When I was in my twenties living in Manhattan, I had a friend named Donna who was desperately looking for a boyfriend. She’d complain constantly about not being able to find a guy even though the city was dripping with available bachelors.

I had little sympathy for Donna because she did little to find a date. She rarely went out with us to bars, or parties, and she wasn’t big on reaching out and introducing herself to strangers.

One day I was so frustrated with her constant whining that I said, “what are you waiting for, the pizza guy to sweep you off your feet?”

Needless to say our friendship didn’t last, but it’s a great lesson not just for date seekers, but for job seekers as well.

You can’t get a job unless you put yourself out there people. Seriously. Research actually supports this.

CareerXroads, a recruiting and staffing company, conducted a poll of how employers found new hires in 2009, and it turns out they didn’t find them hiding at home.

The survey found that 27.7 percent of external hires came from referrals and 22.3 percent came from people applying for jobs directly via a company’s website.

Folks, more than 50 percent of all the external hires at firms came because a job applicant got off their butts and got someone to refer them for a job, or went right to the source, the employer.

“The likelihood that an application submitted by someone who was referred will at least be ‘considered’ is too high for any candidate to ignore,” the study’s authors stressed. “Job seekers will never get better odd.”

The key is initiating contact and finding people who can refer you, advised Debra Feldman, a job-hunting expert who helps executives find jobs and goes by the name JobWhiz.

Feldman offered four ways to get started:

1) Identify target employers. She suggested choosing between five and 10 companies you want to work for and doing research on them. Figure out how they’re doing financially; if they’re hiring; where their growth business is, etc.

2) Find and connect with individuals with inside contacts at target employers (employees, consultants, vendors, former employees, customers, etc.) Figure out who the key hiring managers are by asking friends, former employees, and checking out your own networks, including sites such as LinkedIn. You can also ask vendors who do business with these firms, or even your local banker. If it’s a local company someone at a bank might know someone in a key position at a local company.

3) Develop and deliver a message demonstrating a unique ability to address challenges and provide relevant solutions. Come up with a message about yourself that you can say over the phone or in a brief email. She suggested getting rid of the “I’m a super duper sales person” line, for example, and providing details on something great you did, such as, “you may think it’s impossible to take business away from Coke. Well, when I worked at Pepsi I did it.”

4) Follow up, again, until you connect and then stay in touch because organizations change and once you have a contact, your network is like career insurance. Call or email about three to four days after you made the initial contact and make sure they received your email, or letter. Then wait another week to ten days and call saying, “would you be interesting in talking? When is a good time to have a brief conversation at your convenience.” And, she stressed, if they person suggests a time do everything you can to make it there, even if you have a prior commitment.

So come on guys. Time to stop waiting for the pizza guy and go out there and ask for a date, I mean job.