Ok for the people out there actively looking who maybe come from a niche sector I feel sometimes its best to approach companies direct.
To do this what you need to think about is geographically how far are you prepared to travel to work. After you have given this some thought I would look to find companies within your radius that would be suitable.
Once you have drawn up a list of companies you need to think about how you are going to approach the companies. You could just email your CV to them all however there's a chance it will not reach the decision maker.
What I would do is find out who the person for each company is that would be best suited to contact. HR Director, Managing Director, Marketing Director, Sales Director etc depending on your experience and background.
There are different ways of finding out who the contacts are. Run a search on Linkedin for example, Look on their website, search on Google using "" so for example "Company A" "Managing Director" or if you get really stuck search for the company on
http://companycheck.co.uk/ then under directors you will see the Directors.
Now you can also find their email addresses using similar tactics on google searching via their website domain and there name. For example "@company.co.uk" "joe blogs" this can come up with there email address too if not call the company and obtain their email address. You can be honest and say your looking for a role and wanted to email over some details with a CV. If you get stopped hear you could always call back later that day pretending to be a client and he asked you to email over the details but you took the email address down wrong
So once you have a list of companies and contact details I would look to construct an initial email that you can send. Talk about your experience, the projects you have worked if your a graphic designer for example. If your in sales talk about your record of achieving targets, types of clients, margins etc depending on your background tailor it accordingly. With regards to marketing yourself no one can market you better than you can!
If your not on Linkedin sign up to it if it's relevant to your sector, use it as almost an online CV, connect with people you know and other people within your sector, run a search looking for similar people in your area, see who they are working for, join groups.
Post a blog/ Website with samples of your work / experience and link it back to your Linkedin/CV/Twitter.
It's a cliche but the more you network and put yourself out there the more you will find companies approaching you.
