3 Tips to Refresh an Out-Of-Date Rolodex and Network by Sundown

1. Deploy a six-degrees of separation search

2. Tap online social media networks

3. Time travel

1. Deploy a six-degrees of separation search: contact your missing contact's mutual acquaintances and score current info; pick up the phone and call for a personal touch during your search. Bonus: you reconnect the old fashioned way with one additional person in your network—the intermediary contact. And you may just get lucky if they have either the missing person’s info on their Blackberry or have another person they suggest introducing you to for a job they just heard about that has your name on it. Don’t be shy about reaching out to people you’ve lost contact with; nine times out of ten, it’s rejuvenating to reconnect with old friends and colleagues, especially when you’ve been isolated, haven’t left your home or changed out of your pajamas for days, and have been glued to and paralyzed by reports of gloomy unemployment news. Break the isolation.

2. Tap online social media networks: tune in to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google to quickly find lost contacts. Join online community discussions on cutting-edge job search tips at sites like WomenForHire.com. Sign up for e-alerts about live professional networking and professional events using sites like BernardosList.com. Don’t have a clue how to navigate the brave new world of Web 2.0? Ask your teenaged kid or college-student niece or next-door-neighbor to give you a tutorial; you’ll be a whiz in no time.

3. Time travel: contact your undergraduate or B-school, or advanced degree alumni office and you may score current contact information in under seven minutes. Respond to requests from your Alma mater’s alumni association to update your own contact information and professional bio. Contribute updates to the association’s print and online publications. Stay visible to former classmates.

Let folks know what you're up to and they may surprise you with a blast from the past phone call or e-mail, just when you were wondering how to find them.