One of the method that is increasingly being used is through Internet Ads which are hailed as one of the most cost effective and the by far the most effective form of recruitment. Latest market surveys reveal that almost 95% of the U.S. employees are recruiting candidates through the online mode. Companies will le investing close to half a million dollars with the next few years in creating and upgrading their own websites and posting positions with job search services. This is because online recruitment comparatively involves less cost and is easier to manage than print and the turnover time could be almost immediate. Statistics reveal that there are 30,000 job boards throughout the world and 2.5 million resumes online which corroborates the fact that online recruitment will be the frontrunner in this century as the primary mode of choice for job-searching. (Falcone, 2001) It is important the World Wide Web, the different Usenet site and the website of the companies should not be the sole outreach efforts that will be undertaken. Instead companies are increasingly integrating the web into their overall recruitment strategies. Among the modes companies utilize these different forms of recruitment to their advantage are posting job opening on Usenet groups. Usenet groups are listings, by date, of hundreds or even thousands of comments on a specific topic. Usenet is a diverse, worldwide discussion forum which is divided into several thousand newsgroups where participants are free to add their comments on the subject by e-mailing their resumes. The most interesting part is that Usenet sites are free, easy to use and several commercial online ad services include Usenet postings in their package. Large companies maintain their job listing in their own corporate website with an appropriate link and hence they justify the investments associated with transforming a corporate web site into a recruitment portal. Fortune 500 companies with easily recognizable names attract web-traffic due to their brand names that are immensely successful in online recruitment. (Falcone, 2001)

According to a study, respondents who were asked to list three businesses with the best recruitment section which they had either visited or used, named Goldman Sachs (www.goldmansachs.com) McKinsey and Company (www.mckinsey.com), the Boston Consulting Group (www.bcg.com), PriceWaterhouse Coopers (www.pricewaterhousecoopers.com) and Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) the most latest paradigm of online recruitment concentrates on employment branding which implies how a company distinguishes itself from its peers. Companies with properly managed websites have easily recognizable and attractive recruitment image or brand leads in online recruitment. Almost 75% of the Fortune 500 companies have their own websites with active and passive job seekers which are growing fast. Besides, more than a million corporate website exists in the World Wide Web which continues to post jobs regularly. (Falcone, 2001)

The various online recruitment methods that are used are (i) businesses register their website address with Internet Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN which guide users to their own sites on the basis of user's 'search' regarding employment opportunities which continues to be a free service. (ii) Hypertexts 'links' are also placed that leads directly to the company's web server from other Internet Services, thus letting viewers to jump from a particular site to another with the click of a button. (jjj) Companies also run banner ads on other websites, inclusive of Chat rooms which can also direct the link to their sites from these link sites. The scenario is fast transforming into a totally new paradigm where professionally qualified prospective job seekers already in a job and looking for change no longer look for keyword-based searches like "employment," "job opening" or "career opportunity" on the Internet. Instead they become part of virtual communities where people having similar interests hang around to talk shop or improve their skills. (Falcone, 2001)

The growing popularity of online recruitment can be ascribed to the student's community's proximity to this form of recruitment compared to other recruitment sources. Their growing years has been associated with Computers and is habituated to seek a broad spectrum of information on the Internet. Moreover, surveys reveal that online recruitment might be especially effective when companies are seeking applicants in information technology or when companies possess a marked goodwill in the marketplace. Companies increasingly adopt online systems as they consider it to have greater potential in coming across individuals with unique sets of talents and proficiencies than conventional recruitment. This is because online recruitment let businesses to lay a wider umbrella labor market and thus may have increased likelihood to target qualitatively better candidates compared to other sources. Also the volume of applicants is quite large...

(Guetal; Stone; Salas, 2005)
Online systems let employers to customize their recruitment policies to particular labor markets through specialized websites or job board to select applicants with unique skills and backgrounds. However, online recruitment might not always enhance the quality of job candidates, but is possible to inflate the number of candidates applying for jobs. Businesses increasingly make use of online recruitment systems for several purposes like drawing candidates, communicating advantages regarding the organization and evaluating the knowledge, skills, proficiencies and other needs. For instance some companies use software like 'Resumix' for scanning resumes of applicants for keywords and give them instant feedback regarding their selection or otherwise. Other establishments like PriceWaterhouse Coopers, JP Morgan Chase use online aptitude tests, personality inventories or simulations to evaluate critical thinking and decision making skills of candidates. (Guetal; Stone; Salas, 2005)

Considering the increasing use of online screening systems, analysts have debated that several advantages exists like these tests might be more objective and thus less prejudiced by non-job related factors such as race, age or gender for instance than more subjective selection methods like interviews. Using the same logic, the use of keyword systems to filter out resumes might tell apart speedily whether applicants fulfill the job requirements and sometime provide applicants instant feedback regarding the status of their applications. One of the possible advantages of online recruitment systems is that companies are able to provide applicants with unique set of information regarding their companies and supply them a greater realistic scenario of work profile of the company. For instance, some companies allow applicants to go through the company's activities through virtual systems and others make use of extremely creative means of providing applicants with real-time job previews. Aside from the realistic information provided by online recruitment, HR experts are aware that some applicants opt for jobs and organizations that align with their personal values, beliefs and attitudes. Consequently, a lot of organizations highlight information regarding their strategic goals and culture on their website so that applicants are able to arrive at informed choices before joining such organizations. This phenomenon is known as person-organization fit and research points that communicating information regarding organization's culture impact employee's retention rates. (Guetal; Stone; Salas, 2005)

4) Effectiveness of these recruitment methods and if companies continue to use them or not use them:

The Internet has put a significant effect on the way organizational processes are managed including Hunan Resources -- HR management systems. For example recent surveys reveal that 70% of corporate presently use Internet-based Employee Self-Service -- ESS systems to maintain employee records. 80% conduct online recruitment and 40% use web-based portals to communicate HR policies. The Internet is speedily transforming the recruitment processes in three important ways. These are (a) facilitating the attraction of both internal and external job applications (b) extending a virtual realistic preview of organizations and jobs and (c) evaluating the effectiveness of the recruitment process in more ways than one. The proliferation of online recruitment has risen to phenomenal extent in recent years. For instance, in 1997 roughly 58% of large companies posted job vacancies on the Internet and presently nearly 100% of businesses place job opening through their own websites or commercial sites. (Bidgoli, 2003)

The gradual shift to web-based system has resulted in a proliferation of national and international job banks for instance www.hotjobs.com which facilitates applicants to compare and evaluate a broad spectrum of positions. The use of online recruitment lowers the cycle time associated with traditional recruitment methods and streamlines a lot of the labour-intensive administrative processes for instance reviewing resumes, sending follow-up letters in favor of applicants associated with the recruitment processes. Online recruitment also helps in streamlining the recruitment process which puts a positive impact on the job applicant's image of the organization. Various web-based 'Enterprise Resource Planning -- ERP' systems like SAP and PeopleSoft have inherent capacity to search employee records automatically to find out which employees are qualified for job openings and help in matching between employee knowledge, skills and proficiency levels and job-based profiles. (Bidgoli, 2003)

Online recruitment aids organizations in accessing the effectiveness of recruitment processes and technologies. For instance companies are able to monitor the…