If you're in a hurry--and most job-hunters are--you'll make the best time if you do things in exactly this order:

1. Make sure your telephone is always answered. Get a telephone answering machine, use an answering service, or subscribe to an electronic voice mailbox. Some voice mail services give you a new phone number which you can use on letters and resumes as your "office" number, if you're unemployed. Put a businesslike message on your recorder or voice. If you're based at home, you might want to add a second line for business calls. If your home office line doubles as a FAX line, indicate that on your stationery and correspondence. And if you're on the Internet, include your e-mail address on your resumes and letterhead.
2. Get letterhead, envelopes, and business cards printed on white or off-white paper. No "parchment." Five hundred of each should be plenty. Use an executive-looking type style, like a lawyer might have--nothing fancy, and no large computer fonts.
3. Get set up with a secretarial service, or with your own word processor. Don't try to type correspondence on your dad's old Underwood, unless that's your only choice. Don't do your own letters, unless you're a good typist. Even then, make only six to twelve originals. (Don't force your spouse to type for you, either, unless he or she really loves the idea.)
4. Send a thank-you letter after every marketing contact, social occasion, telephone call, and personal visit--no matter how insignificant. Job-hunting is a public relations campaign, and you're trying to build good will.
5. Once calls start coming in, keep meticulous records to be certain nothing falls through the cracks. Review your records every few days to be sure you haven't missed anything.
6. Spend as much time as you can talking on the phone or visiting with others. Letters are useful, but it's not wise to try to conduct an entire job-search through the mail. Real opportunities come in face-to-face meetings, because as theologian Martin Buber said, "All real living is meeting."