I've seen it once in my entire career. It worked out well for everyone involved, but it seems really rare to me.
Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
41–48 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#42Seen it.
Did it myself. Laid off with a large group.
Attempted a start up.
Then someone who wasn't laid off called with an interesting new project, so I went back. Then I was laid off again, along with the person who had called me back.
Not going back for a third time...
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#43At a former employer, the running gag when someone was leaving was: See you in two years.
So yes, it happens more often than you'd think.
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#44I did. Best thing I ever did. Was hired back with 25% more pay. After switching I realized the job I had was a very rare “not a web app with a database” and I wanted back to my old gig with actual interesting problems.
Just out of curiosity, what made you decide to leave in the first place?
I moved to a different, much more expensive city. Maybe could have asked to be allowed to work remotely, but I couldn't ask to be able to work remotely and get a 25% raise. But was asked to rejoin remotely and then I could of course ask to be paid competitively where I was living.
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#45I've done it myself. I was with a small company for about six years. Over time, the focus of the company shifted away from what I was originally hired for, and it took me over a year to realise I was bored out of my brain.
Resigned and went freelancing. Remained on good terms and did the occasional small bit of work for them. About six years later the company focus swung back and they approached me with a, "We need to redesign our entire tool-chain and reckon it will take about two years, are you interested?"
I was, so said, "I might as well come back full time for that," and that was over six years ago now. They keep finding more stuff for me to do as technology bases are an ever moving target.
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#46I've seen it before several times. I've also seem people leave, then change their mind later and (sadly) not be able to come back.
What's much more common to me is people from two organizations collaborating on a project and people leave one side and appear on the other.
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#47It happens sometimes for any number of reasons. At GE people wrote 'see you soon! :)' on a co-worker's retirement card because retirees typically would return as a contractor doing the exact same job. Perhaps less common, Larry David rage quit his writing job at SNL on Saturday and returned to the office Monday like nothing happened [0]. [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/larry-david-re-enact...
the retire and come back as contractor is one of the problems with defined benefit (i.e. pension) plans vs defined contributions. there's no real point in doing that if its defined contributions (its your money). In a defined benefit, it only becomes yours upon actually leaving employment and hence you have these gimics. happens in govt too.
Re: Ask HN: How common is it for people to come back to a previous employer?
#48I have seen this good number of times. Few examples.
1) The employee leaves company. On first day, at other job figured that this is not the job profile he had expected. Calls back old manager. Old manager was more than happy and this person comes back as same positions.
2) A second level manager leaves company, joined back after 6 months as higher level manager. Salary increase was almost 25% than earlier.
3) Couple of women left after pregnancy as the maternity leave was not enough. Came back after things settled.
4) Couple of employees from India left the job. Went to US for study. After completing the study joined the same company in US.