There’s a good Staffing.org followup interview with industry veteran and author Tony Lee who wrote a chapter for On Staffing called A Primer on Internet Recruiting. He’s satisfied with the outcome of his 2004 predictions:

1. Reviewing candidate skills will become more sophisticated.
2. Online applications will become the norm.
3. Minority and foreign candidates will become more visible.
4. Niche recruiting sites will proliferate.
5. Legal considerations will restrict handling of candidate data.
6. Demographics will continue to play an important role.

Lee adds one more: “Most companies I deal with are increasingly cost conscious when it comes to recruiting, and using the internet to recruit both efficiently and cost effectively is now well documented. That trend will continue strongly.”

We’ll add one, too. Recruiting will evolve from a siloed, linear function — need to hire, hire, hand-off to hiring manager — to an acknowledged component of organizational talent management — need to hire, acquire talent, grow talent, assess talent, retain talent.