No one said it was going to be easy. Even in the best of times, looking for a job can be one of the most discouraging, disheartening, depressing, and destabilizing experiences. "Keep your chin up" — that’s what everyone seems to be telling you, right? Easier said than done when you’ve just spent 120,000 bucks on an education, have mountains of student loans, have sent out 400 rŽsumŽs in the last two months (without hearing a word back), and wake up screaming from nightmares about being chased by that green beast from Monster.com. "Learn through suffering" seems more-apt advice.

Looking for a job is not a boatload of laughs, and we’re not trying to sugarcoat the process. Instead, we spoke with area career counselors, independent and university-based, both experienced and relative newcomers, and asked them for their best advice, their top tips not only on how to get a job, but how to survive the hunt. From recalling one’s childhood to advertising oneself on key chains, a range of techniques and strategies are around for finding employment. And according to these experts, above all you need to network, soul-search, and take care of yourself.

Phyllis R. Stein

Phyllis R. Stein Career Counseling, Cambridge, (617) 354-7948; 26 years’ experience

"Sit back and think about what you’re doing. You need to plan. You need to come up with a strategy. You need to understand all aspects of how to job hunt. If you’re looking for a 40-hour-a-week job, you should be spending 40 hours a week looking. If statistics say that 65 percent of people get jobs through networking, you want to try to allocate 65 percent of your time to networking.

"Be careful of the Net. It’s a wonderful tool, but it’s a trap. It’s so easy to spend 25 hours a week on Monster.com and not come up with a single response. When you’re on the computer all day, it feels like you’re in an active job search, but it isn’t as active as it should be.

"This is a long, lonely process. You’re going to feel alternately elated and depressed. The people who get jobs are the people who keep going in the face of rejection. Set up a support system, a friend, a neighbor, a job-hunters group, a person or group to encourage you. One-Stop Career Centers [www.detma.org/workers/centers/careercenters.htm] are great resources.

"Exercise. I make sure that all my clients are paying attention to their health. You don’t want to sit around eating Oreos all day."

Ken Mattsson

Career consultant, Organization and Employee Development at MIT, Cambridge, (617) 452-3055; seven years’ experience

"Differentiate yourself. So many people are looking for positions, especially in the high-tech world, [that] you need to be able to figure out within your skill set how to get noticed within your career-search activities. Ask yourself what you have that others don’t, what skills, what experience will bring you notice.

"So many people wait for things to pop up as opposed to taking a proactive approach. Target particular companies. Figure out what companies you’re interested in and do the research on them. If you can demonstrate an interest, it’ll set you apart. And people need to know what gets them pumped, what gets them jazzed, excited, what they’re passionate about. Companies can tell when someone’s not only done the homework, but is passionate about the position. It’s all about getting noticed."

Alice Jacobs

Career Resource, Newton, (617) 244-1362; 15 years’ experience

"What I’ve found is that the people who get jobs are very focused on exactly what they want, they’re spending 20 to 30 hours per week looking, and they’re thinking outside the box to get connected to people. I haven’t seen this type of market in 10 years. It can take up to 12 months to get a job. It’s important to have someone on your team, someone that will help keep you from getting down. Be as focused as you can, and bounce things off an objective source. And you can’t overtax your networking connections: there’s always someone who knows someone who knows someone."

Jonathan Leite

Associate director of Career Services, Northeastern University, (617) 373-2309; five years’ experience

"The best way to market yourself is to come up with something fun and inventive that makes you unique, like putting advertising on objects, like key chains or milk cartons, something that brings you a distinctive identity.

"We try to emphasize to the students that they should be very clear about their skill sets, and we try to teach them how to go about matching their assets to the job, how to assess what makes them different from the other 10 applicants. It requires a lot of work to think about yourself, to figure out what makes you different, and what you bring to the table.

"With a market this bad, networking is key. When there aren’t as many jobs, networking is critical to success. You want to know when a job becomes available before anyone else, so you’ve got a head start, so you can call and say, ‘I’m ready for this.’ "

Rita Skiba

Wisdom Within Coaching, North Andover; (978) 683-0027; one year’s experience

"Everyone is searching right now. Because of the economy, because of September 11, because of scandals in the church, in business, everyone’s searching. Career affects so many aspects of a person’s life, I suggest that people take a holistic, integrated approach.

"The first thing you need to do to begin a job search is gain clarity and focus about what you want. People get stuck thinking that there aren’t other options. It’s difficult for folks to keep in mind that there are many ways to make a living.

"The internal searching is crucial. We all have the answers inside, we’re born with them. We have our own intuitive guide. I work with folks to get them to open up to that idea. I can’t tell people what to do — everyone is an expert on themselves.

"I use assessments to help people figure out where their skills, interests, and confidences lie. And I recommend some creative exercises as well: look back on your family’s work history, to your parents and grandparents. What’s the career lineage? How have you integrated that into your life? Try revisiting dreams and wishes of childhood. As we grow up, we lose ourselves because of social conditioning. By looking back to a time before responsibilities and expectations, it’s possible to get at desires you might have lost sight of. Ask yourself the old question, if money wasn’t an issue, what would you do? Ask yourself how you want to be remembered, how you want to leave your mark. What do you want people to say at your funeral?

"And it’s important to define success for yourself. How do you want to live in this lifetime?"

Bill Wright-Swadel

Director of Career Services, Harvard University, (617) 495-2595; 30 years’ experience

"The wisest starting place is an internal look and an external look. When the market is difficult, the inclination is to become more open, more flexible. But the opposite is true. It’s the person who feels most focused that looks best to an employer. Right now, open means having a clear idea of a few things that will be good for you and good for employers. Figure out who you want as your next employer, and be as close as you can to fit their needs. It’s impossible for an employer to assess where you fit in if you haven’t done so first.

"You’re most likely to speak confidently and powerfully about the things you’re interested in. We feel best where our own strengths and interests are. Be focused with what you want, but flexible to your skills. For example, consulting is a difficult industry to get into right now. So you ask yourself, ‘How can I take the same skills I would need in consulting and market them to a new environment?’

"Don’t scramble to be everything to everyone."

Jane McHale

Jane McHale Career Services, Boston, (617) 787-0087; 17 years’ experience

"Know what you want, where you’re going, and what role you want to play. When it comes to careers, it’s not one-size-fits-all. People follow trends without looking at what their true interests are.

"Things change so quickly now. Know the trends, keep on top of technology. And know how changes in your industry affect you and your goals.

"Build and maintain a network within your field. Networking is still the most frequent way people get jobs. Combing through Monster.com every day is not going to get you a job.

"Have a plan. Have a plan and have two back-up plans.

"The years between [ages] 18 and 30 are an experimental time professionally. It’s a time to try a number of options, to learn about yourself. Go after your dreams even if society says don’t. Stay with your goals."

Cath Amory

Associate director, Adult and Alumni Team of the Department of Career Services, Northeastern University, (617) 373-4255; four years’ experience

"The best advice I can give for getting a job: have courage, fortitude, and a way of taking care of yourself. And of course, the most successful people are networking their fannies off and working as many angles as they can. I see that as seed planting, as opposed to seed harvesting. When you’re looking for a job, you need to be self-reliant. You market yourself. And jobs don’t jump to you. It’s a brutal marketplace, and you have to do things to keep from getting depressed.

"The most frustrating part of the job search is not getting feedback. Make sure you have something you can count on to restore yourself when you’re feeling crappy. When people are looking for jobs, they feel like they can’t allow themselves things that bring them pleasure. But if you deprive yourself of those things, you’ll sink. You need to have enough energy to be able to write a fresh cover letter, be able to summon the ability not to feel lateralized from the world.

"People do best who can tolerate ambiguity. Demons arise when you feel you’re not in control of your own situation. You have to be able to see yourself in a positive light when the world isn’t doing that for you. Hold on to the knowledge that things work out."

Nina MacLaughlin can be reached at nmaclaughlin[a]phx.com