After a recent lecture to a group of college seniors, several students caught me on the way out the door. They asked lots of interesting questions; I want to talk about two.

The first: What’s the downside of staying at the same company for a long time? The second: How many times can I switch jobs?

These mirror image questions are both getting at the same thing. How do I best manage my career.

What is the “Right” Amount of Time to Spend at One Company?

There is nothing wrong with staying at one company for a long time as long as you are growing. Staying put while taking on more responsibility, expanding your scope, building deep expertise, earning real promotions is a completely legitimate career strategy. Some of the most respected executives spent decades at one organization and built extraordinary careers. For instance, Satya Nadella spent more than two decades at Microsoft in a series of progressively larger roles before becoming CEO in 2014. and the company’s transformation under his leadership is one of the more studied examples in recent business history.

The risk is staying without paying attention to how your career is progressing. Here’s what that can cost you:

Your salary can quietly fall behind. Internal raise cycles may not keep pace with what the open market would pay you. According to ADP payroll data, during periods when the labor market was very active, job switchers could see pay increases near double those they would have gotten if they stayed put. That gap has narrowed as the market has cooled.  As of early 2025, according to Atlanta Fed data, the difference between what job switchers and those who stay are receiving is at its lowest point in a decade. Moving for growth still makes sense. Moving primarily to chase a salary bump in the current market deserves more scrutiny than it did even three years ago.

Your network can narrow without you realizing it. Professional relationships multiply most naturally when you move across organizations. Staying in one place for many years can mean that your professional contacts know the all the same people you do. That matters if you want to find a role outside the company or build something new.

You can stop learning and not notice. Every company has its own systems, assumptions, and ways of solving problems. But these are not the only systems, assumptions, and ways of solving problems. Exposure to how different organizations operate different leadership styles, different market pressures, different team structures may build more professional range than is easy to develop from inside one culture. So, you should be honest with yourself about whether you’re still growing, still learning, and still being paid fairly for the value you bring. If the answer to all three is yes, staying is fine. If you’re rationalizing, that’s worth paying attention to.

How Many Times Can You Switch Jobs?

There is no number. What hiring managers evaluate is whether those moves form a coherent story that shows progression, judgment, and connection.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers ages 25–34 had a median job tenure of just 2.7 years in January 2024. Interestingly, that figure is almost identical to what Baby Boomers looked like at the same age. The National Institute on Retirement Security found that generational job-switching patterns are driven far more by economic conditions than by generational personality.

What does reasonable movement look like?

• Early career, first five to seven years: Changing roles every one and a half to three years is common and can be appropriate if each move brings broader responsibility or moves you closer to work that uses your actual strengths.
• Mid-career: At some point, showing you can stay and deliver over time carries weight. Early career exploration is commonly replaced by a few multi-year stints that demonstrate you can have sustained impact.
• When it raises flags: Several moves under twelve months, back-to-back, with no clear explanation and no visible thread of progression. In one survey of hiring managers, 77% identified repeated short stints as a concern. Context and how you explain it matters enormously and a string of brief tenures without a narrative is something that may give you trouble.

Thinking Strategically About Your Career

Your career is something you manage, not something that just happens to you. The old model, join a company, keep your head down, wait your turn, retire with a watch is advice for a labor market that no longer exists for most people. The new model is pay attention to whether you’re growing, be honest about when you’re not, and make decisions with enough self-awareness to explain them clearly.

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References

• ADP Research Institute. (2022–2025). ADP Pay Insights: Workforce Vitality Report. https://adpri.org/research/workforce-vitality-report/
• Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank. (2025). Wage growth tracker. https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker
• Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. (2024, September 26). Employee tenure in 2024 (USDL-24-1971). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm
• (2025, March 20). Gen Z job-hopping salary difference at 10-year low. https://fortune.com/2025/03/20/gen-z-job-hopping-salary-difference-low-loyalty-career-strategy/
• National Institute on Retirement Security. (2025). Debunking the job-hopping myth: A data-driven look at generational tenure. https://www.nirsonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/25-Debunking-Job-Hopping-Myth_FINAL-1.pdf
• Pew Research Center. (2022, July 28). Majority of U.S. workers changing jobs are seeing real wage gains. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/07/28/majority-of-u-s-workers-changing-jobs-are-seeing-real-wage-gains/
• (2024, June 18). Hiring short job tenured candidates: What recruiters and hiring managers think. https://www.solopointsolutions.com/2024/06/18/hiring-short-job-tenured-candidates/