Is staying at one job too long bad for your career?

What long tenure does to pay

The main cost of staying is usually pay. A new employer has to match the market to win you, so people who move often see larger rises than people who stay, although the gap varies with the job market.

There is no simple New Zealand figure for that gap. In the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta tracks it: in August 2026, median pay growth was 3.6% a year for people who stayed in their job and 5.0% for people who switched employer, occupation or duties (4.4% averaged over the past year). It is overseas data, and the gap is not constant: it narrows when hiring slows, and in some periods, such as 2009 and 2010, switchers did no better than stayers.

Check your own position rather than assuming. Compare your pay with current ads for the same work, and check whether it has kept up with prices. Our articles on whether you are being underpaid and whether your pay has kept up with inflation walk through both.

What it does to your CV

Long tenure is rarely a problem in itself. It can show loyalty, reliability and the ability to build relationships over time. In Stats NZ's 2018 Survey of Working Life, the most recent edition we could find, 38% of employees had been in the same job for five years or more, so a long stint is far from unusual.

What employers look for is progress within it. Ten years in one role doing the same work reads differently from ten years with two promotions, a bigger team and new skills. So on your CV, show the stages: new titles, new responsibilities, projects that changed the business. A long tenure presented as one line with one title undersells you.

The signs your growth has stalled

These are the signals that staying may be costing you:

• You have not learned a significant new skill in the past two years.
• Your pay rises have only matched inflation, or fallen behind it.
• Your title and responsibilities have not changed, while people who joined after you have moved past you.
• You could do the job without thinking, and the work no longer stretches you.
• When you read ads for your next step up, you do not yet have what they ask for, and your current role will not give it to you.

One sign on its own is not a reason to leave. Several together usually mean something needs to change, either in your current job or by moving.

Staying well: new scope, new pay, new title

Many people can grow without leaving. Ask for new scope: a project, a team, a customer group or a system to own. Ask for the title to match the work once you are doing it, and for pay to match the title. Take up training your employer will fund, and look at moves across the organisation as well as up.

Put it to your manager as a plan, not a complaint: where you want to be in two years, what you would need to get there, and what you will deliver along the way. If the answer is that nothing can change, you have learned something useful.

Testing the market every two years without leaving

You do not have to quit to find out what you are worth. Every couple of years, apply for one or two roles you would genuinely consider, talk to a recruiter in your field, or have coffee with someone who hires for the next step up. It keeps your interview skills sharp and gives you real numbers to take into your next pay review.

Keep a record as you go, so the comparison is easy. In jobtracker.co.nz, Your Career keeps your pay over time and what it is worth after prices, alongside your wins and your review dates, and the job hunt side keeps every role you look at with its take-home pay. You can see both in the demo, which needs no account. Our article on job hopping covers the other side of the question.

Know where you stand without leaving