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	Recruiters Post Jobs Search Resumes Resume Agents Price Lists HR Resources Job Seekers Post Resumes Search Jobs Job Agents Discussions Career Tools			Overview and Criteria Each Year, as a part of the Electronic Recruiting Index, we identify the Top 100 most important services in the Electronic Recruiting Industry. The criteria, described in detail in our earlier studies, is evolutionary. That is, as the market matures, our ability to articulate the hallmarks of Electronic Recruiting Excellence increases. This year's evaluations are built on the Recruiter's Survey and incorporated the results of our Vendor's survey (where possible). A quick review of the alphabetical and Category lists will show a rapid expansion of our recognition for niche sites. The clear future of Online Recruiting is in these niches. Focused content delivery to specific demographic, regional or industrial interest groups is required by the sheer cost of reaching targeted audiences. The rapid emergence of Networks and significant partnerships gave rise to a category exclusively devoted to these issues. Our site-by-site reviews (organized by Category) detail the accomplishments of the enterprises behind the Websites. This is where the real action takes place. Websites are like doors to a business. It is the business itself that we evaluate rather than the graphic interface of the site. By focusing on the dynamic services offered to and by Recruiters, we overcome a dismal fact: the state of interface and Website design remains dismal. Given the fact that Electronic Recruiting emerges from a discipline known as "tombstone advertising" because of its overall lack of creative design, it is understandable that intelligent interfaces are slow in coming. Many very profitable operations in the Industry have terrible Websites. There are few examples of extraordinary design. As an Industry, it is clear that innovation happens outside and is incorporated once polished. This is sound business but leaves the top players vulnerable to competition from more effective Web endeavors. The Industry, as seen by these examples of enterprise excellence, leaves much to be desired in terms of truly harnessing the new media. Personalization, collaborative relationships, interaction and life cycle customer development appear to be secondary concerns to the players who populate the Top 100. After carefully reviewing over 15,000 examples, our research team was unable to find 100 sites that met our criteria for a grade of "A". We added several from our "B+" category to round out the top group. The reviews may seem harsh on first reading. Like the 2,620 Recruiters in our survey, we found little to be truly excited about. We recognize The Computer Jobs Store for the most successful delivery of Customer Satisfaction. In other industries, a 75% level of customer satisfaction is a recipe for failure. Just as our survey showed broad ambivalence about the quality of Electronic Recruiting Services, we find little to "crow" about. With that in mind, our detailed reviews emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of the winners. The Top 100 Websites are the best in the business and each has made a contribution worth celebrating. There is also a great deal of room for growth, even in the best of class. Correctable defects like mis-spellings and bad grammar can be found on the best of the group. Focus groups and usability testing would increase effectiveness immeasurably if institutionalized. Nonetheless, the Industry is poised for another year of explosive growth. A fair amount of it will be concentrated in these Top players. With Brand Names established, profitability underway and growth that (at least) parallels the rest of the Internet, these firms will individually and collectively outperform the norms in the rest of the Internet market. We believe that issues of quality, usability, design elegance and results management will be solved with maturity.