Networking has always been important for finding skilled employees, but now more than ever social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are thrusting the traditional frameworks of yesteryear, such as print ads and conventional job fairs, out of the picture.

That’s not to say online portals have completely swallowed up real-life interaction, witnessing that half of the respondents to a new study by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. gave networking the highest effectiveness rating, On average, hiring professionals gave networking a 3.98 (out of 5) in effectiveness.

Social and professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter scored second with an average rating of 3.3, with 47% of respondents dolling a rating of four out of five.

The proper role for social media in employer recruiting is likely to receive greater scrutiny when economic recovery is strong enough to spur more hiring. Already, analysts see a downside emerging from these developments.

One potential problem, according to experts from the global outplacement consultancy, is that some qualified job candidates are already relying too heavily on social networking. They point out that the matchmaking process of employer and employee is multifaceted, and that neither side benefits from using just one search mode.

“[Workers] who rely on just one tool, even if it is networking, will take longer to find a position. The problem with the ease and accessibility of the Internet is that many job seekers make it their primary job search tool,” says John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

On the employer side, “Overuse of the Internet also threatens to prolong the hiring process by inundating employers with irrelevant resumes. Some human resource executives complain that for every qualified candidate that comes in from the Internet, there are 10 to 20 who do not even come close to being a good fit. The more irrelevant resumes that hiring managers have to wade through in order to select the handful to bring in for interviews, the longer it takes to fill the position,” he adds.

With this in mind, some alternatives appear to be dead in the water as job fairs, seen as the least effective way to find a job-search method, received an average rating of 1.6. Newspaper classified ads and sending resumes to employers were not far behind, averaging 1.7 on the rating scale.

Meanwhile, in the ether, Internet job boards received relatively high marks, with an average rating of three. However, 38% of respondents gave it a four rating.

The Internet’s wave of possibilities may contain tsunami-like possibilities, but that can be part of the problem: too many candidates, but too few qualified. Thus, employers who commingle their various modes of attracting talent, such as the Internet, newspapers, and job fairs can diversify their exposure and obtain the widest and most specified selection of applicants.