The Warehouse online recruitment site "has seen an increase in direct traffic volume of over 18 percent ... . Print advertising has decreased dramatically (by 68 percent) as we now focus on in-store advertising ... directing people to our Web site."

       Furthermore, Davis wrote, the average cost-per-hire fell 78 percent, the "new-hire failure rate" (people who leave within three months of hiring) fell by 80 percent, and the number of candidates for each job increased dramatically.

       Steins said Edward Jones, the brokerage, was trying to determine how to target potential new financial advisors. "The first steps involved halting all local recruitment advertising," he wrote. "With growth objectives not going down, why stop print advertising? Cost and lack of measurable results were two compelling reasons. So we stopped print advertising, and ... the pipeline did not suffer significantly."

       Couple those two statements with the recession -- near-depression in some industries (like real estate and auto manufacturing) in the United States, and recruiters have a reason to change. In other countries, the economies are stronger, but Web services and use are growing fast. And in still others, online recruitment is maturing. But in all cases, it's still got a long way to go.

       So what's a recruitment-advertising company to do?

       First, if you've got a print product, it's not going away any time soon. But it's not what the advertisers want (see above), it's not what the job-seekers want and it's not the most efficient product for now or in the future. So - and we first said this about four years ago -- "Emphasize online. First and foremost." Stop selling print and upselling into online. Given users' needs, print-to-online is backward. Sell online, packaged with print. But don't sell print first, or only, unless an advertiser specifically requests it. Even then, make every effort to package it with online, because that's where, more and more, the results are coming.

       If you're primarily or exclusively an online recruitment-advertising company, it's not good enough to just keep doing the same-old, same-old. Online recruitment is changing rapidly, just as newspapers are, and trends call for more social-networking tools; more editorial content helping people find their jobs; better matching tools, screening tools and candidate-management systems for employers, and more engaging tools like video and mapping technologies.

       When our clients ask "What's the next big thing?" in recruitment advertising, our answers are the same: matching candidates with positions, and video. Matching, because employers don't want a "fire hose" of applicants -- they want a handful of highly qualified, targeted applicants meeting their criteria. And video because more and more companies are using it as a recruiting tool. Companies like Microsoft and FedEx and others. But not just the biggest companies; many small companies have found that a simple video, inexpensively produced and hosted by the local newspaper or even posted on YouTube, generates a larger and stronger pool of candidates than a simple text ad.

       And as more users find their jobs through Simply Hired, LinkedIn, Indeed, Keljob.com, Twitter and who-knows-what's-next, you'd better be in the game. Ideally? Be ahead of the game. Don't wait to fall behind and try to play catch-up. Because in an era of rapid change, innovation and disruption, playing "catch-up" may mean you're too late.