From tentative beginnings in the mid-1990s, online recruitment has become a monster in the recruitment industry. The figures are staggering.

In the US, 96 percent of all companies use the Internet for some or all of their recruiting activities and there are more than 100,000 websites with job listings.

With more than 2.5 million resumes online, by 2003 the American cyber-recruiting market is expected to be worth US$2 billion.

The benefits of online job advertising compared with the old-fashioned print medium are obvious. Print advertisements are slow and expensive, as well as being limited to the publication's geographic distribution boundaries.

Internet job advertising is faster and cheaper with non-existent boundaries. In addition, advertising on the Internet guarantees that all applicants are computer and Internet literate.

In order to fully benefit from online recruiting there are certain procedures that must be followed.

First of all a powerful heading to the advertisement is needed. This will determine whether the job hunter will continue reading the advertisement and ensure that it stands out more prominently in the summary list generated by search engines.

As many keywords as possible should also be used so that as many search engines as possible can locate the advertisement.

More so than in the print medium, copy should be easy to read and use a mix of upper and lower case letters (long phrases in capitals can be hard to read on a computer screen).

Unlike prints advertisements, those on the Internet are not limited to a certain number of words. Abbreviations can be spelt out in full and complete sentences written, which means that the job-related features can be fully described.

However it is important to remember that most viewers are not going to be bothered scrolling down to a second screen, and that one screen is often enough.

Costs can range from a couple hundred dollars for a single-page 60-day posting to a couple of thousand dollars for a single account with unlimited job postings.

Although some postings can appear to be on the pricey side, it can sometimes be worth paying extra to avoid the clutter.

In order to help determine the value of advertising on a particular site, tracking tags can be added.

It is also possible to appear on some search engines at no extra charge, and add a link to your company's website so the job seeker can find out even more about their potential employer.

In addition to these web-specific techniques, the standard procedures for job advertising should also be followed.

These include: ensuring there are no spelling mistakes; specifying a specific salary range; disclosing the company name; promoting the company; stating any benefits and perks; using traditional titles (so it is clear what job is being advertised) and disclosing career paths and promotion opportunities.

Every job advertisement should endeavor to answer as clearly as possible the classic job seekers question: "Why should I work for this employer?"

The boom in online recruitment is not just limited to the US. In Australia, the leading job advertisements survey (carried out by the ANZ bank) showed that online advertisements outnumbered those carried in newspapers by more than three-to-one last year.

In the UK, the Online Job Index is one year old this month, and counts over half a million vacancies being advertised on ten selected sites.

Europe's leading professional online recruitment company is Jobline International. Founded in Sweden in 1997 and listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, it is located in 12 European countries with 23 offices in countries ranging from Great Britain to Germany, and Spain to Finland.

It is also moving into professional search. For example, in Europe Jobline International has more than 1.2 million candidates on its online pan-European database.

The phenomenal growth of online job advertising is no flash in the pan.

The benefits it offers to employers are so significant and so far-reaching that professional search and web-based agency markets are also expected to follow suit.

It has an unsurpassed ability to collect resumes, identify quality candidates, manage information, and lead the company to the applicant best suited for the position.

However it is unlikely to ever render print job advertising obsolete, as there is a proportion of the community for whom the Internet is neither convenient nor possible.

There are countless online job advertising sites, many of which contain tips for employers. They include:

www.mycareer.com.au (for Australian jobs)

www.careerbuilder.com (for jobs in the US)