We often hear employment gaps in a resume can hurt a candidate, but did you know long-term employment at the same employer can also be perceived negatively?
Having stable employment is certainly not a bad thing. However, if it is with the same employer and your resume doesn’t show you made progress, it is not an impressive mark for a potential employer viewing your resume.
When a candidate has stayed with the same employer for many years, it can be considered in two ways: 1) You are lucky to have found a good employer and enjoy what you do, or, 2) You are afraid to take on new challenges and do not like stepping out of your comfort zone.
A potential employer may view your long-term stay with an employer negatively for several reasons:
Questions of Ambition and Motivation
If you have been working with the same employer for several years and your resume shows you have the same title as when you started, it can lead an employer to wonder if you have reached the peak of your career. Employers want people who have the ambition and motivation to progress.
Marketable Skills
When you have been with the same employer for a long period of time, your skills may grow stale and an employer may think you only know one way of doing things. Do you have what it takes to be effective and competitive? Are you willing to try things differently and can you learn new skills? How well would you adapt to a new environment, one that may require you to stretch into new and different skills requirements?
Here are ways in which your long tenure with an employer can impress potential employers rather than scare them away.
Show Advancement
Whether you received promotions or transferred to work in different departments within the company, make note of these changes and advancements on your resume. Specify the dates you were in certain roles so the potential employer sees that you made advancements in your career.
Detail Your Achievements
Rather than group achievements as a whole with the same employer, break it down on your resume. Under each title and the specific dates you held the position, specify the challenge and accomplishments. This will indicate to a potential employer that you have continued to acquire knowledge, achieve new outcomes, and excel in new capabilities throughout your career with the long-term employer and you have taken on new challenges or projects.
Advanced Training and Education
If you continued to pursue education or took particular courses or training relevant to the job with your employer, make note of it on your resume. This shows a potential employer you have a desire to continue to improve your abilities and your job skills have not gone outdated. You also have the initiative to acquire new job skills.
Provide a Reason for Leaving Your Long-Term Employer
A potential employer always has this question in mind for candidates in these situations. They want to know you are serious about your decision to move on from your long-term employer and that you are not leaving for reasons of a bailout – perhaps your performance has grown stale and you are simply looking for a way out.
Never talk negatively about your employer. Simply indicate you have valued the experience and skills gained from you previous position and you are looking for new challenges where you can apply your marketable skills and continue to grow with new experiences.
Your loyalty and dedication is an impressive sign for potential employers, but they have to know you have grown over the years, and still have ambition, motivation, up-to-date skills, and good intentions for wanting to leave your long-term employer. Doubt in any of the particular areas mentioned above can lead a potential employer to pass on your resume and application, so use these tips to make sure you get noticed.
Ouch text image from Shutterstock
About Don Goodman
More than once I’ve been told even 5-7 years with the same employer is unusual, especially in “IT” where many move around looking for new challenges, more money ,etc.
Don’t believe everything you’re told! Employers value loyalty and dependability, and no one likes a “jumper.”
Me believe everything I’ve been told? Nope, not even that 1+1 is always “2″. Sometimes it’s “10″.
This is very frustrating. Yes. I have been with the same employer for a number of years; however, it’s been with different departments. The tip about parsing the departments is a really good one, and I’m going to go ahead and use that advice! Thanks!
The trouble for me is three things:
1. I have been trying to get away from this company for several years and have had no luck!
2. The reason I want to leave is it is an awful environment.
3. There is, in fact, no advancement for people in my position at my company, and you’re lucky if you can even switch departments. As for educational opportunities, they are laughable at best.
Neither of these is things that are recommended to be put on a resume, so what am I supposed to do/say to convince prospective employers I’m not stagnant, I am willing to try new things, etc? I am really stuck, and I really want out!
Stuck!
You are creating a problem before you know it exists. The fact that you have stayed with the same company and moved to different divisions implies growth. True, some employers will move an unsuccessful employee from one division to another to see if a change in venue will result in better results. But this is only done once, maybe twice. When i see a resume like the one you described, I assume I have a candidate whose employer thinks highly of him. After all, if you weren’t any good they would have fired you! So don’t obsess over the resume.
As for the interview, “It’s time for a change” works for me, as does “There’s really no room for growth.” Neither is a negative vis-a-vis your boss. You are not bad-mouthing. It’s just time to move on. Feel free to contact me directly.
Thank you, Bruce. I just might do that. I really appreciate your response.
I have been using the no growth/need new opportunities angle, but I’m not getting responses.
Bruce and Don,
You both raise great points here with respect to long-term employment with the same company. I was with a Fortune 50 computer sales and service company for 23 years but I held a number of different positions with them and every time I moved to another division, I had to go through a difficult interview process that was no different than what an external candidate had to work through.
Kevin Love, MBA
Learning and Organization Development Consultant
Dallas / Fort Worth Area
http://www.twitter.com/kevindlove/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevindlove/
Another great article from CAREEREALISM! I never thought that long term employment in a resume can be negative. I’m sharing.
SuperCareero
Great article! I have had a number of candidates who have been with the same employer for over 20 years. In all cases they have progressed and been promoted. Moreover, whenever possible, I highlight on their resumes and in communications with my clients, that they worked for different divisions and then explain that the “divisions” are the moral equivalent of “employers” since in each division the candidate would have had new colleagues and new supervisors.
There is a word of warning, though: In most cases, when someone has been with the same employer for decades, they fail in their next job, but succeed in the following one. That happened to one of my candidates, he just could not get the hang of doing things differently. It was frustrating for him. He was fired but found a new job, learned from the experience, and has been with the new company for a good three years.