This isn’t an actual application weakness, but like many particulars, it does require careful handling in your application.
If you work at an exceptionally small company, then it may make sense why you’ve held only one job at that firm. Smaller companies aren’t often focused on organizational structure and don’t have standard promotion schedules, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t done a lot there. Often, the total opposite is true. Opportunities to be a go-getter and really prove yourself frequently abound when the firm has fewer employees. It’s an “everybody jump in and get it done” type of environment. It’s likely that that will come through quite dramatically in the bullets themselves, even if the resume shows only one job for the whole period.
A smaller firm may also give flexibility. Perhaps you can talk to your boss, and ask if a different title might make more sense. If nobody has been concerned about titles at your firm because nobody cares, then perhaps it never came up as important before. For the context of communicating what you do, it’ll take on a new significance. We’re not saying that you should retroactively change what your title was in the HR systems or pretend that you had this new title all along. Instead, you can write the optional essay, very briefly, explaining the situation, and your boss can also reinforce this in the recommendation. It can be as simple as: “The process of applying to business school made me realize that my job title does not reflect my actual responsibilities, and my manager agreed and gave me the new title of _____ as of [date].” Or whatever.
If you work for a much larger company and you’ve held the same exact job for three years or more, then yeah, the adcoms will start to wonder about that. One way they evaluate what type of impact you might have in the future is by looking at where you’ve had impact in the past, and sometimes this is communicated easily through evidence of promotions and progression in career. If you haven’t been pushing ahead and advancing, on a path that’s been recognized by your superiors, it can make the adcom wonder why not.
Presumably you work in a company that does not have a lot of mobility? Where people simply aren’t promoted or moved around? Or maybe you’re in a role that has no natural next-step succession path that other employees like you have pursued? If that’s the case then you may want to coach your direct supervisor to mention it in the recommendations, if you have an open relationship with him or her and feel comfortable enough to make such a request. That information could also potentially be communicated yourself, in an optional essay, but it’s not the best way to do it if you can avoid it (it can sound self-serving, like you’re making excuses about not being promoted – it’s much better for a manager to explain the situation instead).
And, very important in such a case, you’ll want to show how you have added a lot of value in your job based on how you present your experiences on the resume. That’s actually what matters the most to the schools. If you do a good job of showing how you’ve been ahead of your peers, and making an impact, with some evidence of leadership in some form or another, then it won’t matter that you have only held the same title the whole time. The schools care about results, and experiences –- not just the title.
That being said, it is unusual to not have at least one promotion every few years, so if you’ve been working awhile and your job title has not changed, then see if an explanation can be offered about some facet of the company or culture or the specifics of the job, and try to enlist a recommender to back up your message and help the admissions team understand why.
All of these issues are part of planning your strategy. They’re important! If you have questions about your situation we’d love to help out. You can go for our Private Consult if you want to send us a one-on-one question, or our Comprehensive Profile Review gives plenty of opportunity to ask about angles of your candidacy, or you can learn what needs to go in your resume in the Reworking Your Resume App Accelerator — or just leave a question in the comments on this post and we’re happy to address it for you publicly here.
Tell us what you think.