It took 3.5 months of trial and error to get this point.  The following are the job hunting strategies I used that made a difference.

1) ditched all the mega sites, Career Builder, Monster etc.  Go Social
Responding to ads was taking too much time and not producing results. Instead I focused on Linked In and my network. Linked in, I've found going to the group job board seems to produce better results (being calls, inquiries and interviews) than the standard Linked In job board which is generic. Almost all calls I've gotten that were not personal intros came through Linked In, either group jobs or the search engine.

There are several excellent online business networking sites. LinkedIn is just one.  You also have Plax and Xing which are heavily used and these also have exclusive job postings.  I use Plaxo and Xing as well but due to time constraints, focus most of my energy on Linked In.

In the book Laid Off Now What, The Recession Edition I've included an extensive section on leveraging online career social networks effectively. I've also included a director of networks to help you find those best suited to your industry and objectives.

2) produce & distributed a webfolio 
Creating and distributing my webfolio made a huge difference. With two of the companies, I applied for sales positions. Generally these are easy for me to get, even though I prefer marketing. However, once employers saw what I could do, (in two cases there were unadvertised Director of Marketing positions these companies, based upon my skills decided I'd be a better fit in), I found myself ahead of the curve and eight days later,   one of these became my new job.

3) Reach out
Utilizing Facebook, Linked In and Xing plus my own database, articles and placements I began getting leads in from people at all levels. These included the college kid who serves coffee at my favorite cafe to people I went to high school with 20+ years ago. Don't discount the people you know who are in services industries. If you're a regular somewhere, people in the services industries have contact with all kinds of people and can be one of your best allies. They're usually just starting out in their careers so they make good sources of information and potential protégés as well.

Dating Sites and other sources
Ironically I was on one of the dating sites for a bit, Though I didn't find my future husband, my profile resulted in two interviews rather than dates. Lesson? You never know where you'll find your next lead. Everything is a potential wellspring of introductions. Apply this same idea to any associations, social clubs, online groups you belong to.  All are potential lead sources.

Phone Interviews:
This time around most employers I've spoken with are using phone interviews to qualify and disqualify. These come at all times of the day from early morning to as late as 8:30PM so watch the entertaining and alcohol consumption, even after business hours. If you're not good on the phone, find someone to coach you.  Practice speaking into a tape recorder. Your voice and how you handle yourself may very well be the first and only contact and impression you have with a new employer.  Use it wisely.

Maintain a hardcopy record of your letters
and contacted company dossiers with you.
Keeping good records, off the computer, is also necessary. Most of the calls I get are when I'm not online so I really have to do some fancy footwork to recall what position and company it is I'm speaking to. I now keep an index card of these in my car and in my purse along with two pens and a pencil...because it never fails my pens run out of ink just when I need to jot something down.

Overall it was the webfolio really that took my job search from the slow lane into express.  It did disqualify me for a couple of positions but I discovered it was being passed on to others because people were impressed with my work and even if they didn't have something, they knew of someone who did. Essentially, it became my own little sales team out there working for me. Targeted marketing at its finest.