NEW DELHI: Orkut, Linkin, Facebook and other similar popular social networking sites are fast doubling up as the modern day employment exchanges with job seekers as well as companies and recruiters head hunting for talent.

The social networking sites, immensely popular with the netizens especially the young, are having increasing number of 'communities' helping both job seekers and employers. "Searching for the right person for a job is always a challenge," says Gauri Sarin of Approach Talent Solutions. "So, there is a rising trend among the companies and recruitment agencies to use social networking sites to look for the right person," she adds.

With 100 million Internet users in the country, India is now the fourth largest country in terms of Internet penetration, a recent Assocham study points out. According to Assocham , E-recruitment is gaining ground as a preferred medium of hiring in India.

Especially for job seekers, the Internet has opened up the world of job searching, turning it into a 24-hour-a day market place. Internet is arguably the most immediate, convenient and comprehensive medium for employment seekers to research and prospect for jobs.

Upon a search for 'jobs', communities such as Orkut throw up about a 1,000 odd related communities such as 'IT jobs India walk-ins','Freshers','Retail Jobs in India', 'Walk in for Jobs', Job Sampark' etc. Staffing services providers like Cloud 9 India, Pathway Recruitment Agency use such sites as a platform to hire and have links to their own websites. Populated with thousands of members each of these communities have a huge database of job seekers and can reach them within seconds.