Discerning which offers count isn't always easy. First rule: To thine own self be true. "There's a lot of opportunity, so people don't think about what they are doing, and they field all of the offers," Dinsdale says. "It doesn't make sense to field them all."

Dinsdale knew he wanted to work on a creative project and influence a company's direction, so when the offers started pouring in, he waited for the right one. "It took a year to get an offer I would jump to," he says.

Beyond that, examine the company carefully and make sure the leadership is in place to take the company forward. "There are a lot of really interesting business models out there and not much management leadership," Dinsdale says.

Powers has learned to examine a prospective employer's commitment to a business before signing on. For instance, he and Lux left Cincinnati Bell when it became apparent to them that, despite their urging, the company couldn't get behind the Internet as they envisioned. "They thought it was a passing fad," Powers says. And when other divisions started getting more funding than his, Powers knew it was time to leave.

To make it in a new-media company, an IT pro must eschew some of the commonly accepted guidelines for IT-particularly that of a behind-the-scenes player who should be seldom seen and definitely not heard. If you work for a large financial firm, you'll be "just another tool, regarded no higher than a piece of equipment," says Datek Online's Garfinkel.

At a new-media company, IT is often revered. "Technology is king here," Garfinkel says. IT certainly carries a much higher profile, thanks to the dot-com companies. One thing most managers do understand is that hiring is mostly a people proposition. "It's still 25% skill and 75% personality," Hayes says.

Although Dinsdale was able to wait for the right offer to come along, time is truly a premium for new-media companies, and by extension, for more-traditional companies seeking IT players. New-media companies are in large part responsible for compressing the hiring cycle. "It is incredibly fast-paced, and candidates have so many choices now that companies really need to move ASAP," says Eliassen Group's Day.

"We are making these decisions much faster-in days," Powers says. "Our courtship is usually about one week."

In fact, McCormick Group's Hayes says shorter time frames were long overdue and are more in sync with the rhythm of the recruitment process, not only for dot-coms. "The hiring cycle has gotten shorter, but that needed to happen," he says. "Employers were taking too long to begin with."

If hiring isn't timed with near-perfect precision, he says, candidates may miss opportunities and companies will surely miss out on the IT talent they so desperately need. "If a company waits too long, the candidate will think, 'They don't like me,' " Hayes says. Then the candidate "will start to come up with reasons he or she doesn't like the company anyway." Hayes says the hiring process follows a bell curve and that both employer and candidate should be in sync when that curve peaks, or the deal will fall apart.

Hiring companies face risks as well. Employers run the risk of overpaying for substandard talent. Powers and Garfinkel expressed displeasure in the power that less-than-stellar IT staffers wield during a job search. And Eliassen's Day says job seekers should understand that a startup, if it's caught in a candidate bidding war, may spend the bulk of its venture capital on hiring talent, with little money left over to execute a business plan.

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