When it comes to knocking a job performance review out of the park, it pays to be aggressive and to be your own public relations director.

It's an uphill climb for U.S. workers, who increasingly see job performance reviews as a useless exercise, and one that doesn't necessarily translate into a higher salary if the review goes well.

Everyone has a different strategy when it comes to following up with employers during the job-application process. Some prefer to follow up quickly and repeatedly at every stage of the application process, while others may feel uncomfortable following up at all.

NEW YORK -- There's only so much time you have in a given week to search for jobs, so don't waste it responding to bad job postings.

"You really shouldn't spend much time applying to job ads anyway," says Robert Hellmann, a career coach with The Five O'Clock Club, who urges job hunters to focus on networking and attending events offline. But when you do respond to job postings, it's important to make sure the posting is good enough to justify the time it takes to apply. Otherwise, Hellmann says, you'll spend hours tailoring your resume and cover letter only to end up in a headhunter's slush pile - or worse, ending up the victim of a scam.

"The way you move up the corporate ladder is by making people love you, so if you annoy your co-workers regularly, there could be repercussions," says Jodi Glickman, a career coach and author of "Great on the Job." It's not that you'll necessarily get fired for committing an office faux pas -- unless it's something as serious as being perpetually late to work. Rather, it could limit your opportunities for advancement at the company by affecting "whether other colleagues want to work with you," Glickman says.

Employers plan to increase their summer internship hires by 8.5% in 2012, the biggest year-over-year increase since before the recession, according to a survey of 280 companies put out last week by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This represents a significant turnaround from 2009 when the number of internship hires was expected to decrease by 21% from the year before.

NEW YORK (MainStreet) - If you spend enough time searching for jobs, all the postings start to blur together thanks in part to the common phrases that seem to pop up in every listing.

A: Just because a company isn't advertising any open positions doesn't mean they aren't looking to hire. As MainStreet has reported before, many job openings are never posted to job boards or company websites. Instead, they are either filled based on recommendations within the company or the position is specially created with someone in mind.