Rakesh Gupta left, Rakesh Gupta returned. He could pretend he never left, but it would be of little use. It just wasn't the same again. He knew it. He could sense it. Not only had his perceptions been altered by his interlude experience, the place he returned to had also moved on from where it was. Even if he were to revert to his old self, the rest of his environment wouldn't.

Today, Gupta wonders and wonders about the wisdom of his departure in the first place, and is trying to "cut an extremely low profile", as he puts it, to get back into the groove. It isn't easy. Such are the vicissitudes of change.

Seniority Humbles

Rakesh Gupta, a deputy general manager, had left his software firm of six years in 1999, when he was 32, to accelerate his ascent up the corporate world's pay-and-designation pyramid. As general manager at the new company, which was decidedly smaller, he was to have much greater responsibility than ever before. He did too.

Yet, two years later, he shifted to a still smaller firm, this time with an even fatter salary, as its vice president, projects. He now had the sole responsibility of running the firm's Indian operations, a role similar to that of a CEO. But then, just as Gupta was preparing to implement his business expansion ideas, the IT bubble burst and the operations folded up, leaving Gupta jobless.

Last month, after 60 frantic payless days, Gupta summoned the courage to phone his first employer. The new management, which now had two of Gupta's earlier peers, was generous enough to give him a second run- but a diminished work status. As a returnee, Gupta had to content himself with being a general manager in an unrelated domain-delivery fulfilment. Moreover, of the 10 who shared the deputy gm tag with him in 1999, six were now above him in the hierarchy, and one was his immediate boss. Shrugs Gupta, "You have to choose between a lower position in a big company or a bigger position in a small company."

Gupta's case is not an isolated patch in the wilderness of returnees. The interesting part, to begin with, is that so many people are returning to their corporate alma maters. According to industry estimates, more than half of all companies have welcomed old hands in the past year. And it could even work out well, "provided the person has not burnt bridges", according to Ronesh Puri, Managing Director, Executive Access, a leading search firm. "Companies are increasingly favouring their own people," he elaborates, "since they understand the industry product line and company culture, and there are less fitment issues."

That perhaps explains why FMCG majors like Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) are reversing their policies of not welcoming their ol' boys back, policies created partly to deter departures in the first place and partly to avoid the hierarchical complications of returnee cases. Take HLL. Till two years ago, this company wouldn't have bothered to countenance returnees. After all, with so many people vying for every single job, there's a scramble for every seat vacated.

The thinking at HLL seems to have changed lately. There are no lamp-lit welcomes, but the doors are no longer shut for ex-employees. The logic: why keep proven skill-sets out of contention? Vishal Dhawan, K. Venkatramani and Vikram Seth are just a few of the people HLL has taken back in the past two years. Others haven't been so lucky. An hr man who left HLL as general manager in 1996 to join a telecom firm found himself at a failed petrol retailer, before trying to get his old job back. He couldn't.

Returnee Rumbles

Talent is critical. Whatever the policies of a company, more often than not, the re-recruitment decisions come to hinge on that rare intangible called talent. If ex-employees are truly talented, according to R. Suresh, Managing Director, Stanton Chase, a headhunter, companies are understandably keen on luring them back.

The external experience is then seen as an added asset. "People who return to the same company with new learnings, inevitably come back with a new perspective, and this is a win-win situation for both sides," explains Suresh.

Take the case of the executive who started out with an air-conditioning company in 1986 and quit after a decade in 1996 as director, manufacturing, before moving on to an automotive company as its country manager. In 1998, he became the managing director of the automotive company, and was soon afterwards asked to return as the chief of his alma mater. "I had an emotional attachment with the company where I first worked," he says, "and so decided to take up the assignment without batting an eyelid." Talent is talent, period.

Authority Grumbles

Returning as the top boss, of course, is a clear case of exceptional achievement. Most often, it's the awkwardness of fitting back in and the opportunities missed that haunt returnees. Joy Anand, the head of capital markets at an investment bank, for instance, returned as head of strategy and business development after a two-year hiatus (trying to run an angel fund, among other things).

Though the functions are vastly different, the position is the same. Anything to grumble about? "Two years makes a world of difference...today, I could well have been the boss if I played my cards well," sighs Anand. This, as his boss would say, is in the realm of idle speculation, though.

The fact is, even a short gap is a gap. And in a dynamic environment, every hour counts. Businesses change, objectives change and power structures change. But this shouldn't worry any returnee who is passionate about the job and confident of the value he or she can add to the company he or she is returning to. As for the hiatus, some time-out could be good even for an unforgivingly all-consuming project. At the end of the day, pragmatism rules. The past is prologue. When there's a job to be done, there's a job to be done.