Prof, if you have any tips on this yourself, please share them.

I check the web sites of interesting companies. Many advertise jobs there, saving recruiter fees. It also pulls in more people with a genuine interest in the company. However, I got my present job through a recruiter, with a company I had never heard of, doing work that I never knew I would enjoy so much.

The old standards, still being touted here in the UK by the government and others, are:
send your CV/resume on spec, and
call the receptionist and ask her, and
get to know someone in the company.

The receptionist will put you on to HR, who will give a diplomatically encouraging reply, asking for you to send your CV/resume, which will probably be automatically binned along with the ones sent on spec.

And how do you "casually" get to know someone in a company in another city, or further away? That's without considering the morals of using someone that way.

Perhaps "how to get your resume to the right person" could be another topic in the already comprehensive list of similar subject from you Toni? Or maybe TR members could have a forum where they post the contacts within their own companies?