How to be a boomerang

By JULIE MIDDLETON

1. It may sound ridiculously simple, but don't burn your bridges when you leave a job. Don't be tempted to sound off. Behave as professionally on your last day as on your first - last impressions will stick.

2. Keep in touch. You should be doing this anyway to keep your professional networks alive, advises Liz Knox, on her second stint for Wellington company Haines.

"Send e-mails once every few months to let managers know what you're doing and where you're at, and that you're still interested in the company," she says. "Even if you don't go back, it's good for networking."

Staffers may have to leave a company to work out how much what they had put behind means to them.

3. Do a reality check on your reasons for eyeing up a former employer. Is security, comfort and the devil you know driving things?

Should you be looking more widely for opportunities? Are you doing it for money?

And don't rush the decision - apply as much thought as you would for any job.

4. Know your career plans: is returning to a former employer a good dovetail with where you want to head?

Seasoned boomerang Mary Somervell, who works in education in Wellington, suggests you look at other options realistically.

"Understand where you want to head - is this a good fit?"

5. Don't go back to exactly the same job. Aim for a step up, says Kevin Gibson, a boomerang in his second stint with recruitment company Robert Walters, this time in Tokyo, as managing director.

"Make sure the job you're going back to is a step up, and that you're able to bring something back to the firm that you've developed outside."

6. Communicate to people why you are back, says Gibson.

"You can have a positive effect. It's a reaffirmation for the other people in the firm that someone's rejoined it."

7. See the return to a familiar place as a brand-new challenge. "See it as a new job," says Knox.

"And have it clear in your own mind what new skills you're bringing back."

Adds Gibson: "If you go back, think about going back for a long time. People will always second-guess when you come back. You need to agree a set of objectives when you come back."

8. Don't expect things to be the same. Team dynamics change when someone departs, possibly permanently.

"It might not be the cosy place you left," says Warren Young, a senior consultant for IT@Manpower, who has also returned to the same company twice.

9. And don't expect things to have changed. "Bear in mind that all the frustrations - and you won't remember them - won't necessarily have gone away," says Young. "Time doesn't heal all wounds, you just forget."

10. Don't let familiarity trick you into being casual if you are re-interviewed by a former boss, advises Knox. "Prepare for the interview like any other."

A wise interviewer will be making a hard appraisal of you on skills and potential value to the company long-term, not on social reasons.