In case you haven't noticed, the hiring freeze that seemed to overtake the our nation over the last 14 months is thawing, just in time for Spring.

Here are a few of the articles that I've noticed in the past few days that suggest it's time for you to pay attention and get your act together because it's going to be time for you to start RECRUITING instead of ABSORBING...soon.

• Upstaged by Younger Rivals, Google aims to Get Hip again [LINK]
• Demand for Programmers has returned and Start-Ups are out of luck [LINK]
• Microsoft is spending 10x that of Apple to Recruit and still struggles [LINK]
• There are more than 1,000 Job Postings with the word "Java" in them on Monster [LINK]
• The same keyword results in >8,000 on CareerBuilder [LINK]

The next BLS survey isn't due until February 4, 2011 but the statistics will continue to hold true, while there is a nationwide unemployment rate of between 9-10%, the unemployment rate for college graduates is around 5% and about 2% for married college graduates.

It's time to get your game faces on or you're going to be forced into hiring people in the very bottom of the barrel.

And if you haven't checked it out GlassDoor yet, you should.  Your current and former employees are talking.

You've been warned.