The Big O…1980…I’m reminded of this song every time I hear a candidate tell me he or she wants to go back to work for people they’ve worked for before. It happens at least two or three times a month that a candidate registered with our organization contemplates this and asks us about it.

I understand people wanting to do this. They need a job! Most often, they’ve been looking for a job for a period of time and the fear of not finding one weighs heavily on their mind. They get an offer to go back to work for someone they either left or got laid off from and it looks very tempting.

The vast majority of the time when people do this, the “second go round” lasts a shorter period of time and winds up being very strenuous. It’s very much like accepting a counteroffer… the relationship is never quite the same as it was the first time.

Most often, when people go back to work for organizations they have worked for before, it doesn’t work out very well. The same reasons as to why people left the first time are normally still there. If the separation was an involuntary separation, an employee that was expendable before is certainly expendable again and everyone knows it, including the employee. So, there is an air of distrust and uncertainty in the relationship.

Candidates will often succumb to this enticement simply because they are familiar with the organization and, in a state of emotional strain, the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t know. They end up taking a job because they are at least comforted with the idea of having one.

If you’ve been out of work for an extended period of time and simply need to go to work and this is the only offer you have received, it’s better than no job. No matter what anybody says or who would rationalize this, it normally doesn’t work. Usually, as with a counteroffer, within six months both the candidate and the employer are disappointed and a candidate is usually back on the market. He or she may keep the job just long enough to find another one, but now they have to explain to prospective employers why they went back to the people they’ve worked for once before.

One of the risk factors they have now created for themselves is that any future prospective employer who interviews them is going to wonder if and when things get difficult the new employee will “go back” again.

Do what you think best, but realize “that lovin’ you feeling again” is not normally what was the first time.