Simply put, the universal and overarching strategic objectives for any talent acquisition leader can be summarized as: hire the best talent, at the least cost, in the fastest manner possible.
These days though, that’s easier said than done as talent pools continue to shrink, compensation costs are starting to rise and many industries are reporting increased time-to-hire data.
But if you’re in the midst of dealing with any of these challenges, a solution might be closer than you think. As close, in fact, as your database of former employees.
If you haven’t considered it yet, now is the time to start reaching out to high-performing employees who left your company for greener pastures. Whether called “boomerangs,” “rebounders” or “returnees,” they have already been tested, vetted, assimilated and can easily re-acclimate to your workplace, thereby minimizing the ramp-up time required by other hires.
No wonder, according to CareerBuilder, that four in 10 organizations plan to reach out to hire former employees in the coming months. When doing so, however, here are five top considerations to keep in mind:
Tip No. 1
Don’t confuse the info you may have on past employees in your datafiles with a true “alumni network.” Whereas the former will help you generate a mailing list (assuming you have collected personal contact info) the latter involves engaging positively with past employees regularly over time to create a talent community; not just for hiring individuals who worked for your organization but also to leverage their career connections for referrals to future employees and customers.
The businesses that have been best at building alumni networks – such as BCG, with 20,000 alumni globally and Deloitte with over 176,000 – have dedicated resources to building the networks and maintaining contact with alumni over time. Deloitte has even negotiated discounts for its alumni at restaurants and retailers! While that may be an extreme case of loyalty-building, know that if you want to get ahead of the curve, make the investment in a formal network now and tap into the incredible value these types of networks can offer to recruiters. But recognize that it won’t happen overnight.
Tip No. 2
Let go – and tell hiring managers to let go – of the notion that former employees were somehow traitorous, or unfaithful, by leaving. Even when people leave an organization with the utmost professional decorum and without burning a single bridge, we sometimes see a “good riddance” backlash among their peers and bosses as they depart. Former supervisors, inconvenienced by a departure or perhaps feeling as if it was a personal affront for a handpicked employee to seek opportunities elsewhere, are particularly guilty of this type of behavior.
If you want to hire boomerangs, let bygones be bygones unless, of course, the former employee actually did something illegal or unprofessional upon or after their departure. A short tenure, especially in one’s early career, is not a negative anymore, whereas spending more time in a job than it takes to master the work may actually be a sign that a person lacks drive and ambition. Remind yourself that, these days, employees (particularly Millennials) will change jobs frequently. That is the norm, not the exception. According to LinkedIn, those who graduated between 1986 and 1990 averaged more than 1.6 jobs, while people who graduated between 2006 and 2010 averaged nearly 2.85 jobs.
Tip No. 3
Related to the tip above, value the insights that former employees gained while they worked elsewhere. Placing a returning employee in nearly the same role, at roughly the same pay, isn’t likely to attract them to return. If you are, despite that, successful in landing that employee, keep him or her happy or you will forfeit the opportunity to learn and gain from his/her experiences outside of your company. While there is a tendency to remember past employees the way they were three to five years ago, put that into perspective by acknowledging how much your business and workplace have changed, advanced and developed within that same time frame . . . and move on!
Tip No. 4
Leverage exit interviews now for information related to employee departures, if available, to mine them for potential boomerang hires. For the future, make sure you’re, at a minimum, collecting current personal email addresses. If you don’t have the time or money to devote to a formal alumni site, set up a simple alumni group on social media platform, like Facebook or LinkedIn. Also ask departing employees questions about the exact reasons for their departure and gauge their receptiveness to rejoining the company as they prepare to walk out the door. You may also want to ask some aspirational questions, such as “what type of career path do you envision for the next 10 years?”
Tip No. 5
Avoid re-hiring employees who weren’t stellar performers in the first place. Re-hiring people who didn’t contribute their fair share – or who were simply not liked by their co-workers – in the first place can be potentially toxic to morale. It is a good practice to coordinate with HR when inviting transitioning employees to join alumni sites or pages and determine if they are eligible for rehire.
For years management consulting, accounting, and tax firms have fine-tuned their mastery of the art of staying connecting to their ex-employees. Initially, these alumni networks were built as a means of furthering business relationships, given that many of these professionals moved on to influential roles in corporations and became key decision makers in purchasing services from these firms.
Now, these same employers are realizing that they have a reliable, dependable and inexpensive database of potential talent, using that they are vetted and that the tips mentioned above are used as guidelines in their hiring. Some progressive firm have gone so far as to extend their employee referral program to their alums. If these top employers are leveraging their alumni to hire “boomerangs,” maybe you should too!
