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With little luck, we've been encouraging companies to develop a database that cross references zipcodes, IP addresses and other relevant geographic information. By doing so, it becomes easy to correlate traffic development, candidate availability, retention program highlights, workforce requirements and supply availabilities. You can see bits and pieces of the idea at ERSYS (a view of our town), Claritas (look for the PRISM database) and at gis.com.

Clearly, we believe that online Recruiting is evolving to place the business process online. It's not good enough to have your own advertising site. The future (not 2010 but the next couple of years) will bring solid message targeting systems that are driven by geography. Why? Recruiting is, in the final analysis, a local game. As the population ages, relocation is increasingly less meaningful.

That's worth restating.

Recruiting is a local business process that should be conducted entirely online.

If that's the future, the implications are interesting. It means, for instance, that the data required by customers from job boards is going to start to include all sorts of elements of the transaction on the job board. They'll want the IP address, search behavior, and relevant data from the process that resulted in an application being submitted.

It means that data collection by third party staffing firms will be highly enhanced. It means that companies relying on the HRXML standards will once again be penalized for the committee's slowness. It means that vendors will be scrambling to introduce Geographic Information Systems with workforce planning overlays in late 2004.

Now, here's the interesting details. We know of at least two major Recruiting operations who are building this kind of capacity internally. They've grown tired of the blank stares from their advertising agencies. They are buying tools and content management systems from well beyond the traditional bounds of the industry. They know that if they wait for the industry to offer the services, they'll be waiting a very long time.