A global network that is a true technological wonder. The world wired for instant communication and commerce. Public discourse filled with predictions of exciting, new products and services that would have been all but unimaginable just a decade ago. Rapturous pronouncements from government, academia and the press, all proclaiming the arrival of a new age that will enrich the quality of life and the prosperity of humankind.

Sound familiar? It could be from yesterday's paper. The Information Age has engendered a lot of enthusiasm. But it's also an accurate description of an earlier time and technology. The Internet wasn't the first development to ignite the passions and hopes of people everywhere. The telegraph was.

Tom Standage, science correspondent for the Economist magazine, has written a fascinating book called "The Victorian Internet" (Walker & Company, 1998). His well-researched and entertaining history of the telegraph makes it very clear that human history does have a habit of repeating itself.

Here's the proof: A working telegraph was demonstrated in 1838, and the first telegraph company was operating between Washington and Baltimore by 1845. Within 30 years, 650,000 miles of cable had been strung in the U.S., creating a nationwide network of high-speed communications (the telegraph is faster than the horse and carriage, trains and ships). No less important, that network was also connected to more than 100,000 miles of submarine cable that established the world's first global information system.

As soon as it became a working reality, the pundits began to swarm. They went wild with hyperbole. They predicted that the seemingly instantaneous transmission of information provided by the telegraph would eliminate misunderstanding and usher in an era of world peace. They gazed into their crystal balls and saw a time when global communications would enable everyone, everywhere, to acquire greater knowledge and rise to new levels of understanding and prosperity. They even foresaw a time when wired love would flourish from state-to-state and continent-to-continent.

Some of this commentary had an eerily modern aspect. Take the concept of a "digital nervous system." It's been used by Bill Gates to describe the role of the Internet in global commerce. Indeed, Mr. Gates probably thinks he invented the term. He didn't. It was first used by William Horton, the president of Western Union, in his testimony before Congress in 1870 to describe the role of the telegraph in world economy. How about that for déjà vu all over again?

Mr. Standage calls this phenomenon "chronocentricity -- the egotism that one's own generation is poised on the very cusp of history." The passage of time, however, usually produces a more modest outcome. In fact, despite all the hope and rhetoric about the telegraph, its impact on our lives was relatively short-lived. Within 150 years, dots and dashes were replaced by the telephone and joined by the radio, television and the Internet.

What does chronocentricity have to do with online recruiting? Simply this: the grander the prediction about the future, the less likely it is to happen. Predictive power is inversely related to hype. The telegraph greatly accelerated the pace of commerce. It rearranged established patterns of doing business -- producers and customers could deal directly with one another, lessening the importance of the middleman. But it didn't foreshadow a dramatic and permanent shift in the fundamental principles of good business. Profits were still profits, and losses were still losses.

The same can be said about the impact of the Internet on recruiting. Certainly, it has extended the reach of candidate sourcing and thereby enlarged the pool of prospective candidates. Undoubtedly, it has enabled recruiters to establish communications quickly with prospective candidates and to interact with them regularly. Without question, it has helped recruiters respond more aggressively to key requirements and cut their cost of filling position vacancies.

All of that is true. But so is this uncontestable fact: the mores and behaviors of good recruiting have not changed. They are as real and vital today as they have always been. Effective recruiting is still an exercise in relationship building. It still depends on the thoughtful probing of an individual's interests, skills, experience and temperament. It still involves careful research, savvy assessment, insightful judgment and powerful selling. In short, recruiting is still recruiting, even in the Internet Age.

I think that point is worth making for two reasons:

First, for those recruiters who have been reluctant to use the Internet because of its perceived threat to their place in the organization, have no fear. Unlike telegraph operators, who were quickly made obsolete by the telephone, recruiters today are the talent managers of organizations that have never been more dependent upon good talent to survive. The Internet provides certain key advantages that can help recruiters fulfill that role, but it has neither the capacity nor the potential to perform it.

Second, for those recruiters who have leapt onto the Internet bandwagon, remember your roots. Going online does not obviate the fundamentals of sound recruiting. It does not eliminate the need to learn and refine the skills of the recruiting profession. Indeed, these skills are the key to unleashing the Internet's power as a recruiting resource. By practicing them, recruiters energize a dumb technology with their own well-honed instincts and street smarts.

Yes, the Internet may be the digital nervous system of today's global, information-based economy, but good recruiters are its heart. They push talent through the system and give it life.

-- Mr. Weddle is an author and commentator, and publishes Weddle's, a print newsletter about successful on-line recruiting.