off with pay.