When was the last time you have been intimidated or abused by so called recruiting agents? If they treated you like a commodity rather than a unique human being could you do better than them? After all you know the product intimately well.

Welcome to the real world. Finding work is entering into a relationship where you trade your time and knowledge for cash. If someone is going to take a cut along the way and do a lousy job at it - fire them!

What is a recruitment agency after all and what prevents from doing for yourself what they are supposed to do? Agencies claim to companies they have a database of experts at the ready who can jump into a role with no training and no induction. You feel at a disadvantage because your database has only one person on it - you!

But wait a minute. Since you are a talented, versatile, articulate, knowledgeable, fast-learning professional that could count for as many aliases of yourself.

Another thing agencies do is to unearth job vacancies before they get advertised. Sometimes they even advertise vague roles on their books and you wonder whether there was really a role there in the first place. It is like the case of the real-estate agent with pretty photos of properties that are not really for sale. They are there just for the sake of not having an empty window...

Ever heard of LinkedIn? Can you be recommended by former work colleagues? Another drawback with agencies is their blind date approach to matching candidates. You have to tell everything about yourself first only to find out the job is with a company you don't really want to hear about.

Just like a sales professional you are only as good as your network of connections. Luckily it is not a static thing and you need to swap business cards where ever you go. When is the last time you went to a trade show in your industry? Have you heard of BNI, Toastmasters, Rotary, etc... don't kid yourself. You won't find a job on facebook but you might re-kindle with an old acquaintance.

The idea of maintaining your network of connected people will be a glaring need when you are looking for a job but that's something you should be doing year around.

The irony is that you might be able to find a job for someone else before the compliment is being returned!

Yes job hunting is a full-time job, but don't despair. Why not use an online tool like Resume Digest to do it like a professional?

Employers are after self-motivated people with drive. The type of person who can permeate the workplace with a healthy, positive attitude. Someone who sees every obstacle as a challenge to overcome, every problem as an opportunity to solve.

The only way you can have those attributes over a sustained period of time is by having some fire in your belly, something to live for, some passion to share...

Those people will be very charismatic during an interview but may non-the-less be screened out because of an average resume.

How do you translate the passion on paper? Step outside the box. When everybody else presents themselves as the sum total of their past work assignments, the champion tells a compelling story.

Instead of listing dates, places and mundane achievements, sell yourself as being the problem solver that you are.

Bear in mind that this is not for every run-of-the-mill type company. An average boss will feel threatened by hiring someone too bright who might take his job soon after...

Again a recession might just be the ticket to force an average company to put all hands on deck and score a marketing coup ahead of their competitors. That level of desperation might just be the climate you need to enter to make your mark. The challenge is to figure out who to talk to. The company might not be hiring right now... in fact they might just be doing the opposite trying to be more lean and mean. Only by reaching to the top can you get the audience that resonates with your message.

Your approach will be more like a partner than an employee. But if you come with ideas and no equity, they might just create a new position for you. Remember that a large number of positions filled never get advertised. Companies would rather procure a candidate through the grapevine rather than being, by a deluge of applicants. If you have never been a salesperson before, this is the one time in your life where you do have to sell your skills in the market place.

Taking rejection can easily be handled this way. Say your monthly salary will be $5,000 and it might take you to knock on 100 doors to get the role you want. Say to yourself each time someone turns you down: "I just made $50!" You might hope to bump into the person you will hire you first and forget about the other 99. But if it turns out to be the other way around you will have enough motivation to last the ordeal.

Hopefully whether you are apt or not! In a world where we are racing to do more with less, aptitude tests have become the recipe for personnel appraisal. Even if you are not currently job hunting, you may be faced with some online tests of some sort to check your OH&S knowledge or to indoctrinate you as to make sure your mindset is politically correct.

Obviously there are two sides to a coin and since aptitude tests are here to stay it appears there are benefits to both the candidate and the recruiter.

People may appear to have everything going for them but collapse when put under stress. Some have no shame in fudging their resume. It gets so bad that you can't take anything at face value from strangers. Every claim has to be substantiated. In recruitment you are deemed a liar until proved truthful. That's the level of trust in the 21st century. Compare that with 200 years ago when a real-estate transaction was done on the value of a handshake before witnesses!

Aptitude tests when well designed should be a reliable yardstick to rate objectively as many candidates as possible competing for the same position.

Candidates need to practise for this new environment as time-limited online tests can be daunting - remember the outcome being considered for the job or screened out.

Suddenly people computer skills improve dramatically because of what is at stake. People will soon walk around with a T-shirt displaying their IQ. Discrimination is never far away. There are already schools where people cram for all sorts of tests trying to fill-up their head with all the right answers.

What about taking a test where there is no right or wrong answer? Personality profiling is a gray area as 50% of people retested within 9 months will return different results!

Aptitude Tests is an online service where you can sit for several types of tests. Better test yourself and identify your weaknesses before someone else does. Recruiters can also sponsor candidates and receive a tabular report rating each individual in relation to the whole group. Finally experts in a given field can write tests and derive an income for their effort.

Tests are not limited to multiple choice questions. Sound clips are useful for testing your understanding of a foreign language. Graphics are used for perception tests and for assessing your knowledge of art, geography or technical issues.

An online service means candidates can take the test at home and be called for an interview once a shortlist has been established. Companies can benefit from scores of tests designed by several experts.

The moment you hand over a brief of your employment history you are inviting people to fit you into a pigeonhole. The problem? You're not a pigeon.

Fear is an extremely powerful motivator in the recruitment process where prejudice abounds. Your mission? By-pass the process altogether and be remarkable.

This is your choice: go for compliance and be the best (cheapest?) disposable cog that will fit the corporate machine. The alternate is to let your reputation go ahead of you. Let three reliable references laud your past achievements and show how you saved the day in a sticky situation.

What about a cover letter addressing all the "must-have" spelt out in the job advertisement - not in the first person, but through your references.

Do you think those people will need a bit of help to sing your praises? Certainly. Just like you draft a contract for someone else to sign, your references will receive from you a document to put their name to. That will be no other than the minutes of a prior telephone conversation where you reviewed with them how your past accomplishments would be the perfect launch into the new position you are contemplating...

The purpose of the exercise is not to get you the job or negotiate your remuneration. Your assignment? Get yourself in front of the decision makers for an interview.

Because you are one of a kind you should not let yourself be railroaded into a straightjacket type position. If people appreciate your skills and your background they will create a new position for you.

You no longer play the recruitment game where people add up your compliance score. In the first instance what people say about you has more weight than what you might say about yourself - especially if those people are some authority figures your prospective employer knows about.

All you have to do when you turn up for the interview is to confirm those positive vibes by giving evidence after evidence that all that was said about you is indeed true.

If you are passionate about your work, if you have fire in your belly, if you bring new insight as to how you might help them reach their corporate goals - then it will shine through and they will love you to bits.

What if a member of the panel will be one of your peers and becomes jealous? You have to sell yourself to both the boss and the subordinate. They both have different things at stake and different agendas. Sometimes people are afraid of hiring someone too smart because they fear you might take them over.

Your tactic is to demonstrate how a successful person creates a draft for the whole organisation where new opportunities are being created left, right and centre.

Like the flu, enthusiasm is catching. Who said work had to be boring?

Do you go to work in order to survive and pay off the bills or because you are fulfilled in your vocation? For many, job satisfaction has gone out the window but there is a sense where you get the job that you deserve. Let me explain.

As labour inevitably becomes a commodity you have two choices: you can become a bureaucrat who enforces the rules or you can be an artist who is creative at solving problems.

There is enormous pressure from the corporate mindset to avoid risks and tow the party line. The rule book has been refined to perfection and you have heard it said: "We have always done it like this before. Our methods have served us well all this time. Don't try to fix something that's not broken..."

An artist on the other hand doesn't mind rocking the boat for a good outcome. It is someone who believes in what they do and find satisfaction and fulfilment by going the extra mile. They like not just to do their work but to do it well and in an elegant way. They are experts at problem solving - the sort of problems that the rule book never thought of... They are the guys who don't mind breaking a few eggs to make an omelette. If everybody else has become a cog they are the ones who know where lubrication is badly needed.

If you are the boss of an artist in your organisation you can become jealous or you can see the benefit of a subordinate that makes your department look good.

Artists are those who can see over the business horizon and are prepared to try several things just in case one idea might work.

Bureaucrats will enforce the status-quo and spread rumours to stifle any creative attempt at making the corporate machine more adaptable in its environment. They have zero imagination, cannot handle risk but can only repeat what they have been trained to do all along.

In a start-up everybody is an artist. In a large conglomerate the majority are bureaucrats obeying the rules while a handful of artists are kept out of sight for their own protection. They come up with solutions that only someone on the shop floor with a different mindset could dream of.

If deep down you know that you are the artist-type you will have a hard time during the recruitment process. People will love to hear of your achievements but they will screen out anybody who doesn't fit the corporate mould.