Who is a Boomerang Employee? 4 Recruitment Best Practices for Boomerang Hiring

January 19, 2023

Recruiters are constantly looking for ways to attract and retain top employees. However, the fast-paced environment with easy job switching made recruiters' jobs difficult. People are leaving their jobs to join competing companies or to switch their job profiles and industry completely. With millions of reasons to leave the job, recruiters must regularly and proactively look out for candidates to fill vacant roles.

But what if the old employee comes back to join the organization again? What if they apply for the same or a different job profile in the same company? Alternatively, what about the recruiters reaching out to them after a while, and they agree to join back?

In many situations, especially due to rising recessions, employees are coming back to their former companies. These employees are known as boomerang employees, the ones to leave and join back in the same company after a while.

But should recruiters take them back? What is the guarantee they won't leave again? Does the hiring process for boomerang employees remain the same?

Today we will discuss the concept of boomerang employees and all factors recruiters should consider before hiring them.

Who are the Boomerang Employees?

Boomerang Employees are the employees that leave the organization and join back after some time. They might leave the job for personal or professional reasons, work elsewhere, or upskill and join the former company again. Alternately, recruiters approach these employees with better offers to welcome them again in the future.

But why do they leave in the first place?

Employees might leave the company for various reasons, such as upskilling or career advancement in the form of research or better opportunities. They could have been offered better job benefits elsewhere, luring them to shift to a new company.

Contrarily, they might spend time exploring a new industry altogether or pursuing some passion. In certain cases, employees have personal reasons for leaving, like spouse relocation, taking care of medical severities, family responsibilities, etc. The reasons are endless!

Now, the next question is- why do boomerang employees come back?

These employees return to the former company when they find the old job more content or can not capitalize on the opportunity presented. Oftentimes, the employees do not resonate with the new company culture or their decision to leave.

Hence, these employees return to their old position. Alternatively, recruiters reach out to these employees to fill the vacant position. Also, the employees find it comforting to work at a known place. Additionally, the rising recession is among the reasons for employees joining back.

But why would recruiters rehire employees who left the organization themselves in the first place?

7 Boomerang Employee Benefits

It is easier and more beneficial to rehire boomerang employees. They are dissatisfied with their new job and are contemplating the resignation decision, making it easier to entice and hire them. Moreover, these employees have worked in the company and are familiar with its values, cultures, and environment, making it favorable for recruiters to take them back. It reduces hiring costs and the hassle of getting new employees on board.

So, rehiring an old employee isn’t that bad of a deal, is it?

Here are 7 benefits of hiring boomerang employees that make about 56% of employers prioritize the boomerang employees.

Reduce Resource Wastage- Rehiring boomerang employees saves companies resources on training and onboarding. Employees spend less time on training as they are familiar with the company culture and job requirements. Moreover, companies save on past training costs. Managers can focus on critical tasks without having to mentor them at each stage. They are familiar with the employees and set realistic performance to lower any chances of a bad hire.

Seamless Onboarding- Boomerang employees have worked for some time in the company and are familiar with the company culture and work. It helps the recruiters to seamlessly onboard these employees without spending a lot on training and orientation programs. The transition process is easy, and employees can start working almost immediately. The familiarity with the company makes recruiters' jobs easy and the onboarding process effortless.

Less Recruiting Cost- Recruiters spend a lot of money to source, engage, and hire people to fill vacant jobs. This includes costs related to marketing, assessment, training, onboarding, and other expenses until the employee starts to be useful for the company. When recruiters hire an old employee again, it saves all the marketing and hiring-related costs. A recruiter can save ⅓-⅔ hiring costs by rehiring boomerang employees.

Improved Employer Brand- The employer brand is how employees, job applicants, and other stakeholders perceive a company's working culture. When an employee leaves the company, it does impact the employer brand depending upon the reason for leaving. Moreover, if the company has high resignations, it gives a negative impression of the working environment. So, when an old employee joins the company, the employer gets a chance to take pride in the working culture and environment. It shows that the employees enjoy the working space provided, which is a good sign for new job applicants. Overall, it boosts the employer's brand.

Employees With Competitive Edge- Boomerang employees provide an edge over other job applicants. Firstly, they are familiar with the company culture and norms. Secondly, many employees leave jobs for upskilling, which means the recruiters can hire a loyal person with a new skill set or applied knowledge. Moreover, these employees bring a new outlook to the firm, whether they worked in a different company or industry or spent time upskilling.

More Social Capital- Every employee that leaves the firm for a while grows his/ her network further. This could be in the form of connections within the same or different industries or new mentors. In the nutshell, a company gets access to a wider social capital with every boomerang employee. Companies can capitalize on these people to grow their sales, collaboration, or any other form of partnership. It opens the door for various collaborative opportunities to grow the business.

Enhanced Employee Satisfaction- Employee satisfaction is crucial for a company to grow its team size with talented people. So when companies enable the employees to leave for upskilling and join back, it leads to better relationships and enhanced employee fulfillment.

Employee commitment increases, and they are more productive. They get the chance to tap into their interests and pay back to the company with their new skill set. Moreover, if the employee left for personal reasons, giving them a chance to rejoin the firm leads to better relationships. Recruiters should have no hard bridges with past employees.

Overall, Boomerang employees are more satisfied and committed than new hires and more likely to receive a promotion. All these benefits make them a better choice compared to new hires or job applicants. However, an employee who left the organization once can leave again. So, how do recruiters ensure that a particular employee should be rehired or not?

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6 Things to Consider Before Rehiring Boomerang Employees

Before recruiters make space for a boomerang employee, they need to consider certain factors. These factors will clarify the recruiters regarding employees’ motivation points and if they will be a better choice compared to a new hire.

Reason for Leaving- Recruiters must know why the employee left the company the first time. Was it for more money/ perks or upskilling, or diving into a new industry? The chances they might leave again are linked to the reason for leaving for the first time. Recruiters shall discuss the reason for the previous resignation in the interview. The main question is how did the employee spend the time post-resignation? Is the experience that they gained during the period useful to the company? These will help recruiters know about employees' motivation points and gauge their loyalty.

Motivation for joining- What made the employee return to the company? Is it because of a familiar culture? Is it the recession? Is it because they didn't enjoy working at another company? Identifying the employee's motivation enables the recruiter to understand employee needs.It will clarify whether the employee will be loyal or leave if a better opportunity arises. Moreover, recruiters can provide a better working experience and opportunity if they better understand employee needs. Nonetheless, it's crucial to be mindful of the needs of current employees, old employees, or even job applicants.

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Past Performance- How did the past employee performs in the organization? Did they add value to the job, or did the bare minimum? Were they motivated and driven to give their 100 percent, or had multiple delays and a lack of a sense of responsibility? A clear idea of the boomerang employees' past performance will help recruiters set explicit expectations without ambiguity. Moreover, they will have a true picture of how they will fit in the organization and if they will be worthwhile to the company.

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Advanced Skills- How is a boomerang employee better than a new hire? Is s/he bringing a new skill set to the firm? Do they bring useful social capital, which might help the company network and grow? What separates s/he from the other job applicants, and why should they be given a preference? Familiarity with the company's work environment and culture is not enough reason to welcome an old employee. They should set themselves apart from new hires in some way which could be experience, network, or new skills. Even if they were in a different industry, they bring new perspectives and collaboration opportunities. The recruiters must understand the true value of the boomerang employee before rehiring them.

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Unresolved Issues- Did this past worker have any unresolved issues? These issues could be internal with the team, manager, or management or external with people in the industry. If there are any bridges with coworkers or management, the team will not be able to welcome them completely.

This might end up in work politics and hamper the work culture and harmony amongst the teams and other employees. They will not collaborate effectively leading to poor performance from the boomerang employee and other people in the organization.

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Employees' Future Goals- What are the employee's future goals? Do they align with the company's mission and vision? No matter for what reason did the employee leave the company, if s/he doesn't resonate with the company mission, they will not be able to blend in well with the company culture.

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Recruiters must understand that alignment with the company's vision is the best way to attract and retain top talents. So, recruiters should understand and try to bring employees' future goals and the company's vision closer.

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The key is to openly discuss with the boomerang employees regarding these factors which give recruiters clarity about employees’ needs and motivations for the job. They can effectively capitalize on this information to hire the right people. Not every boomerang hire is favorable for the firm. Recruiters must critically evaluate their worthiness with proper review and discussion.

Boomerang Employee - Pros and Cons

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Pros of Boomerang Employees

Improved employee morale
Reduced training expense
Eliminate resource wastage
Enhanced network + sales
More loyalty and productivity
New outlook
Faster onboarding
Boost employer brand
Familiarity with workplace

Cons of Boomerang Employees

Workplace tension
Risk of leaving
Lack of commitment
Overlooking benefits of new hires
Increased resistance to change
Resentment from current employees
Difficult to negotiate

4 Tips To Seamlessly Rehire Boomerang Employees

Now that you have decided on hiring boomerang employees, here are some tips to help you retain the top talent for your company. With these 4 recruitment best practices, recruiters can seamlessly rehire boomerang employees.

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Build Alumni Community- Alumni employees can be of great value to a company if they don't have hard bridges with the management or overall firm. They are familiar with the company culture and work environment. This means that they might or might not join the team again, but networking and collaboration opportunities can be beneficial. Recruiters must keep healthy relationships with previous employees via some application or company website. This can be useful for sharing company updates and other valuable resources. Recruiters can also get referrals to boost sales, collaborations, networks, and partnerships.

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Treat them like new hires- Even though boomerang employees might be the old employees joining back, the recruiters must treat them like new hires. This concerns a proper onboarding process and relevant training since they left the firm. Whether an old or boomerang employee, each needs to be positively recognized. The longer the employee has been away from the firm, the more the need for a revised onboarding process. If the employee left a few months back, they might just need to get through any changes in the onboarding process.

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Use HR Tech- Recruiters often do not understand the importance of tools and applications in hiring. They work around the standard tech stack that every company uses without understanding their functionality and the scope of enhancement. Recruiters must use the right tools for monitoring past employees and engaging and sustaining with them to extract value. This includes tools for recording all the relevant employee data and engaging with them from time to time.

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Enhance Work Culture- One of the recruiters' best practices for rehiring the Boomerang employees is to provide a pleasant work environment and experience. Recruiters must incorporate flexibility to accommodate employee needs and prioritize employee well-being. When the overall work culture of the firm is improved, the employees are loyal and motivated to work dedicatedly. With these tips in mind and considering the factors mentioned in the previous section, recruiters can seamlessly rehire the boomerang employees. It might be easy and quick to rehire an old employee. Still, a recruiter must do a proper background check and openly discuss employee needs and motivations to avoid employee turnover.

Hiring Made Easy With Nurturebox!

It is not easy to attract and rehire a boomerang employee. It requires consistent effort on the recruiters' end to get them back to the organization. They must actively maintain a healthy relationship with them and provide a pleasant working environment. It all boils down to engaging with alumni employees and maintaining their interest in the company.

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Nurturebox is a talent relationship management tool that is one true source of recording and managing data of all current, past, and boomerang employees. It helps to engage with the candidates with targeted email sequences and enhance candidate engagement. So, instead of doing administrative work like reconciling and analyzing past data, recruiters can focus on assessing the capabilities of the candidates.

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Amidst today’s noisy digital world, brands find it challenging to create meaningful connections with their customer base and target audience. Getting the target consumer’s attention and persuading them to buy from you gets even trickier. Hence, content marketing has become more crucial than ever for brands to attract, educate, and retain customers.

Content creation is a top priority for 80% of marketers, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be. Consistent, high-quality, and engaging content impacts your audience’s decisions through education and persuasion.

Depending on your business goals and requirements, the role of Content Marketers you hire will vary. The primary responsibilities revolve around forming consistent brand messaging and deciding upon a unique and identifiable voice, style, and pitch across various distribution channels.

From raising brand awareness to attracting a relevant audience to your website, boosting social media presence and engagement, generating leads, and building brand loyalty – content marketing drives all the growth efforts for your brand. When done effectively, it can help you:

Build positive brand awareness
Make your audience stick around for longer
Get better traction on social media
Gain more trust of your audience than ever
Generate qualified leads
Improve conversion rates
Boost business visibility with SEO
Position your brand as an authority
Cultivate loyal brand fans

While content marketing is a broad role with numerous areas of expertise involved, it’s vital to thoroughly understand your company’s current marketing goals and the related requirements. In this blog, we will dive deep into the step-by-step approach to hiring a Content Marketer.

What is The Role of a Content Marketer?

A Content Marketer must be deeply passionate about telling your brand’s story to the world. The objective is to educate and nurture the target audience to establish brand authority using thought-leadership and drive more people to buy from you.

As a candidate is expected to be a mediator between the brand and the target audience, they are primarily responsible for planning, creating, and sharing valuable content to grow their company’s awareness and engagement to bring more business.

To be more specific, the role of a Content Marketer requires a perfect blend of creativity and attention to detail in an individual. It’s a balancing role, as they need to ensure creating content that resonates and strengthens business relationships, using strategies that position your business as authentic and problem-solving.

Take a look at the core responsibilities of a Content Marketer that most businesses expect them to take over:

Research and Competitor Analysis: The first and foremost step to creating a content marketing strategy is effective initial research. It not only helps a Content Marketer understand the nuances of the industry through competitor analysis but also study and understand the target audience thoroughly. ‍
Building Content Marketing Plans: Once the competitor research and target audience analysis is done, a Content Marketer needs to work on the different plans for all the business objectives, targeted channels, segments of the audience, and the bigger marketing strategy. A content marketing plan typically consists of:
Specific goals along with a pre-decided timeline
Various channels to be targeted for content distribution
Types of content to be created
Budget for the entire staff, outsourced services, and paid promotion (Collabs and Ads)
Creating Editorial Calendar: Creating, managing, and maintaining a content calendar is one of the most crucial responsibilities of a Content Marketer. It is a centralized visual document that enables effective collaboration among the marketing team and helps Content Marketers ensure on-time production and delivery.‍
Content Creation: Once the strategy and calendar have been approved by relevant stakeholders, Content Marketers need to do the on-ground work. This task usually depends on the scale of your company and content marketing strategy. Suppose an organization already has a set of writers, then the Content Marketer doesn’t need to create content by themselves.‍
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Producing quality content that educates your target audience and resonates with them, isn’t enough. You need to optimize your content creation to make it search engine-friendly. While most companies need a dedicated SEO specialist for keyword research and planning, Content Marketers need to closely collaborate with them and should be well-versed in the basics of SEO.

While the practices discussed above are primary responsibilities of a Content Marketer, they also need to be proactive with

Content editing and ensuring adherence to a certain style guide
Continous publishing and distributing content
Measuring and analyzing performance

How to Hire a Content Marketer: Step-By-Step?

Content marketing has become the key to driving growth for businesses. Unlike a few years ago, it’s not possible now to get away with a one-person team for content marketing. You need deeply trained individuals for specialist roles.

Let’s now dive into the step-by-step approach of hiring a Content Marketer. But before you even source your first candidate, you should have a clear expectation of the skillset and experience to look out for top content marketing candidates.

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Step 1: Create a Candidate Persona

Let’s sort out the priorities first, and decide the type of content marketing candidates you want to recruit. From exceptional research skills to storytelling, communication skills, relationship building, audience engagement, and more capabilities must be comprehensively considered. Identify and break down the skill requirements for Content Marketers:

What are the educational qualification criteria for the role?
How many years and what type of work experience do you want in candidates?
What are the specific skill sets you’re looking for?
Which industry experience would you primarily prefer?
Are there any tools your candidates should be hands-on with?
What are some personality traits that will fit your company?
Where do they look for a new job?
What are their career and life goals?

Forming a candidate persona by answering all these questions would ensure you are not shooting in the dark while sourcing candidates. Further, it helps you determine the traits of the ideal candidate, and plan your sourcing and recruitment strategy further.

Step 2: Document the Role Requirements and Decide on Your Recruiting Process

Next step is determining your role requirements suiting primarily to organizational needs and business goals. A content marketing professional is expected to own the entire content strategy, creation, and distribution. But what about your business’s unique requirements?

You might need someone comfortable with frequently creating long-form content pieces like blogs, ebooks, or whitepapers, or creating engaging video content based on your industry trends.

Talk to various relevant stakeholders for seeking the complete detailed company requirements for the role.

Before you enter the recruitment funnel, outline your talent acquisition process. Identify various strategies, channels, and other informational insights you would need – and maintain a collaborative document.

As you update the tactics and tweak your recruitment process for meeting hiring requirements optimally – keep your document up to date.

Step 3: Prepare a Content Marketing Job Description

Once you have finalized the role requirements with respect to your current content marketing goals and team, you can start sourcing candidates. Preparing the job description is the first task you’ll need to do.

Here are the necessary components you must have in your job description:

Job Title: The position you’re looking to fill. For example - Content Marketing Specialist or Content Marketing Manager.

Roles & Responsibilities: An outline of the candidate’s day-to-day activities. From ideation to implementation and the impact on the organization, everything should be covered.

Skill Requirements: Skills and abilities a candidate must have to perform the job successfully.

Perks and Benefits: The compensation details, perks of the job, and any other benefits.

About the Company: Why should a candidate consider working with your company?

Content Marketer Job Description Template

Role

The job of a Content Marketer is to perform competitor research, create user persona, and write plagiarism-free content for blog articles, social media, and the company website. They need to stay updated on the latest SEO techniques.

Responsibilities

Develop, write and deliver persuasive copy for the website, email marketing campaigns, sales collateral, videos, and blogs
Build and manage an editorial calendar; coordinate with other content crafters to ensure standards
Measure impact and perform analysis to improve KPIs
Include and optimize all content for SEO
Contribute to the localization of processes and content to ensure consistency across regions
Review and implement process changes to drive operational excellence

Requirements

Proven content marketing, copywriting, or SEO experience
Working knowledge of content management systems like WordPress
A well-maintained portfolio of published articles, blogs, copy, etc
Proven experience of working under pressure to deliver high quality output in a short span of time
Proficiency in all Microsoft Office applications, Google Suite
Fluency in English or any other required language

Soft Skills

Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Excellent writing and editing skills
The ability to work in a fast-paced environment
The ability to handle multiple projects concurrently
Strong attention to detail and the ability to multi-task projects and deliverables

Step 4: Source Candidates

Once you have the tailored job description in hand, it’s now time to do the groundwork and source candidates. Create an attractive job post to promote your job across job boards and social channels.

Begin with what to expect from the role at your company?
Why should candidates apply for the position?
Highlight the growth opportunities
State the company vision and mission
Briefly describe the recruitment process

Prepare an impactful job post and also execute paid job ad campaigns if required. The next step would be promoting your jobs on various job boards and hiring platforms. You can leverage the following platforms for hiring Content Marketers:

LinkedIn
Indeed
Instahyre
ZipRecruiter
Monster
GlassDoor
CareerBuilder

Not to forget - almost 3/4th of the workforce includes passive candidates, so you cannot miss out on passive talent sourcing as well. Reach out to qualified candidates on communities, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook to offer them suitable opportunities.

Step 5: Evaluate Candidates and Interview Shortlisted Ones

Once you have filtered candidates based on their experience and skills listed on their profile, it’s time to evaluate them deeply. Ask them to create a content strategy for your website, along with a value-adding content piece like a small blog. The topic of the article must fall within the scope of the strategy.

Interview the candidates whose profiles got shortlisted. Keep in mind the parameters covering skills, relevant experience, and personality traits of candidates.

Step 5: Make the Hire

Reach out to selected Content Marketers and communicate about the compensation.

Further, extend your offer letter to all the candidates who have been selected. In the case of passive sourcing, extend to only those who were aligned with you on the compensation and are willing to move forward.

Ensure having a deadline for the joining date and mention the necessary documents required by your recruiting team.

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Get the required documents and set up the offer agreements with candidates
Organize an orientation session for the onboarded candidates
Introduce them to the entire team and the marketing teams they will be working with
Guide the new candidates about your company management tools and communication channels
Provide candidates with forms for benefits and perks like Health Insurance.

Supercharge Your Hiring for Content Marketer with Nurturebox

Inbound candidate sourcing doesn’t work effectively anymore. Do you also find challenges in closing quality candidates through job posts even after spending on ads?

Don’t worry, passive candidate sourcing can be an optimal solution for hiring top content marketing candidates.

Nurturebox is a one-stop talent sourcing and engagement platform which is powered by automation. Here’s how you can source product managers from LinkedIn using Nurturebox:

Install the Nurturebox Chrome plugin and sign up.
On your LinkedIn profile, start sourcing Content Marketers with boolean searches stating the required experience from targeted locations and including other criteria
Add the qualified candidates to your sourcing campaign pipeline with just a click
Automate the candidate engagement through email, Whatsapp and LinkedIn direct messages for reaching out and nurturing candidates at scale.