Dot-com boomerang

Susan Shipley left Levi Strauss for a dotcom only to return after six months

By James Hattori
CNNdotCOM Correspondent

(CNN) - Like many others in the San Francisco Bay area, Susan Shipley was enticed by the excitement of the new economy and the many success stories of people leaving their jobs for start-up companies and getting wealthy overnight.

So last summer, Susan left her job as an executive at Levi Strauss, after being recruited to join Scient, an Internet consulting firm.

But only six months later, she is back at Levi's, after a whirlwind taste of working at Internet speed.

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"There was such an enormous amount to do that most days involved some sort of triage; you identified the stuff that was just not going to get done," Shipley says.

This phenomenon is appropriately called "boomeranging," wherein employees who left traditional brick and mortar companies for, in some cases, risky Internet start-ups, are returning to the safety of their previous employers.

Levi Strauss has no regrets about bringing back as many as two dozen people who had left for the dot-com world. "They're trained well, they understand the company ... and they're energetic. They're excited to come back. They want to give 150 percent, so it's a real benefit to us," says Nancy Philips, Levi Strauss staffing manager.

With an estimated 35,000 dot-com layoffs in recent months, there is no shortage of available workers. Officials at Braintrust, a recruiting company specializing in high tech, say that some dot-comers have no desire to go back to a traditional business environment.

"Job seekers in general are being choosier and staying on the market a little bit longer, both because of the market and because of their desire to find a really good fit," says Braintrust recruiter Rebecca Cain.

Susan Shipley chose to come back to Levi Strauss, and even though she does not regret making the jump, she says it was an adventure she is not likely to repeat.

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