By MARVIN WALBERG, Scripps Howard News Service

You've heard this many times in this column

"Job searching is selling --

YOU are the product, and

YOU are the salesperson!"

In tough times, sales managers have meetings and you often hear the following:

Make more sales calls -- make more presentations!

Work harder and longer!

Sell harder and close faster!

Offer incentives to buy now!

Duncan Mathison, executive career consultant and former vice president of Drake Beam Morin, and Martha I.

Procrastinate, according to Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, is "to put off intentionally and habitually the doing of something that should be done."

A recent New York Times front-page article reported that in July job seekers outnumbered available jobs 6-1 and that there were 2.4 million official job openings but 14.5 million people looking for work.

I enjoy Facebook.com. It's a very convenient way to stay in touch with my children who are in three states, and to share ideas, opinions, photos and news with friends. Because of Facebook, I have reconnected with college and high-school friends I haven't seen in many years. I also use Twitter from time to time, and I'm not sure how I would get along without e-mail.

For those of you who read this column regularly, I apologize for repeating some thoughts over and over again, but that's how many people learn.

A few weeks ago we were getting ready to drive my daughter back to college. As we were getting into the car, a neighbor passed by walking his dog.

This neighbor is a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and when he learned that my daughter was returning to college for her second year, he got excited.

I was having breakfast the other day, and staring me in the face was my wife's Woman's World magazine and the headline: "Get a great job -- even in this economy!"

How could I not pass this information on to you? Here goes ...

You're reading this column because you want to get hired, right? Of course right -- so listen up! Hiring authorities have spoken and they agree ... networking is the most valuable tool in the job seeker's arsenal.

The least effective process for finding a job: Job fairs.

In today's economy, one has to work so hard to land an interview that sometimes researching a company and preparing for an interview becomes secondary. It would be a shame to work hard to get an interview at an "A list" company, and then blow it by not preparing to sell yourself when you get there!