What's on TV

An advantage--if there is such a thing--of having the flu is that you get to catch up on daytime television.

Amid the soap operas and talk shows there are the commercials, and Monster.com is running a ton of them. Initially it might seem surprising, until you think about the audience the job board giant aims to reach: the approximately 14.8 million unemployed Americans.

Although job seekers are told searching for a job should be a full-time job, in reality the search involves a lot of downtime. And while many people entertain themselves harvesting their chicken coops in Facebook's FarmVille, many people also seek diversion in front of that other screen.

Despite predictions of its demise by Internet aficionados, television continues to draw large numbers of viewers. This year's Super Bowl was the most-watched program in television history; 106.5 million people watched the Saints beat the Colts.

The number should serve as a reminder to employers and recruitment professionals: Although online recruiting has become the primary method of reaching candidates, the world continues to have offline components. Television, radio, print, and (gasp) live interaction are still viable methods of communication.

In the early days of online recruiting there was a great deal of talk about integrating various channels of communication as part of a recruitment strategy. Today, talk of channel integration has come to mean online channels.

However, as Monster's investment in television advertising shows, tuning in to other channels can further online efforts.