I have made a bit of.a hobby of leveraging my professional and personal network to help peers, family, friends, and acquaintences find work by taking job listings they are looking at and seeing if I know someone within the company (or group within the company) that you're applying to work at. A few times I've gotten a resume directly to a hiring manager, sometimes I'm one or two people removed.

I still recomend applying through standard means so your resume is in the system should said company be interested but it has proven to fasttrack the process when it works.

Happy to help where I can - bkdelong@pobox.com