Use Cases: Talent Acquisition

Boomerang hiring, built on your alumni network

Alumni and referrals are the #1 and #3 sources of quality hires.

Boomerang hires stay 44% longer and can be hired up to 50% faster than external hires. EnterpriseAlumni turns that into a repeatable channel – a live pool of former employees, their referrals, and the return-to-work talent your standard funnel cannot reach.

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An engaged alumni network gives you direct access to boomerang hires and boosts your referral rate

An alumni program lets you tap into your alumni and their contacts, saving you money on recruitment costs and guaranteeing you a better quality of candidate.

3 ways an engaged alumni program improves recruitment 

Boomerangs

Boomerangs reach productivity faster, stay longer, and cost less to source than external hires – up to 50% reduction in cost-per-hire and 44% higher three-year retention (EnterpriseAlumni research). An active alumni network turns boomerang hiring into a repeatable channel.

Warm referrals

Alumni know who belongs in your business. Their referrals arrive pre-vetted on culture, skills and trajectory – cutting sourcing time and lifting first-year retention. Leading programs source around 20% of annual hires through alumni and their networks.

Hard-to-fill roles

When the standard funnel runs dry on niche roles – clinical specialists, partner-track lawyers, cleared engineers, senior returners – your alumni network is where unconventional pipelines open. People your ATS won't surface, but who already know how you work, your systems, and your culture.

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Program Value

How much could you save with the right alumni program?

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Fueling Talent Ecosystems with Corporate Alumni Networks

The Josh Bersin Company's report on the value, leading practices and ROI of a modern corporate alumni network.

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Building an alumni program for talent acquisition

A Pre-Qualified Talent Pool

Groups, lists and a personalized feed let you target specific alumni based on employment history and their interactions within the network. Reach them directly with job listings and events as roles open.

Personalized Job Recommendations

A recommendations engine helps alumni find roles that match their skills and experience. One-click apply ensures they are not lost during the application process.

Rich Applicant Information

Search over 80 default fields across your alumni network to find talent with exactly the skills you need, when you need them – without paying a head-hunter.

Up to Date Profiles

Data enrichment keeps alumni profiles current and searchable. AI-driven job matching surfaces suitable candidates for openings based on their most recent data.

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Janet Mertens

Industry perspective

“"Companies who are employing practices like finding talent that are boomerang or alumni talent: it's really making a material difference not just on the HR metrics that we measure, but also on the business itself. We are seeing that companies who get this right are miles ahead of their peers."

Janet Mertens The Josh Bersin Company

More for HR teams 

Why Have an Alumni Program?

Why Have an Alumni Program?

The former Managing Director in Citibank’s Corporate and Investment Bank shares his experiences building the company’s EMEA alumni program.

Read Post
What Is a Boomerang Employee?

What Is a Boomerang Employee?

A Boomerang Employee is someone who returns to work for a former employer. Hiring boomerangs brings improvements ranging from a better company culture to ROI.

Read Post
The Guide to Boomerang Hire Success

The Guide to Boomerang Hire Success

Learn how to build a boomerang hire strategy for your business that helps you rehire top talent faster, cheaper, and with better retention.

Read Post

Frequently Asked Questions

Your alumni are your fastest, most pre-qualified talent pool. Boomerang rehires cost less to source, reach productivity faster, and stay longer than external hires – and alumni referrals consistently outperform every other channel on quality.

Taken together, an active alumni network directly improves the metrics talent leaders are measured on: cost-per-hire, time-to-fill, quality of hire and retention. 

A platform turns a dispersed alumni network into a searchable, always-current talent pool. You can filter by skills, experience and location, run targeted campaigns against live roles, and see in real time who is open to returning. It also captures the data that talent leaders need to prove the savings being made against agency fees and external recruitment spend.

Making your community alumni-centric is key to growing and engaging it successfully!

Offer a personalized newsfeed, exclusive perks, and actively support their careers with networking events, learning opportunities, targeted job listings, and tools to help them grow professionally.

Boomerangs typically cost up to 50% less to source than external hires – no agency fees, and most first-round screening already done (IDC research). They stay longer, too: 44% higher three-year retention than comparable external hires. Alumni referrals perform similarly on quality, at a fraction of the cost of paid sourcing. 

aster than any other source of hire. Boomerangs know your systems, your culture and your people; the ramp-up is partial at worst. Northwell Health reported a boomerang cardiac nurse reaching full productivity almost immediately, versus a 14-week ramp for an equivalent external hire – a ratio that holds, at varying magnitudes, across functions.

We prioritize security and data privacy with a dedicated team ensuring compliance with the highest standards, including SOC 2 Type 2, CyberEssentials+, and ISO/IEC 27001. Our robust Information Security Management System (ISMS) protects your data and reinforces our commitment to unparalleled security.

A dedicated alumni community manager makes a big difference to program success. They can drive engagement, foster relationships and significantly enhance the user experience. They can also actively identify opportunities and connect your alumni with relevant resources.

Perhaps you don’t have the time or internal resource? Our Managed Services brings together the most experienced alumni managers in the industry to grow, engage and run your network for you.