You'd think the Internet would make job hunting easier. But for many, it's just another black hole where applications and resumes disappear forever. Certainly, cyberspace isn't helping participants who gathered for a job-search clinic in a windowless hotel meeting room in New York's Westchester County.

A former accountant at the meeting says that at least 75% of the 245,000 listings on one top job-search site are generic job postings from temporary-service firms and recruiters, not actual openings.

"I put my resume on Monster.com, HotJobs.com and a few others just to try it out," he confesses. "All I've had are some pitches from resume services and a 9 a.m. interview that turned out to be a group offer to me and 25 others to learn the ropes of financial planning. No real jobs."

Adds a middle-aged woman: "One site advertises it has over 20 million resumes on file; mine has been posted for a year. Who knows where it is now?"

Nodding sympathetically, the clinic leader shows a chart indicating that only 7% of 2,500 job hunters who receive outplacement counseling found new positions through the Internet, compared to 35% who were hired through networking. "There are no shortcuts," she tells the group.

Which of these statements is true?

1. Internet recruiting has forever changed the job-search process.

2. Relying solely on a digital job search is an all but hopeless strategy. Career changing is still a step-by-step exercise. You must locate opportunities, attract interviews and negotiate for the best offer.

The answer is both. By using the Internet, you'll get the most from your job search and expand your reach and prospects. But you can't forgo doing the basics because a Web site has promised to make your search quick and easy.

The Internet may be the world's most powerful information and marketing vehicle, but it's still a trap for the unwary. Putting up a commercial job-search-related Web site is relatively cheap, and there's little to stop operators from making unverifiable claims. It's possible that someone actually received two offers after sending a resume customized by a particular service -- but in what decade? Don't be among the hordes who are duped in cyberspace.

So how can you sift through the rubble and mine gold from the digital universe? By using the right tools, you can master the digital job jungle and make it your ally. Don't just use the highly marketed commercial job-search services. Many more focused (and free) avenues are available.

Numerous industry-specific job boards representing trade groups, professions and journals are worth visiting. You should also take advantage of the college alumni, community, headhunter and newspaper sites, plus the thousands of domains describing employers, their products, locations and opportunities.

Plan on putting as much effort into your electronic job search as you would into an important research project. With an accurate map and strategy, you can find what you need to pin down a good job in the right place.

To get the most from your online research, review these tips:

• The Internet jungle can be overwhelming, depending on how you browse. Take charge by deciding on the information you want. Save, digest or bookmark useful information or sites that you discover using good search engines. You're in the driver's seat, and you can choose to click on or skip what you want.

• Focus on your strengths and personal preferences. Think about the skills and accomplishments of which you're most proud, jobs you've held, and the functions you've performed or could. What work style, schedule and income do you want? What values and lifestyle are important to you? Keep these answers in the forefront while you search. The quality of your results will reflect the quality of your preparation.

• Start with your current situation. Are you happily employed? Bored with your current position? Worried about or preparing to be laid off? Expecting family needs to change? Out of work and willing to reinvent your future or only worried about surviving? Each situation creates emotions that can increase or decrease your desire to job hunt. Impatience, for example, can cause you to move too quickly in the wrong direction. Having to go back and start again can be discouraging. What are your special circumstances?

• Regardless of technological advances, basic job-finding strategies haven't changed. Taking a new shortcut, such as mass e-mailing your resume, will be unproductive and frustrating. Just like in Las Vegas, playing more numbers doesn't make you a winner.

Remember these important job-search principles:

Principle 1: Any employer will hire any individual as long as the employer is convinced that hiring him or her will bring more value than it costs. This is the Universal Hiring Rule, and it gives you leverage to achieve your career goals.

Principle 2: Every individual is inherently responsible for translating his or her skills and needs into high-quality employment. Others can help, but you are the active ingredient in your career life. Many of us never had trouble finding work and don't realize what it takes: a thoughtful and persistent strategy that we manage ourselves.

Principle 3: Most electronic resume-sorting methods are hit-and-miss. If an employer's search descriptors don't match the descriptors in your resume or the template used to categorize resumes, your document won't be selected. An actual person with a marketable profile who knows how to look and be politely assertive is much more powerful than a resume filed in an electronic database.

Learn to use the Internet to access the hidden job market and locate unpublished opportunities. Here's how to expand your job choices and connect with people who can influence the hiring decision:

1. Start with your specific job targets in mind. Trying to find opportunities in the vast national job market without having several specific targets is a waste of time. General categories won't give you the focus you need. Remember, job targets are found where your skills and interests intersect. Once you identify these targets, find different ways to describe them.

   Use a variety of local community and noncommercial job-search services on the Internet to identify work situations that fit your needs. A work situation could be as simple as doing research for an employer, redoing a Web site or helping to launch a product. Projects are good ways to make an impact, demonstrate value and establish a relationship without a big commitment on either side. This is a better way to research than reviewing commercial job boards, which only carry paid listings.

2. Identify specific locations where you want to live and work. Embarking on a national search when you won't leave California is another time-waster. Your most important search parameter is where you want to live. Choose several locations if you wish, so long as they're real options -- and even if a company won't pay for relocation.

3. Get the names of all the employers - public and private -- in each location, whether or not they have posted jobs. This will give you a big advantage. It's also easy. On your search engine, enter the location and the words "business directory," "laboratory," "small-business directory" or similar term. For instance, the term, "Memphis Business Directory" returns a lot of information about a variety of directories, associations and lists of active employers in that community. This list of companies is the hidden job market in your desired geographical area and the foundation for your personalized job-finding expedition.

4. Find out more about organizations that appeal to you, regardless of whether they have advertised openings. Know their competitors, industry, products and financial condition, as well as their mission, values and relationships to the community. This information is easy to locate online.
   There are many places to conduct research: You can review journals, products, agencies, affiliations, directories, suppliers, "Who's Who" listings, investment-research groups, industry publications and more. Check www.vault.com for a bulletin board on the company or industry you're targeting. Although gossipy, these boards offer insights into a firm's hiring policies and culture.

5. Get up-close and personal. Check the companies' Web sites for job postings, if any. If you find a listing that matches your qualifications, don't respond yet. Instead, find a way to meet face-to-face with someone who can make or influence the hiring decision. With so many community, nonprofit and specialized sites now on the Web, it's easier to find names of personal contacts than it was five years ago when most sites were commercial.

   Network to find people in your community who might have contacts in the organization. Look in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents, chamber of commerce chapter sites and other places where names of influential people may be listed. Get the name of a person (not necessarily in the recruitment role) who is responsible for managing the position you want or has a related job at the firm. Call that person directly or send him or her e-mail saying your resume is on the way.

6. Make your own job listing. If there's no opening for you, make one: Draw a diagram about what you already know about the firm and where you could make a contribution (growth, recovery, turnaround, bailout, merger). Send e-mail to the right person (someone who would benefit from your problem-solving or energetic commitment) and ask if you can meet to discuss ways you can add value to this area. Stress the benefits you bring to the enterprise. Be sure the resume you present is organized to reflect these.

   Figuring out how a company can use your skills, even before it knows of you, and selling this idea is called job creation -- and it's a powerful driver of the U.S. economy. You can create a job for yourself when you clearly understand how to help a company accomplish something challenging. You must determine what benefit you offer, and then develop and deliver the case for hiring you to the right person. Opportunity develops where you can show value (as per Principles 1 and 2). By using hidden-job-market concepts, you step out of the fray of mass competition and into a world of unique opportunity.

Put the digital monster to work for you.