When you left your job and company eighteen months ago, you thought you’d found a better job. It didn’t pan out.
Now you’re considering returning to your former employer; they’re actively recruiting you, and the deal sounds sweet.
If you find yourself in this situation, you’re one of millions. Workforce surveys reveal that approximately 35% of new hires in 2025 were returning employees—the highest level ever tracked, https://www.adpresearch.com/boomerang-hiring-makes-a-comeback/. In some industries, especially tech, the numbers climb even higher, with nearly two-thirds of hires coming from former employees, https://blog.theinterviewguys.com/the-boomerang-boom/. Further, many returning employees negotiate 25-28% salary increases, https://blog.theinterviewguys.com/the-boomerang-boom/.
Why employers love boomerang employees
Many employers actively recruit former employees. Boomerang employees ramp up faster. They already know the systems, the politics, and who not to CC on email chains. As known quantities, they offer employees less hiring risk, and better retention—some studies show up to 44% higher retention the second time around, https://www.megaforce.com/2021/12/29/happy-returns-the-benefits-of-rehiring-boomerang-employees/.
Because employers often treat the return of a former employee like a strategic win, boomerang employees often walk in expecting a hero’s welcome or at least a homecoming. They’ve flung themselves into the great unknown, only to arc right back to their old desks and coworkers.
Here’s where things go sideways
Boomerang employees face risks many don’t see coming. Let me give you two quick snapshots.
Employee one left his employer in late 2024 for a “stretch role” at another company. When he returned eighteen months later, armed with new skills, he expected to pick up where he left off, only sharper and more valuable. Instead, his former peers had absorbed his responsibilities and grown into them. They didn’t see him as “returning talent;” they saw him as competition. He didn’t get a hero’s welcome; instead, he returned to a reshuffled power map.
Employee two returned filled with nostalgia. She’d missed the former employer’s culture, her coworkers, and the way things worked. Within weeks, she remembered the things that made her leave a year earlier. Those same frustrations resurfaced, now layered with a quiet question from coworkers: “Why should we trust you won’t leave again?”
What boomerangs need to think through.
So, before you say “yes” to returning, get clear-eyed about what you’re walking into.
Nothing stood still while you were gone. Your role evolved. Your team shifted. Informal alliances formed and hardened. You’re not stepping back into your old seat; you’re entering a moving system with new dynamics. Don’t expect things to feel like they used to. It’s a brand-new set of relationships.
Loyalty questions are real, even if unspoken. Fair or not, your supervisor and some colleagues will wonder: Are you committed this time? You need to earn trust again.
The “why you left” problem doesn’t magically disappear. If you left because of culture, leadership, or burnout, these factors likely exist.
Meanwhile, employers hiring boomerangs face risks as well. Rehiring someone who left for unresolved reasons can recreate the same problems. Internal resentment can flare, especially if returning employees come back at higher pay or with expanded roles.
So, should you boomerang?
Go back if you’re returning to a different opportunity, not just familiar territory. Look for real changes: scope leadership, flexibility, compensation, influence.
Pause if you’re reacting to a bad situation elsewhere rather than choosing a better one.
Be careful if your main reason is “at least I know what I’m getting.” Because you don’t. Not anymore.
If you decide to return, treat it like a new job, because it is. Have explicit conversations about expectations. Clarify what’s changed and what hasn’t.
Most importantly, drop the idea you’re “coming home.” You’re not. You’re entering a new version of an old relationship. And, like any relationship, it only works if both like what they find.
© 2026 Lynne Curry, PhD, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
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Frankly, boomerang employees do not impress me. They left because they didn’t like some things about their job or their work environment and went to another employer, another job. Now, they’ve decided they didn’t like that other employer or job and want to come back. In a friend/romantic relationship, I would be disinclined to accept them back or would see them only in a very limited way, because THEY AREN’T TRUSTWORTHY. And they’re fickle. I don’t need this in my life and have had way too much of it already.
In a work situation, the employer should be frank about what’s changed and what role the boomerang employee would be going into, making it clear that it isn’t a return to their old job. Expectations of the new employee and the need to demonstrate commitment should also be discussed.