Mobile homes appeal to a particular type of customer, but they don't sell themselves. To find qualified salespeople who can match customers with their dream homes on wheels, executives at Oakwood Homes Corp. are subscribing to Web-based recruiting software developed and hosted by iCIMS Inc.

Oakwood, a $1.1 billion Greensboro, N.C., manufacturer and retailer of mobile and modular homes, uses iCIMS's iRecruiter applicant-tracking software as the foundation of a recruiting and retention program it has been developing since last year. "We wanted a centralized database that could track open sales positions and help with the interviewing process, rather than each sales site managing the recruitment process for itself," says Melissa Fair, Oakwood's director of recruiting and retention.

Fair's recruiters now have responsibility for finding, interviewing, and hiring salespeople. Previously, general managers at the company's 300 sales offices would manage their own recruiting. Oakwood hired eight recruiters to track open positions, solicit resumés, and share job-candidate data.

IRecruiter lets Oakwood's recruiters receive resumés via E-mail and add them to a central database without re-typing. The application also has a reporting function that tracks the number of candidates and how many of those candidates were placed.

Recruitment technology that lets firms post job openings and organize the data they receive will continue to gain popularity, says International Data Corp. senior analyst Christopher Boone. "Companies have fewer positions open, so they put increased scrutiny on candidates," he says. The result is a market for E-recruiting software and services that IDC estimates will grow from $1.4 billion last year to $6.8 billion in 2006.

ICIMS targets small and midsize businesses with its E-recruitment software. The annual price tag ranges from $10,000 to $25,000.