So that you can get the best out of this guide, we have provided a jargon busting glossary of terms that will help you mine the web’s talent pool

3G: third generation of mobile phone standards, which offer users far more services and network capacity compared with its predecessor. 3G has vastly improved the mobile internet surfing experience and makes it more practical to, for instance, search for a job online while on the move.

Blog: online journal or diary posted on the web. Recruitment agencies and employers are putting blogs on their sites as a way to engage with candidates and help to build brand.

Blogosphere: the whole universe of blogs and their various interconnections. The Blogosphere even has its own news site www.blogospherenews.com, where you'll find blogger job advertisements.

dotMobi or .mobi: the suffix used for delivering the internet and worldwide web to a mobile device such as a phone.

Google Alerts: an update email of the latest Google result on a particular subject that you have requested an alert on. So you could request to be alerted when Google returns something new on your company. To request an alert and its frequency, fill out a box at www.google.com/alerts

Google Analytics: analytical tools which help assess where visitors to your site come from and how they use and interact with your site. You can set up a Google Analytics account at www.google.com/analytics

Passive candidates: a person who may not be looking for a job today but who may be an ideal candidate for a position in the future. Passive candidates are often targeted when visiting social networking sites.

Pay per click (PPC): an advertising model which sees advertisers only paying when someone clicks on a banner ad or some other ad, such as a job posting, and are taken to the advertiser's site.

Podcasts: audio files that can be downloaded and played on a MP3 player, mobile device or desktop computer.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication): format for sharing content/feeds among different websites.

Search engine marketing (SEM): the use of internet marketing methods to increase the volume and quality of traffic to a website and raise its profile in search engine results. This could be via search engine optimisation (see below) or paid inclusion, which means the website owners pay a search engine company to ensure its sites appear prominently in search results.

Search engine optimisation (SEO): the practice of increasing the volume of traffic to a web site from search engines and therefore improving its organic ranking — where it appears naturally in search results from keyword searches, as opposed to where it might appear courtesy of search engine marketing activity such as paid inclusion. SEO could be achieved by a variety of means such as altering the coding behind a site, changing its structure and how information is presented, introducing unique content and generally making it more search engine-friendly.

SMS: stands for short message service and is more commonly known as texting.

Social networking sites: community sites such as Facebook, MySpace or YouTube where people connect with each other online. Individuals and organisations can post their profiles and share information with the rest of the network.

Vodcasts: video version of podcast.

Web widgets: a piece of code which can be easily installed or embedded on a website or blog to add functionality. Widgets are available that enable a website owner or blogger to feature jobs ads on their site.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP): protocol that allows the internet to be viewed over a wireless device such as a mobile phone or other hand-held device.

WAP alerts: a message sent to a mobile phone or device via the wireless application protocol to alert the user to something, such as a relevant job vacancy.

Web 2.0: 'second coming' of the worldwide web, characterised by features such as blogs, wikis (see below), RSS feeds (see above) and rich media content, which have all combined to make the web a more interactive environment.

Wikis: websites that allow visitors to add, remove, edit and change content.