The report is subtitled "Managing The Transition". In several sectors (Technical Recruiting in particular), 1997 will be the year that the Web come of age as a Recruiter's tool. According to a recent survey, over 90% of recent college graduates use the net at some time during their employment search. Demographic factors increase the need for the sorts of direct candidate access provided by the net. The "Transition" is industry wide and affects players as diverse as Newspaper publishers, University Career Offices, HR Departments and the formal Staffing Industry.

It is the transition of the Internet from toy to tool. With the transition comes organizational requirements for procedures, operational integration, training, new skills development and investment. It is a management problem first and a technology problem second.

Volume 1 contains our analyses, forecasts and examinations of best practices. The second volume is a paper database of 2100 site reviews and 5000 industry connections. Our goal, as usual, was to deliver an encyclopedic resource that helps you manage the organizational transitions required by the Web. Chapters 6 and 7 could have easily been called "Stand Alone Recruiting" and "Recruiting as A Part of a Larger Organization". HR Managers will find great value in Chapter 6 as will Third Party Recruiters in Chapter 7

Chapter 2: 1996 On The Net is designed to be handed to the manager of a web program. It is a stockpile of tutorial and background information designed to bring a new manager up to speed without resorting to "technobabble". If your boss want you to "handle it", this is the material she needs to manage you. If you're the boss, you must understand this chapter to manage your web staff effectively.

Chapter 3: Who Is A Recruiter? dissects the various market players, their motivations, strengths and weaknesses. It underlines the new reality. The cost of entering the Recruiting marketplace is different for different entities. The introduction of the World Wide Web has created an opportunity of significant proportion for operations that you probably don't even think of as competitors.

Chapter 4: Key Marketplace Trends looks at the generic practices, mistakes and opportunities in the Recruiting arena. 1996 saw the introduction of personal agents and sophisticated technical offerings. Meanwhile, services that could and should be provided by traditional recruiters were less than effectively represented. It includes key quantitative data about recent market growth.

Chapter 5: Success Characteristics defines, in great detail, the parameters you must consider when developing an Internet presence.

Chapter 6: Third Party Recruiting is an extensive discussion of the factors that make an Electronic Recruiter effective, procedures for research, and methods for maximizing the effectiveness of your Internet presence. It covers all of the bases in developing a recruiting presence as a standalone endeavor.

Chapter 7: The HR Recruiter builds on the material in Chapter 6 to provide a framework for considering the somewhat different challenges facing an HR Manager n the Web. It covers the issues of interest if you are building a recruiting function as a part of a larger online entity.

Chapter 8: Employment Advertising and Media Planning covers the mechanics of managing a Web based employment advertising campaign. It includes pricing information for over 50 key venues.

Chapter 9: The Top 100 Electronic Recruiters takes the best Websites from our survey and deconstructs them. The sites have been segregated into 15 discrete categories with a "best of class" picked in each category. All key features are inventoried and a detailed review of each is provided.

Chapter 10: Emerging Trends and Forecasts tries to point you towards the horizon. The Internet changes quickly these days but several important trends are observable.

Chapter 11: Conclusions briefly summarizes the material and closes with a set of simple, key principles.

Volume II

Appendix A: Website Reviews organizes over 2,000 reviews by the grade we've given each site. It's designed to be a working tutorial for web design.

Appendix B: Industry Database is a practical inventory of all of the companies (nearly 6,000) currently engaged in electronic Recruiting. We think of it as the "White Pages" for the industry.