Internet usage for employee recruitment has come about through a few channels. In an effort to retain customer (and advertiser) loyalty, newspapers have developed online versions that include the "help wanted" ads which have long been their bread and butter. At the same time, sites like Monster and Career Builder have become major resources for both employees and employers, each site warehousing millions of resumes and tens of thousands of job listings. Finally, companies have made it a practice of posting available jobs on their web sites, for their own human resources staff to use.

Executive search firms are also an established web presence, advertising positions that they have been hired to fill. Theirs is perhaps the most targeted approach, as they have the luxury of being well paid to fill a relatively small number of positions. Monster and Career Builder both have templates for both applicants and employers to fill out, in order to match needs with skills. This electronic process is a beginning, but because of the size of the employment marketplace on these sites and the web in general, sorting by keyword and phrase is really just a rough beginning.

Perhaps the latest development in online recruiting is the development of software designed to provide HR support for corporations. Taleo (www.taleo.com) is one such firm: a subscription-based service that allows an employer to "build a custom career site and manage applicants, résumés and requisitions quickly and easily." Their service provides online automation and analysis of a company's recruiting and hiring processes, promising to improve "workforce visibility and insights."

Their services are a sophisticated software-driven process of matching skills with job requirements prior to the introduction of HR staff resources to the process. The argument is that personnel costs are always a company's major cost, and that the recruitment process is a significant portion of that expense. Their service thus not only improves the process but makes it cheaper.

Fasthealth Corporation (www.fasthealth.com) is an example of an automated HR system devoted to a single market segment. This service provides an "online Human Resources Center" for healthcare professionals. Fasthealth has a testing and questionnaire procedure that allows applicants for any job through any healthcare facility using the service to be processed through their servers and ranked accordingly. It also provides an online resource for health care HR offices that can be accessed from any desktop computer.

Fasthealth calls their service "paperless hiring." Their system is designed to be sufficiently thorough that much of the guesswork involved in HR decision making is eliminated before candidates reach the interview stage. Because it is an industry-wide, specialized service they are in a position to develop a resume database that can be available to multiple facilities. Just as job seekers are given handfuls of tips on how to make their talents visible, this service notes that "you must have a marketing angle to get your job postings high traffic." They make the point that quality healthcare workers are in high demand and that use of their software will not only provide exposure, but ensure quality hires.

These are two examples of variations on the use of "customer relations management" software in the personnel field. It's a form of data mining, in that the programs provide sufficient variables for both applicant and job description that quality matches are possible. And they are only two examples; many more are in the marketplace or soon to appear. Resumes and cover letters seem to be going the route of the daily newspaper: according to Monster.com online recruiting accounted for less than one percent of hiring in 1996 and 22 percent in 2004. It's a function that is only going to grow.