As a recruiter looking to return to a corporate environment, you owe it to yourself to first try and find an organization that you can learn from. By looking for a company that offers more than just a pay check, you ensure that your skills will remain sharp, and that your interest will remain engaged well after your peers have gotten bored of their roles.

Times are interesting at the moment. Most companies are thinking of the future now, but are unsure of what to do. The economy is going to turn around…some argue it already has…and the talent pool that is currently HUGE, will quickly disappear. The firms that are left behind are going to be stuck with a major shortage.

The forward thinking organizations are planning ahead, are ramping up slowly, or are putting a recruitment practice in place. With so much recruitment talent currently unemployed, companies are building their in-house recruitment teams to fill roles that they would have previously farmed out. So, if you are a recruiter looking for work, I recommend that you look carefully.

There are 3 main criteria you need to look at when assessing your next employer.

1. People – corporate culture, and the culture/skills/drive of the team you would be working with.

2. Process – a well run recruitment process ensures that best practices are employed, performance is properly managed, and more importantly, rewarded (you can reward what you can track).

3. Technology – the more advanced the Technology the more organized the workflow.

I have found that while most organizations employ a different mix of the 3, very few (if any) are really strong in all three. A team of high potential tends to employ a weak technology or process, while a process oriented organization can afford a “weaker” culture, and/or technology.

It is hard to find the perfect balance, and each organization is different, but when assessing a corporate recruitment organization or function these are the 3 criteria you should judge their effectiveness on.