When the history of Internet advertising is written, recruitment sites will undoubtedly dominate the first chapter. In 12 years, these sites have grown from a few big job boards to hundreds of niche competitors. Online recruitment now accounts for 25 percent of Internet advertising revenue.

Recruitment has become the first major advertising category to slip from the iron grasp of traditional media and become “majority controlled” by online. By the end of 2006, recruiters were spending more for online media than for any other medium, including newspapers: $5.9 billion for online, compared with $5.4 billion for newspaper ads.

There are increasing signs of diversification as job boards continue into their second decade. The wide-ranging boards are being chewed apart by niche sites. With so much activity, the author expects recruitment advertising online to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 percent over the next five years, approaching $10 billion by 2011. - 8.7m Jobseekers

For the short-term, all signs in this segment of online ad spending continue to point upward. The unemployment rate is forecast to remain low, and combined with continuing job growth should stimulate an even greater need for recruiters to find qualified workers among the ranks of the already employed. The number of online-advertised vacancies grew 26 percent from October 2005 through October 2006 while the unemployment rate shrank to a five-year low of 4.4 percent.

There may be far more growth in store than anyone is anticipating. Of the 24.4 million Americans who were planning to look for a job in 2006, only 34 percent planned to use the Internet in their search. That means two-thirds of the job seekers are not using the Internet … yet.

Job boards are quickly moving downstream – away from their executive-level and managerial roots and toward what could be a more massive pot of gold: helping local small- and medium-sized businesses use the Internet to locate hourly and part-time clerks, cashiers, forklift operators, restaurant workers, drywall installers, and administrative assistants.