If you're not doing it now, at some point, you're going to have to go job-hunting.

Most people have to engage in job-hunting between eight to ten times in their lives (with an occasional career change tossed into the mix for good measure). Think about that for a moment. Somewhere out there, waiting for us, is yet another job-hunt -- and that being the case, don't you think that it makes sense to learn some of the secrets of successful job-hunting?

"Hey, I don't need this," you might be saying. "I'm fine where I am."

I used to think the same thing -- until the day that my company downsized me out of a job.

That's when I decided that I had to learn the secrets of successful job-hunting.

Since I'm the kind of person who likes to find out exactly what makes one person successful and another person not successful, I decided that I had to learn what made someone good at successful job-hunting.

The first thing that I learned is that some people are good job-hunters. It's not a skill that they learned or a school they attended. It's just something that came naturally to them. That being said, they had four areas where they excelled:

1. self-assessment
2. detective work
3. communication work
4. salesmanship

This means that they were able to look at themselves clearly and know their weaknesses and their strengths. Until you're able to look at yourself squarely, you'll have problems with successful job-hunting.

They then did detective work on the companies that they wanted to work for, looking for companies which provided the best match. That way, when they went for job interviews, they were already one step ahead of the game in that they went to companies that they knew would most compliment their strengths.

Of course, another area of successful job-hunting deals with strong communication. You'll need to both state your abilities and understand the abilities the company you're applying for is seeking. Remember that one of the most important skills a successful job-hunter has is a strong grasp of communication.

Lastly, you'll need to be a good salesman. You'll need to be able to walk into an office and make the person interviewing you do whatever it takes to sign you on the spot.

Another secret to successful job-hunting that I learned was that the best job-hunters are the ones who are willing to adapt to things like the economy.

When times are good, you can take a more relaxed approach to job-hunting -- sending out resumes, answering ads, going to agencies. But when times are tough and jobs are more scarce, the ones who are most successful at job-hunting take the initiative to go further than others. They investigate the company to find out as much information as possible and they tailor themselves accordingly. For example, if a person is applying to a company that has a strong involvement with the arts, a successful job-hunter might well say something like, "I notice that your organization is a strong supporter of live theatre. I've worked with some of the local college dramatic departments on advertising and I really enjoyed doing that." This simple tactic establishes that you know a bit about the company and that you'd also like to lend your talents to assist the company in certain areas.

Lastly, one secret of successful job-hunting is to go down any avenue that interests you. In addition to checking the classifieds and online listings, you should consider going to any company interests you and introducing yourself. This way, you might actually luck into a position that's about to open which hasn't been posted yet -- or if a position comes available in the future, you'll have left contact information for the company to reach you.

Keep in mind that the most successful job-hunting techniques require effort on your part -- and the more effort you put in, the more successful you'll be.

Scott Brown is the author of the Job Search Handbook (http://www.JobSearchHandbook.com). As editor of the HireSites.com weekly newsletter on job searching, Scott has written many articles on the subject. He wrote the Job Search Handbook to provide job seekers with a complete yet easy to use guide to finding a job effectively.