We're for Hire, Just Click

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Of course, it's possible that eLance could drive wages down by cutting out intermediaries like temp and staffing agencies. But startups pressed for time and cash might welcome a virtual hiring hall of humans. eLance farmed out work on its site to a programmer in Bombay who named the right price online. Says Sheth, "In the real world, you can't hire 500 people over the weekend."

Or, for that matter, just a few. That's why Joyce Schwarz, co-founder of Mayday Interactive, an ad shop based in Santa Monica, Calif., is already sold on Monster's talent market. To get her firm off the ground, she beat out a few rival bidders for a personal assistant and a web designer. "It's not like a temp firm, which may not know my needs," says Schwarz. "It's matchmaking for business."

Still, it's not yet clear that every boss is ready to be such a solicitous suitor. "The labor market is tight, but we haven't got to the point where people are so valuable that they would entice companies to engage in a bidding war," argues Bob Liu of HotJobs . Others contend that no firm would be willing to make a bet solely on the basis of a virtual resume. Networking giant Cisco, which does two-thirds of its hiring via the Net, says it isn't interested in bidding online for corporate mercenaries.

But as companies have a harder time retaining staff, they may not be able to be so choosy. As John Sullivan, head of human resources management at San Francisco State University, says, "Employees have won the war for talent. They can pretty much demand whatever they want." And thanks to the Net, they may have a better chance of getting it.