But as soon as they met in person, it became clear that love at first online encounter would translate into thorough disappointment at first sight.
The dating world isn't the only place where people hook up online before they meet in the flesh. Employers increasingly screen job candidates on the Internet before bringing them in for an interview or hiring a new employee. Travelers arrange carpools through Craigslist with strangers they don't meet until they're alone together in the car. Parents use the Web to find nannies. Grown children go online to find caregivers for their parents. There is no limit to the virtual matches made among strangers, and new services facilitating such pairings pop up every day.
So what can you do to minimize your chances of making a mistake--of wasting $2000 on a plane ticket or flying in a job candidate who is all wrong for the position? Take advantage of the ever-growing number of ways to poke around online first, experts say.
Search Engines and Aggregators
Before hiring, dating, or otherwise engaging with a person met at a distance, it's always wise to start with a basic Google or Bing search. But that's not the end of such screening capabilities these days. A few new services aggregate data from various sources of public information into one place.
Both Date Check and Spokeo offer free services for basic information, with the option of a paid upgrade for deeper searches.
Video and Voice Screening
Skype and other videoconferencing technology can help you avoid the high costs and scheduling conflicts involved in bringing in people from afar to see if they're a good match--for employment, dating, or any other type of partnership.
Founded in 2007, Expressume lets candidates create a video profile that answers prepared questions tailored to clients' needs. In a given period of time, a recruiter can go through many more of these short videos than they can live phone conversations, and they get a more accurate sense of the candidates, Heikkinen says. Once that step has helped to single out the best candidates, the service arranges a live video chat.
If a candidate doesn't have a Webcam, Expressume sends one so that they can record their end of the interview.
“This service is very aligned with post-recession hiring,” Heikkinen says. “Recruiting staffs have been decimated, and they're looking for ways to be more efficient and save cost. Travel is time-consuming and expensive.”
Whether you're bringing a candidate in for an interview, asking someone on a date, or hiring a person to feed your cat, a video call--in real time or prerecorded--can give you a sense of that person ahead of time.
“Are they comfortable? Do they make good eye contact?” says Michelle Krier, director of marketing and social media for Pinstripe, a recruitment outsourcing company based in Brookfield, Wisconsin. “Those types of things are really important.”
Though video-chatting with a person brings them to life a lot more than simple Google results do, it's no substitute for face-to-face interaction.
“Keep in mind, you are communicating with someone you have never met before,” advises Julie Spira, author of the bestseller The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online .
“Take your relationship from online to offline as soon as possible to see if there is any chemistry,” Spira says.
Next: Using Social Networking Sites Effectively