Speaking only for myself, I've found looking for to fluctuate between quite easy and quite hard. Anytime I've really struggled to find a new job, whether I already had a job or not, it was usually because there was some factor beyond my control that I could not work around. In those hard times, I think I would have landed new employment more quickly by focusing more on making myself more marketable so I could stand out in a sea of applicants without enough to go around. Sometimes rushing to fight the wrong fight is simply not gonna work.