by Paula Santonocito, AIRS staff writer

You may be living in your own private Idaho, but with the whole wide world at your fingertips you can recruit candidates virtually anywhere. However, being successful requires more than just a basic knowledge of geography. It's a matter of knowing and using your resources.

Say you've found the perfect candidate for a position in Houston. Just how do you entice her to relocate from Boston?

Sure, it helps if it's a position with a growing, dynamic company, or if the new job comes with a more prestigious title and a huge salary increase. But relocating is a big decision, and it's usually about much more than a career move. Where a person lives is often tied to very specific preferences.

Talk to your candidate to find out what her location requirements are. Once you've identified what she's looking for, you can provide relevant information about a position's location information that just might make her decide to take the job.

Online directories offer an array of regional information about everything from neighborhood profiles to information about the area's arts, education and culture.

AOL's Digital City (http://aol.digitalcity.com/) features a variety of search categories for major U.S. cities. Once you choose a city, you can obtain information about entertainment and area attractions. Digital City also offers access to local newspaper articles, covering both news and sports. These can provide substantive information, and help give you a feel for the region.

Alta Vista's U.S. Directory
(http://looksmart.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=dir&tp=Travel/Destinations/ United_States/US_States&crid=329221) lets you search by state, and within each state there is a listing of various localities. Select a city or town to access subcategories leading to relevant information. Depending on the size of the city, you may find categories such as "Arts and Culture" and "Business and Companies." Web pages for each location are also ranked by relevance.

City Search (http://www.citysearch.com) offers complete guides for many major U.S. cities and features categories such as "City and Visitor Guide" and "Yellow Pages." For smaller cities, they offer arts and entertainment guides.

Snap's Directory
(http://www.snap.com/dir/0,668,home-0,00.html?st.sn.fd.t.dir) also provides information for various U.S. cities. Under the "Local" category, clicking on "United States" will take you to a listing by state. Like the other directories, Snap offers information about various cities within each state. But, with a comprehensive set of categories like "Education," "Arts & Entertainment," "Rentals & Real Estate," and "Sports & Recreation," it's easy to get a profile of a particular city using Snap. In addition to information about individual cities, Snap offers access to state-related Web sites, which could prove useful. For example, "Texas" includes a listing for the state government site where information can be obtained about the state's education system that could be very important to your candidate.

It's advisable to use more than one directory. You'll probably find some duplicate information, but you'll also find information specific to each source. And, depending on your candidate's requirements, that extra information might just make the difference.

Remember, when a job involves relocation, it may require selling the location. By using regional directories yourself, and referring your candidates to them, you can shrink the distance between cities while expanding your recruiting success.

-- Paula Santonocito is a writer and communications professional who has written about a variety of business and management issues and is now a contributor to AIRS research. AIRS is a global leader in Internet recruitment news, information, training and tools. Copyright © Hanover Capital Management Corporation 1997-01. All Rights Reserved. For more information about AIRS, please go to http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/pages/airs.php .