It's tempting. The Internet is a low cost, almost effortless, global platform for communicating with prospective candidates. With a couple of key strokes, you can e-mail hundreds, even thousands of individuals to solicit their interest in your employment opportunities.

Such solicitations, however, have now drawn the attention of state governments. Indeed, several are considering legislation which would curtail or, at least, control the use of e-mail for commercial (including recruitment) purposes. And in three western states – California, Nevada and Washington – statutes are already on the books.

What does this intervention mean? Well, in our view, the indiscriminate use of large volume e-mailings has never been an effective way to reach prospective candidates. These messages have all the appeal of junk mail and, therefore, seldom generate a response from the best and brightest. However, mass e-mails can be transformed into very powerful communications vehicles if they are carefully tailored to selected cohorts of the candidate population and, henceforth, if they are transmitted according to the letter of the law.

1. How to e-mail effectively. As we have noted in the past, the best recruitment e-mail is highly personal. Whether it's based on the information available in your own candidate database or on data acquired from some other organization, each message should be individualized to reflect the unique attributes, interests and goals of its recipient. This mass customization is not only possible but extraordinarily cost-effective, thanks to the advent of powerful database management systems and the Internet.

2. How to e-mail legally. The new state laws provide useful guidelines for e-mailing prospective candidates properly. Although each of the statutes has its own unique requirements, two common elements appear to be emerging as de facto standards for commercial e-mail
 

	The e-mail must be clearly marked as an advertisement, early in the message.
	The recipient must have a way to stop future deliveries of such messages that is easy to identify, easy to use and cost-free.

The penalties for failing to comply with these new strictures are severe. They range from a $1000 fine and six months in prison in California to $10 per e-mail plus court costs in Nevada.