When you’re looking for a new job, it’s never enough to simply check newspapers and other publications—the local paper is no longer the best place to look, and many positions are filled without even being advertised, so it’s important to develop alternative methods of generating leads.

1. Networking

This might just be one of the most effective ways to find out what jobs are available in your field. Networking means making contact with family, friends and neighbors as well as work colleagues and associates. The more people who know you’re looking for a job, the better. This is such an important point that it’s good to create these kinds of contacts even if you’re not looking for a job—the contacts you make may benefit you in the future.

2. Professional and College Organizations

Most professions have organizations with web sites or publications that include job postings. Annual conferences can be great places to network and make professional contacts, too. If you have a degree, joining your college’s career or alumni association can be equally effective.

3. Cold Calling

Cold calling—and even “cold emailing” can still be an effective way of hunting down those “hidden” jobs that don’t get advertised. It’s often fairly time-consuming, however, since it involves creating a list of employers, researching each one (including the name of the hiring manager), and sending a cover letter and resume to the hiring manager for the relevant position.

4. Career Fairs

Job and career fairs are held fairly regularly, and many companies send one or two employees to these fairs to network and recruit the best candidates. Attending career fairs requires extensive preparation, since you’ll need to find out what companies will be sending people, research those companies, and then create strategies for actually getting to talk to their representatives. These are usually very crowded events, so you really want to make sure that they remember you, too.

5. Online Job Listings

Online job sites can be a great resource if you use them effectively and selectively - however, the larger sites are not always the best. In fact, a study carried out by iLogos Research suggests that many Fortune 500 companies tend to publish job ads on corporate careers sites rather than the larger job boards and many companies in the health care sector, as well as IT and other industries tend to use corporate sites too.