New AI tool looks to bring world-class offboarding and alumni management to every HR team

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It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later…maybe.

While goodbye can mean forever, a new employee offboarding and alumni platform aims to help organizations systematize offboarding and alumni network maintenance, so relationships with former employees remains possible without serious investment or effort from your HR team.

The AI-powered platform for employee offboarding and alumni management, BoomerangHR, emerged from stealth this week, announcing a $12.7 million seed round led by Kalos Ventures and Album Ventures, with participation from Monta Vista Capital, Atlanta Seed, Capital 11, and Strada Education Foundation.

“Why is it that the best companies—the McKinseys, the Goldman Sachses, the Googles—spend millions of dollars a year to stay in touch with their alumni, and 99.99% of companies do nothing?” asked Jeff Wald, who founded BoomerangHR in 2023.

CHROs and people leaders already know the value of staying in touch with alumni, Wald said, pointing to boomerang hiring, referrals, sales leads, and brand ambassadorship, all potential wins from your network of former employees. HR leaders lack the time, headcount and budget, he said, and that’s a problem he thinks perhaps AI could fix.

“How we handle that journey becomes very important as we move into this new type of work environment, as work is changing with AI and robotics, if you want to be an employer of choice for those very specific skills, especially in areas where there are labor shortages, you have to think about this employer branding, and that employer branding really begins when that person walks out the door,” he said. “Sure, there’s a lot of stuff you can do while they’re there, and you can and should, of course, but if you screw up the exit, all that was wasted.”

What’s HR to do? BoomerangHR brings offboarding and the corporate alumni network to the HR tech stack, but its automated offerings don’t require a single HR pro to access the platform to maintain the program.

“It’s just an easy way to do it if you automate it,” Wald said, “and that is the important part. Not a single one of our clients logs into Boomerang, ever. The system runs itself.”

The platform integrates with existing HRMS and ATS systems, and after an initial set up, it automatically manages offboarding, and is capable of automating exit compliance, COBRA administration, 401(k) rollovers, equipment returns, and exit interviews.

BoomerangHR also maintains a centralized alumni network with verified profiles and can match former employees to open roles inside the organization.

“Every single time a new job gets created in the ATS, we see it, we match to your top two or three alumni, the best people that are the best skills match for the role, and the most regrettable,” Wald said.

Boomerang also features reporting tools to help track talent migration and re-engagement.

“A team member might begin in one of our stores, pursue an opportunity elsewhere, and later return in a new role, bringing valuable skills and perspective with them,” Chelsea Kaden, Warby Parker’s CPO, told HR Brew via email. The eyewear retailer is one of the platform’s early customers. “BoomerangHR gives us a thoughtful, streamlined way to stay connected—whether a former employee returns, refers someone great, or simply remains connected to our team.”

With BoomerangHR, every former employee swims in a company-specific, ready-made talent pool. Former employees already understand company culture, its people, systems, and—potentially—its customers, a valuable talent pool as hiring increasingly becomes more difficult and AI profiles make candidate verification more complicated.

“The TA team is getting overwhelmed with slop, with fake profiles, fake candidates, fake résumés, résumés completely augmented,” Wald said.

One in four candidate profiles could be fake by 2028, according to June research from Gartner. As much as BoomerangHR is designed to improve the exiting process, its alumni signalling tools can help TA teams tap into a network of possible perfect candidates already familiar with the work and company.

“Our job is to put one or two very qualified candidates with all the appropriate notes right near the top of the funnel,” he said.