If recruitment had its own "calendar" or "zodiac" like many cultures do then the year 2007 should be known, among recruiters at least, as "The Year of the Blog."

Two contests this year attempted to decide which blogs are worthy of being on the top of your list. With so many new and high quality recruitment blogs the only clear winner is the recruiter seeking to stay up to date and broaden their horizons.

RecruitingBlogs.com Best Recruiting Blogs of 2007

This contest, sponsored by www.Zoominfo.com and organized by Jason Davis of Recruiting.com fame now living over at http://www.recruitingblogs.com/, chose to highlight one overall blog but also categorize them under some very useful headings to make it easy for readers to "discover" new interests.

In this contest the big prize went to Dave Mendoza's "Six Degrees From Dave" for Best Overall Recruiting Blog (Prize - Trip to Vegas Thanks to Zoominfo). Dave also won HireAbility's Best Recruitment Blog Award. 

This Double Whammy is very much deserved as Dave's blog has continued to mature and improve greatly over time, for many becoming a principal destination to get hard hitting information on topics such as International Recruiting and Social Networking. Dave gives generously of his time as he profiles industry leaders, revealing the soft, vulnerable and very human underside to online personalities many of us knew only superficially through their LinkedIn profiles or their blogs.

I am lucky to count most of the other winners among my friends, so it pleases me greatly to see them honored in this way. Few people really understand the courage and dedication it takes for an author to reveal themselves so openly as these good people do online almost daily. Their contributions are invaluable and seldom rewarded. I understand that for those of us who blog the reward is mostly internal, satisfying a need to share and perhaps some deep-seated altruism, but still, it warms my heart that their hard work is recognized. Who are they?

Notably, Recruiting Animal took the award for Best Recruiting Blogosphere Personality. Donato Diorio from I, Donato, tooks Best Recruiting Technology Blog.  Dennis Smith won Best Corporate Recruiting Blog with http://www.wirelessjobs.com/, Joel "The Big Cheese" Cheezman won Best Group Blog with www.cheezhead.com/xtra and Gautam Ghosh takes Best HR Blog. 

I'm also deeply honored that gentle readers and voters nominated and selected me for two awards. HireAbility singled me out as Best Recruiting Website and RecruitingBlogs.com chose me as Best Sourcing/Research Blog. Having been "at this" since 2004 (not counting the early days, before the turn of the century and well before blogs when I published a free sourcing tips newsletter) I have to say it has become a way of life, a labor of love, more than anything else, so winning awards just fuels me. Thank you to everyone who voted!

View the full RecruitingBlogs announcement here.

In my humble opinion these are not the only blogs you should be reading. While this short list of winners is a great start, I have assembled a list of great blogs that would make great additions to your weekly reading list. You can see that list right here on this page, to the left of this posting, under the heading Blog Roll.

• Or you can get a daily digest of my favorites right here
• And even subscribe to it as an RSS feed!
• And if you are a blogger, or thinking about it, here's my list of useful articles about blogging.