(FORTUNE Magazine) – Faced with a stagnant job scene, unemployed managers, career changers, and freshly minted college graduates are finding new ways to hunt for work. Big corporations still look good to many, who flood human resources departments with resumes. IBM gets about one million a year. (See chart for other examples.) But few experts expect any mass hiring by big outfits even though the economy seems to be recovering, and small companies are not picking up the slack as they used to -- indeed, in the first three months of 1992 they let go more people than they hired. Clearly, job hunters need an edge. Here are techniques that some -- like the newly graduated MBAs shown above -- are using to beat the odds.

The University of Southern California's school of business has a just-in-time supply system to help its graduates find jobs. Like other B-schools, USC's gets calls for specific openings from small companies as well as the likes of Avery Dennison, Mattel, Unilever, and UAL's United Airlines. Charlene Andres, assistant director of MBA career services, responds within three days with an appropriate candidate. This beats using a bulletin board. To keep customers happy, she even offers part-time workers. Graduates who got jobs through this system include Hye Pin Im, 25, a business analyst (above, left), and Anne Morrison, 27, a sales strategist. Both women work 20 hours a week at a Toshiba subsidiary in Irvine, California. While the company gets to check them out, the women have the opportunity to look for full-time employment, at Toshiba or elsewhere. Says Im, who has broadened her sights a bit since starting work in January: ''I'm now a little more open to opportunities that I would not have looked at before. But I've come this far and put in $21,000 for my MBA, and this job is a safe way to explore my options.''