40,000 employment-related sites - 12/2000

Want proof that Internet recruiting has exploded into the mainstream? There are more than 40,000 employment-related sites on the Web and, according to analyst Peter Weddle, traffic at those sites is up an average of 99% over last year. Since 1999, 86% of companies have increased their e-recruitment spending. Half the companies that rely on e-recruitment strategies have allocated one third of their total recruiting budgets to Web tactics. With the vast amount of candidate resumes available on those job sites - and the even greater number that are not on them - it is imperative that recruiters master the techniques required to find people and find them fast. The Internet is a huge database [of candidate information], and if you know how to use it, you can bypass the [other] recruiters, said Mike Foster, CEO of AIRS. Mastering techniques doesnt just mean conducting a search that pulls up a few candidates. It means being able to use the associative properties of the Web to find the friends, coworkers, collaborators and associates of those few candidates.