Rejoining Your Old Employer

Published March 24th, 2008

With the increase in job opportunities and competition, companies are hardly guaranteeing lifetime careers - even if they are willing to offer them. Employees, in order to stay the master of their careers, are exploring new job possibilities every day. They hardly wait for promotions to be handed to them.

In some cases when an employee quits a job, he or she may maintain a good relationship with the former employer. In such cases, situations may change later on and the person feels like rejoining the previous employer because the slogan “the grass is always greener on the other side” is not always true. In addition, your previous employer may have grown in size and can now offer you a better position than the one you left.

Your decision to go back to your old company depends a lot on how you would like to differentiate a career move. If you have finally decided to rejoin your old company, there are few things you need to be careful about.

Reflection

You need to reflect on when you left the job and whether the decision was due to personal or professional reasons. If it was some personal reason like commitments at home or ill health, then there should be no issues in rejoining because you were comfortable working there.

Most companies will help you find a position that will allow for you to implement the experience and skills you honed in time. However, if your decision to quit the job was professional, you need to do some serious thinking. Take a look at the following checklist of key issues to consider:

-As far as reasons for leaving the company are concerned, maybe you were so stressed out that you needed a change in your workplace with more room for growth. If your old company has increased the staff and created posts that match the credentials you have, then it is not be a bad idea to rejoin.

-The progress of the old company is also important, and you need to make sure that it has grown according to the changes that are taking place in the industry. If there are no changes as such, then it means that the firm is not progressive and there will be no personal or professional growth for you.

-The kind of response that you got from the management when you were leaving also counts considerably. It matters a lot whether you left on good terms or not and whether the company can offer you a post now that will help you grow professionally.

-Consistency in your career path is another factor to be considered if you are planning to rejoin your old employer because when you left the job, you must have had a vision of how you wanted your career to change its shape. You must have made some plans about moving ahead in your career. Before you return to your previous employer, analyze whether it will be in accordance with the vision you had for your future or how this new career path may change or improve upon your vision.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

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