If you find yourself saying, as you finish a meeting about career stuff over coffee with a friend or contact, "Keep me in mind", you've just wasted their time AND yours.

Why is that? First and foremost, they won't remember. This is not reluctance on their part; it's simply because people are way too busy with their own lives today to take on your search in that way.

More importantly, when you say "Keep me in mind", what you're really saying is "Keep me in mind if you hear of any openings". In other words, you really just had a meeting about job leads -- not about them, not about gaining more contacts, but about jobs.

Yes, you're in job search, but it's those precious contacts who will tell you of "hidden" openings IF you spend your time with them right. Meaning, spending your time with them to learn about them, how they got where they are, mentioning some of your successes, and about a culture where you would thrive. They'll become part of your network that way, Instead of feeling that you're seeing them just about jobs. Making the connection about them while giving examples of how credible you are, means they become your sales force.

Saying "Keep me in mind" puts the onus of your next contact with this person onto them -- when it should be with you, where it belongs. Don't give that new contact homework; do it yourself. So develop a system that reminds YOU it's been a few weeks since you were in touch, then YOU be in touch.

Another plus of this approach: Staying in control of your own search this way makes you feel more "up" about your activities because it's much more effective.

So be sure to make each contact with the person about their AND your successes and your relationship with them -- not about jobs. If done consistently this approach builds credibility. And that means you'll see an amazing thing happen: you'll hear about more openings than if you chase after job leads!

If you're in a job and don't want to alert your current employer/fellow employees to your job search, be sure to turn OFF your "broadcast any updates of my profile to my contacts", in the Settings section of LinkedIn.

The default is "on", so you need to undo this to turn it off. This way, they won't see announcements of all those new contacts you're making, and all the changes to your profile.

You can always turn that setting back on again later in your search or once you've landed your new position.

And for those of you between positions, it's a good idea to turn it off until you've made your major and multiple profile changes, so that your network doesn't get an update for each and every change, which can be annoying if it's several times a day several days in a row.

Joanne Meehl is making available materials that will give you some coaching, right off the page! The Ignite Your Job Search Store is open! Click the link below. Want to know how to create a target list of employers? There's now a guide for that. Are you a college senior looking for a road map to a great job when you graduate? There's a guide for that, too. All at minimal prices, with a secure connection when you use a credit card to purchase.

You can even get live coaching time with Joanne here (at introductory rates that will more than pay you back when you use what you learn!).

Use your smartphone to get to the Ignite store, or when getting other downloads from the site, or to see Joanne's blog: just snap the QR code above with your smart phone to get right there.