Are you stuck in a rut and anxious to leave a job you used to like?

Perhaps after receiving several promotions, you're spinning your wheels in a role where there's little room for further advancement. Maybe your company's corporate culture has taken a turn for the worse, or a new manager is placing unrealistic demands on you. Feeling unchallenged, underappreciated, and overextended are just a few of the many reasons people become disillusioned with once-appealing jobs.

The problem in a tough economy is that it can be extremely challenging -- and time consuming -- to secure a new position that fits your career goals. With countless other professionals looking for employment today, you may discover you need to remain with your current employer until conditions improve. If this is the case, use the following strategies to make the most of a bad situation:

If you start asking yourself this question, this is not a good sign at all – there is something to think about. However, there is no reason for totally freaking out. You are not the only one: thousands of job seekers are getting increasingly frustrated, because they keep searching, but cannot find a job they want. It might be even worse, if you are currently unemployed or looking forward to running away from your present working place that you hate from the deep of your heart.

Let’s see what could be the reasons for your job hunt taking so long:

Variant 1: No Interviews.

If this is the case, you really need to review (and consequently rewrite) your resume and cover letter. Those, basically, are specially designed for getting you invitations for interviews; your resume and cover letter should be selling you to the potential employer, convincing them that they will never find anybody better than you to fill the vacant position. If you are not getting interviews, your curriculum vitae and cover letter are not good enough and need to be redone in a proper way.

You might also want to review your references – are they positive, encouraging the human resources representatives to contact you directly and make an appointment? Or are they cutting off your potential communication with the head hunters?

Another reason why you are not invited for a face to face talk with prospective employers could be that you are applying for wrong positions. Is it that you are trying to get a job position that you have just no chance of getting? Think about that. Be more realistic and do not waste your time.

The last thing in the world you want to happen is your current boss getting to know that you are searching for a new job. Employers normally do support career development, but only within their own company. Here are some useful tips of how to avoid the awkward situation when you have to explain why you are going for job interviews and, basically, considering a job change.

Never involve company facilities usage into your job search.

This includes phone line, Internet, fax, and computer. Many employers monitor Internet usage and check phone logs. It is also not secure to store your resume and cover letter, job applications, references from former employers and correspondence with potential ones, - somebody can just come across with them accidentally and, believe me, will get very suspicious.

Never use your business email address for this purpose.

You might think that it looks more professional, when the email address on your resume contains the name of your company, but you are not quite right. First, you destroy the idea of confidential job search, letting everybody know who you are. Second, in many companies business email address usage is prohibited for personal purposes, and your employer might be reviewing the external email traffic, and might quite easily discover that you are job hunting. You should rather use a personal email account or set up a free of charge mailbox at gmail.com, for example.