There was a time when I was seriously considering business school and one of the points in admissions was to talk about your career achievements like getting a promotion. I still think about that question.

I've been with the same job for five years now. I keep getting little bumps in pay each year, I make good money, but, I've never gotten a promotion. The situation is kind of weird, I'm the only one in this big global firm that has this job while in other companies, I would be a whole department. If I were to get a promotion here, it would just be "senior"+"job title" even though there is no ladder and I would be a senior at any other place. It would be a promotion to go up a level in compensation bands but not necessarily responsibility.

Over the past 7 years, I've gone up in pay year over year, some years as much as 40% and some years as little as 4%. Still...I wonder, is a lack of promotion a bad look?