Recently I worked with a client who had lost her job and was having difficulty finding a new one. While she often made it to second interviews, she was not the chosen one.

In the April 19 edition of the Portland Sunday Telegram, Ann Kim wrote a useful article about social networking and how it's being used by today's job seekers.

She interviewed me wanting to know if my clients utilized Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn as part of their job search strategy.

Perhaps it's because the majority of my clients are over 45, and are not the largest users of social networking, but I had to honestly say "not many".

I'm home with my feet up after standing all day and talking non-stop at the MaineJobs.com job fair. Amy and I were pleased to provide a community service by offering resume consultations and a seminar on how to stand out in the job market.

Even though I can't capture the interesting and provocative Q&A's from the seminar participants, I can pass on the tips I outlined during the sessions.

A journalist for the Associated Press, who was writing an article on the topic of refining your skills when you're unemployed, interviewed me today.

Apparently, she was inspired to write the article after reading the statistic that over 14% of Americans are underemployed. I guess she was wondering about the possible link between being underemployed and one's skills being rusty.

In the past 6 weeks, several of my clients have landed full-time jobs--and very good ones at that.

While their fields, backgrounds and areas of expertise were distinctly different from one another, (e.g. training, marketing & communications, engineering, human resources) their process for finding and eventually securing a job, was quite similar. As I thought about what contributed to each person's success, I concluded that there were several factors that the job seekers shared in common.

Here's a list of their winning strategies:

If you've been in the job market in the past few years, you're aware that some of the standard ways to find a job have shifted dramatically as online searches surpassed classified ads in popularity and use.

Given the fact that only 25% of new hires (and fewer women than men) attempt to negotiate the terms of an employment offer, consider this...

Trying to find a job from a distance may not be easy, but if you incorporate these tips in your efforts, you're more likely to have success. 1. Know the type of job you want and the specific ways you are qualified.

It's a story I hear over and over again: job applicants left in the lurch by prospective employers. This situation happens without regard to specific positions, compensation or status in the organization.