Learn how to build a boomerang hire strategy for your business that helps you rehire top talent faster, cheaper, and with better retention.
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The workforce is more mobile than ever. With career paths shifting, former employees often return with new skills, broader experience, and a renewed connection to your business. These are boomerang hires—returning employees who already understand your culture, can onboard faster, and often stay longer.
In this guide, we explore how to develop a strategy for rehiring former employees and why doing so provides your business with a competitive edge.
A boomerang hire is the term used to describe a person who returns to work for a former employer. In a sense, they “boomerang” back to their old place of work.
This could happen after the person:
As the idea of a “job for life” disappeared, companies focused on how they could retain their best talent while managing out those they felt weren’t going any further within the business.
However, this inevitably resulted in good talent leaving and being hired by competitors.
It also saw heavy recruitment fees to constantly bring in new talent to the business when a fresh set of skills or experience was required. This is where the concept of the boomerang hire comes in.
Rather than losing a good employee for life when they leave your company, boomerang hires allow you to bring back talent with the extra experience and industry knowledge they’ve acquired from working outside of your organization.
This brings many benefits to businesses.
Boomerang hires combine the fresh energy and skills of a new hire with the company knowledge of a seasoned employee. Better yet, rehired employees bed in quickly – they have existing relationships, are aware of policies and the work culture, and this cuts the time to productivity. They also have a 44% higher retention rate over three years than stranger hires.
From job postings to interviewing candidates, recruitment is expensive and resource-intensive. On average, boomerang hires can save an employer up to two thirds on traditional recruitment costs, and this can be even higher if you’re accessing these former employees through an alumni network.
Today’s career paths are rarely linear. American adults hold an average of 12 jobs by the age of 55, and nearly half (46%) are actively considering a job change in the coming year. Professionals regularly move between roles, companies, and even industries – not out of disloyalty, but as part of intentional growth.
Boomerang hiring embraces this shift. Rather than viewing departures as permanent losses, companies can see them as part of an evolving, long-term career journey. By keeping the door open to returning employees, businesses stay aligned with modern career expectations and retain access to proven talent who come back richer in experience.
Boomerang hires have been boosted by the rise of the gig economy. As companies bring more and more employees in for “tours of duty”, having a seasoned workforce who can get up to speed quickly and already know the processes of the business makes sense.
At EnterpriseAlumni we see our customers using this approach with their alumni community. Our retail customers, for example, know they have seasons where they are busier and require more support. Traditionally this has resulted in them having to hire a new cohort of staff each year, spend money recruiting and training them, all the while hoping that they will be able to do the job to the standard expected.
By utilizing their alumni networks, however, they have created a pool of staff who already know the business and the roles. Rather than simply letting seasonal staff go when the busy period has finished, they add them to their alumni network and use them as their first port of call when they need to boost their workforce again.
Just because a boomerang hire already knows your business doesn’t mean that you can ignore the onboarding process. To set your boomerang hire up for success you should onboard them as you would a stranger hire.
While they might feel like they know the business inside and out, there will be processes and people who have changed since they last worked there. Therefore it’s important to take the time to create a structured onboarding process.
Here's a framework for successfully onboarding a boomerang hire.
Just as you would with a stranger hire, make sure their personal information is up to date. You might also want to take this opportunity to add them to your alumni network (if they’re not already a member).
They will probably already have a good understanding of the company culture and practices, but ensure they’re aware of any key changes that have occurred since their departure. Often, when a boomerang is rehired, employers assume they will know exactly how the business works. Then, when things have changed and the boomerang gets something wrong, both sides can be disappointed. Get in front of this from the start by not assuming your boomerang knows everything.
A boomerang might already have good contacts within the business, but if they’re returning to a new team or a different department, they will still need the same introductions as a new hire. Remember, many of the current employees will not know who this person is!
It can be easy to assume that a boomerang will slot back into the organization instantly. While we know that their time to productivity is quicker than that of a stranger hire, this doesn’t mean they won’t need some guidance on the key metrics for their new role. Get these agreed up front and watch your boomerang fly!
How to use your alumni network to find boomerang hires
An engaged alumni network can be a big driver of boomerang hires. To make sure you’re maximizing the value of your alumni network you need to have a clear rehiring strategy. This should include:
The more connected your alumni feel to the business, the more likely they are to return to it as a boomerang hire. If you only contact them when you’re looking to hire, you won’t see the best response rate. Instead, create a regular communication plan.
Keep them updated on the business’s success, offer them perks and promotions, and give them opportunities to engage with their former colleagues. All of this will remind your alumni of the benefits of working for you and increase your chances of bringing them back.
Rather than alerting your alumni network to every job you have going, make sure the platform you’re using allows you to segment and search the data. This will allow you to match the right job to the right person. A generic job email won’t see a strong response. An email to a specific person, advertising a job that exactly meets their experience, will do much better.
An alumni network can provide you with both boomerang hires and referrals. Your alumni might not be right for the job you’re recruiting for, but they might know someone who is. It’s not a direct “boomerang hire,” but it's also not a total stranger hire. Your alumni know the culture of your business better than a recruitment consultant and are likely to recommend people who will be a good fit.
Rehiring former employees starts with knowing where they are, what they’re doing, and how to engage them at the right time. That’s where EnterpriseAlumni helps leading companies turn former employees into their most valuable hires.
Our platform delivers cutting-edge features, including:
Your alumni network is an untapped source of boomerang hires. Read more about how with the right platform you can make the most of this resource and hire back your best talent now.
