When Chris Segura’s job search stalled in the spring, he made an unusual find on the Internet: a blog devoted to jobs in the semiconductor industry.

This blog linked to another blog at the Web site of Impinj Inc., a Seattle semiconductor company. On that site, which was created and run by a human resources manager, Mr. Segura found pictures from a recent company picnic, among other descriptions of what it is like to work at the company. The blog also provided a way to e-mail the manager when Mr. Segura decided to apply for a job.

“It was a nice introduction to the company,” says Mr. Segura, who is 31 years old and was hired by Impinj in August as a product line manager.

For those people who don’t know, a blog is an informal online journal, with chronological entries that are typically short and present items such as news summaries and links to other sites, along with a blog author’s musings about anything from world events to how their morning coffee tasted. The term is a contraction of “Web log.”

Blogs have been around for about a decade but are becoming increasingly popular.

Some career experts now predict that blogs could become the next wave in electronic recruiting, following job boards and corporate career sites. In short, blogs could become a new way for recruiters to identify candidates and for job seekers to gain a clearer picture of a company’s culture on a day-today basis.

“This is an untapped resource for managing a pipeline of candidates,” says Gerry Crispin, a principal of CareerXroads, a Kendall Park, N.J., recruiting-technology consulting firm. The use of blogs by corporate recruiters is still in its infancy, he points out, but he expects more companies to experiment with the interactive format. He started his own blog in August.

At a time when corporate career sites often can seem bland and uninviting, blogs potentially can draw candidates with personal, even quirky, material. At Impinj, Karina Miller, human resources manager, has posted a photograph of the company’s softball team and an aerial view of the neighborhood surrounding its offices, along with more-traditional corporate news. Since she started the blog in May, 33 applicants have identified it as the primary way they found out about the company.

“I can get information out more quickly to my candidates than I can through the PR engine,” says Ms. Miller. Indeed, some recruiting experts say one concern about corporate blogs is that they can run afoul of legal or public relations pressures.

Ms. Miller says she works closely with a corporate communications staffer to determine what can be posted on the blog, and what needs to remain confidential or presented first to the media.