The Six-Figure-Job Hunt

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Get professional help. One frequent blunder even million-dollar-job seekers commit is deciding to write and edit their résumés without expert input. "Your labor is the most valuable thing you're going to sell," says Cenedella. "Would you have an amateur copywriter write copy for the most valuable product you have? Then why would you write your résumé yourself?" Those seeking solid counseling on the résumé front can get it through the Professional Association of Résumé Writers & Career Coaches or sites like ResumeWriters.com where a résumé overhaul starts at $200.

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As for cover letters, they're shrinking along with the job market. While some career counselors still advocate a traditional four-paragraph letter, many now favor a pithy one-paragraph e-mail.

Network digitally. For help in landing a job, the unemployed are digging ever deeper into their address books, not to mention their favor banks. And they're not just dialing up old friends and recruiters. They're also digitizing their Rolodexes. LinkedIn, a professional-networking site whose members' average household income is $110,000, has 32 million members. A new member signs up every second; a million join every two weeks. The site, which has new job-search functions in the works, already lets employment seekers figure out what connections they have to people who work at companies that are hiring. Premium, paid features boost the number of listings that searches yield and enable users to contact those outside their social network. At least one executive from every FORTUNE 500 company is now on the site--and Oracle's new CFO landed his post through his LinkedIn profile.

Be flexible. Some investment bankers are switching into financial planning or selling insurance. "When those looking for high-end jobs are struggling, they become amazingly tolerant," says Douglas Klein, president of Sirota Survey Intelligence, a New York City--based research firm. "They'll take work for which they're underpaid and overqualified." For some, that flexibility means a willingness to accept a transitional position below the salary they're accustomed to--what's often called a survival or fallback job. Legendary investor Warren Buffett has said he would never take a job he wouldn't want to keep. And he stayed true to that, even before he was wealthy. We don't live long enough, the argument goes, to waste time doing something we don't love. Few people, however, make even a small fraction of a small fraction of what Buffett does. And for those desperate for a paycheck, sometimes any clock to punch will do.

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