Many HR professionals end up wasting a lot of time scouring search engines and clicking through Web sites that may - or may not - contain accurate and up-to-date information. To help HR professionals make their use of the Internet more efficient, 10 Web sites are presented that contain current, reliable information. The sites discussed include: 1. SHRM Online (http://www.shrm.org/), 2. Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov), and 3. InsideHR (http://www.insideHR.com). Instructions for adding these URLs to a bookmark list are provided.

Pretend, for a moment, that you are a busy HR executive. There are already too few hours in the day to accomplish all that needs to be done as part of your job. So, when the time comes to venture onto the World Wide Web-to research a policy, to track down a government regulation, to recruit a potential employee-you don't have a lot of time to waste scouring the thousands of web sites with HR-related services and information.

Maybe that scenario doesn't require a very long stretch of imagination.

Yet, many HR professionals end up wasting a lot of time scouring search engines and clicking through web sites that may-or may not-contain accurate and up-to-date information. Despite the array of HR-related World Wide Web sites, we find that there are certain sites we come back to again and again, for current, reliable information, presented in a logical manner.

Here is a list of 10 of these essential HR sites. You can make your use of the Internet more efficient by using these as starting points when conducting research on the World Wide Web.

Our criteria for inclusion on this list: In addition to containing valuable and accurate information, the bulk of the site has to be available for free use by anyone on the Internet. Also, sites must be refreshed on a regular basis, to include timely information.