Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas polled more than 200 HR executives in August to learn what approaches to job-seeking prove most effective. Job fairs and newspaper classified ads ranked as least effective, while networking, social networking sites and were rated as most effective by a majority of respondents. 

Nearly half of those polled gave networking the highest effectiveness rating with such as , and garnering high marks from 47% of respondents.

Job fairs placed last with classified ads close behind, according to the outplacement firm that explained such resources are more geared toward potential employees new to the workforce.