IS YOUR PERFECT JOB just a mouse click away?

The estimated 3,000 job-search sites offer countless vacancies, extensive resume databases and special software programs that will e-mail you when listings match your specified needs. But the Net is not the answer for every job seeker.

People mistakenly believe you simply go on the Internet "and the job will be there waiting for you,'' observes Jeffrey Taylor, CEO of Monster.com, a big career site owned by TMP Worldwide Inc. Millions of people are hitting the "submit" button to apply for jobs electronically, says Greg Pettenon, a Deerfield, Ill., managing consultant for career-management firm Drake Beam Morin. But the job sites "are just leads,'' he notes.

Only 4% of nearly 2,800 Internet users surveyed online found their latest position on the Web, according to a recent study by Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. Meanwhile, 64% of 7,400 DBM clients who received outplacement counseling last year said they got their new jobs by networking.

You could increase your chances of landing a plum post by combining online tactics with old-fashioned networking, employment experts say. The dual approach worked well for Trev Hall, a 1999 M.B.A. graduate of West Virginia University in Morgantown.

But the glitzy site alone didn't suffice. He was told he was unqualified for a programmer's post he wanted at the West Virginia High-Tech Consortium Foundation; he had discovered the opening in an online clearinghouse run by the Fairmont advisory group. The 32-year-old new M.B.A. refused to give up. He crafted a "resume newsletter'' that filled in some of the gaps on his Web site and e-mailed it to Laurance Milov, then the foundation's chief executive. Mr. Milov ignored the electronic mailing because, he says, "I got a lot of resumes.''

So, Mr. Hall handed out hard copies of his newsletter "to anyone I could see'' at a foundation luncheon last July for more than 100 high-tech corporate members. "I remember smiling, seeing him work the room and thinking, 'That guy has guts,' " Mr. Milov says.

Mr. Hall then approached the head table, gave the foundation CEO a copy of his newsletter and urged him to peruse his Web page. Mr. Milov visited the site that day, offered him consulting work three weeks later and in October promoted him to a full-time project manager. Mr. Hall was working there when a cyberfirm recruited him. He became chief operating officer at Threewide.com Inc., a Morgantown start-up that promotes Internet use by the real-estate industry.

MARTI ELLIOTT, 46, had a similar experience after the Sears, Roebuck & Co. training-strategy manager lost her job last August. Eager to relocate to Phoenix from Omaha, Neb., she applied online for an account-executive job listed on Monster.com by Interim Technology Consulting.

Ms. Elliott knew her resume could get lost among a flood of applicants, so she got busy networking. She asked an Interim Technology executive she knew from her Sears days whether "there was anyone I could follow up with at that location.'' She introduced Ms. Elliott to a Phoenix branch manager. A job interview followed. One job was filled internally but she was asked to consider another. She declined. By that time, she had used a business contact of her brother to land a job at Vital Processing Services, a Tempe, Ariz., company that processes credit-card transactions.

Ms. Elliot believes online listings merely represent "a tool to find out what kind of opportunities are there." To pursue job possibilities, she notes, "you still have to be able to get a contact name."

Yet you can use the Internet creatively to identify hiring managers and otherwise advance your quest for the perfect job. Mark Mehler, an "e-recruitment'' consultant in South Brunswick, N.J., suggests "flipping the site,'' that is, going through a virtual back door to find key decision makers at a company. That technique allows you not only to figure out who has your resume, but also to see the qualifications of those who have been hired and to get a better idea of the corporate culture.

Following Mr. Mehler's advice, I easily obtained a long list of leaders and star researchers at AT&T Labs -- along with their oversized color photos, biographies, phone extensions and even office room numbers. If job-hunters "are smart enough to figure out a way in [to the online directory] and they have a Ph.D., we probably want to talk to them,'' an AT&T Labs spokesman quips.

"There are easier ways to do that without being so sneaky," objects Estelle Cohen, a financial-management consultant in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif. Highly specialized Web sites have produced plenty of client leads for the 45-year-old former Herbalife Inc. executive.

Ms. Cohen landed two assignments by answering queries that the start-ups posted on garage.com, an Internet birthing center for entrepreneurs and investors. She obtained another client through her membership in Financial Executives' Network Group, an online user group. "There's no one technique for job hunting on the Net,'' she concludes.