Job seekers may be very surprised to learn that human resources pros and recruiters attend conferences to talk about “the war for talent.”

Ironically, when so many people are looking for work, many hiring managers still have a difficult time connecting with the right candidates. They pay consulting firms a lot of money to teach them how their organizations can use Facebook to connect with potential applicants, and they hope Google+ is the next great social network to tap for professional information about new hires.

[See How Your Google Profile Can Help Recruiters Find You.]

In the meantime, the average job seeker continues to plug away, applying for position after position, with little to no success in many cases. Jackie Bassett, the CEO of BT Industrials, Inc., works with the CEOs of a variety of global companies that are in growth mode. She acknowledges, “They all tell me their number-one constraint to growth is finding the right talent.” While many lost jobs are not coming back, “brand new needs have appeared that have yet to be met. The opportunity to fill any of those needs is everywhere. They just won’t be found where we used to go to look for them.”

Bassett collaborates with CEOs and with Joel Abraham, a talent manager at EMM Holdings and the author of Hired: Networking to Land the Job You Want, to help get the word out that all job seekers—from new college graduates to executives seeking jobs earning six figures—can get hired, even in today’s economy.

She explains, “CEOs, CFOs and community leaders everywhere aren’t waiting for Congress to find you a job. They are taking action now in many innovative ways. They know there are jobs out there. They know how they got where they are today. They got themselves hired and went on to create jobs...