This is today's blog post on Cheezhead.com.

While it is the end of the year and it is natural for us to look at the calendar year ahead, I believe a few things are important in the recruitment process. First are my comments that are directly related to the blog post.

The big take away for me is the fact that recruiting must be a collaborative conversation between recruiters, hiring managers and candidates. The most important part of the conversation is that it must be as transparent as possible for all parties. Keeping the communication open means that no party will be dealt a surprise.

With respect to agency and vendor usage, I believe we need to demand more from them if they want to continue to support our efforts. In my mind, the ATS is currently being used as a job posting machine and a resume repository. What they should be used for are a means to document all conversations and activities of a candidate. This allows for a more effective recruitment process.

Additionally, the entire recruitment process needs to be aligned with the strategic objectives of the company and fully support the mission statement. Managers should be evaluated, at least in small part, on their adherence of all recruitment objectives and held accountable for long recruitment cycles. It is not a function that is passed off to the recruitment team. It is a collaboration and partnership between two functional areas of an organization.

Now I believe that the recruitment department, and all departments for that matter, should always seek ways to improve their processes. It is not necessary to wait for the calendar to flip to make, or thing of, changes. All to often we wait for glitches in the system to make changes (we need only look at our current economy to see that on a macro level). If we are proactive in our approach and seek to stay ahead of issues we will continue to be more and more transparent in what we do. I believe the key to successful recruitment is increasing the level of transparency and allowing the candidate to see there is to know about our organizations. This will make them more comfortable and allow us to see more of them.

Let's get beyond the resume and interview process and make it a real conversation. We will make better choices as a result.