Reference source
Resume Now (International Career Regrets Survey)
The Road Not Taken: Greatest Career Regrets Revealed
Cited in 8 Likelier entries (0 risks, 8 decisions).
Used in 12 entries
For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.
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53% of workers have regretted not speaking up in a meeting, compared to 38% who have regretted speaking up.
“"53% have regretted not speaking up in a meeting, compared to 38% who have regretted speaking up in a meeting."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets Survey of 1,000 workers across four countries (US, UK, France, Germany), fielded January 2024. The 53% figure represents regret about not voicing an opinion in a professional setting. This is used as the closest quantified analog for civic silence: both involve choosing not to speak up in a setting where one has something to say, at personal social cost. Civic protest silence is likely to generate even higher inaction regret than workplace silence, because the stakes (political outcomes, collective justice) are higher and the opportunity to correct the decision is more limited. The 53% is therefore a conservative lower-bound proxy for inaction regret in the civic protest context. No direct survey of "do you regret not protesting during [specific event]?" was identified in the published academic or survey literature.
Source date: 2025-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-05-09
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59% of workers regret not prioritizing work-life balance in their career
“"Top career regrets include not asking for a pay increase (60%), not prioritizing work-life balance in one's career (59%), staying at a job too long (58%), and not negotiating salary when taking a job (58%). Two-thirds of Gen Z and Millennial workers regret not prioritizing work-life balance."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets survey of 1,000 workers in US, UK, France, and Germany (January 2024). The 59% figure captures respondents who identified not prioritizing work-life balance as a career regret — effectively measuring action-side regret among those who pursued career at the expense of balance.
Source date: 2024-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-04-26
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44% regret not making a full career change (more than 4 in 10)
“"Not making a full career change – 44% … More than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change."”
Calculation notes
Same Resume Now survey (n=1,000). The cited page lists "Not making a full career change – 44%" and narrates it as "More than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change." Used here as a proxy for inaction-side (career-underinvestment) regret: respondents who prioritized stability or balance and later regretted not making a bolder career move. Note this is a distinct multi-select item from the action-side "work-life balance" question, not a forced-choice counterpart (see caveats). The page's own "one-third (34%)" figure refers to those with NO career regrets, so it is not usable as an inaction-regret rate; the prior "over one-third wished they had taken more risks" and "nearly 98 percent" excerpts did not appear on the cited page and were removed.
Source date: 2024-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-07-10
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38% regret quitting a job (vs 58% who regret staying at a job)
“"More people regret staying at a job (58%) vs quitting a job (38%)."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now polled 1,000 workers in the US, UK, France and Germany. The survey pairs "regret staying at a job (58%)" against "regret quitting a job (38%)." We use 0.38 as the action-regret rate — the share who regret having left/changed — directly reported by the survey. (The survey separately reports "more than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change," an inaction regret; we do not use that figure for the action side.)
Source date: 2024-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-04-25
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58% of workers say their biggest career regret is staying at a job too long
“"More people regret staying at a job (58%) vs quitting a job (38%)."”
Calculation notes
The 58% figure is the share of all surveyed workers who cite "staying at a job too long" as a career regret. This is not limited to those who stayed — it includes those who eventually left but wish they had left sooner. We use it as the inaction regret rate because it measures regret about not acting.
Source date: 2024-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-04-25
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53% of workers have regretted not speaking up in a meeting, compared to 38% who have regretted speaking up; 60% regret not asking for a raise; 58% regret staying at a job too long; 51% regret not asking for a promotion
“"53% have regretted not speaking up in a meeting, compared to 38% who have regretted speaking up in a meeting."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets Survey of 1,000 workers across the US, UK, France, and Germany, fielded January 2024. The 53% figure measures regret about not voicing an opinion in a professional meeting — the closest direct quantification of regretted civic-style silence. No nationally representative survey directly asks adults whether they regret not attending school board meetings, joining the HOA, or serving on town council. The 53% workplace-meeting analog is used as a conservative lower bound for civic silence regret, where the stakes (community policy, child welfare, neighborhood quality) are typically higher and the opportunity window more bounded.
Source date: 2024-03-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-30
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38% of workers regret having spoken up in a meeting; the comparable rate of regretting active career advancement attempts is in the same range; 59% regret not prioritising work-life balance — a proxy for action-side regret among those who pursued advancement at the cost of balance
“"38% have regretted speaking up in a meeting. 59% regret not prioritising work-life balance in their career."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets Survey of 1,000 workers across the US, UK, France, and Germany, fielded January 2024. The 27% action-side estimate is derived from two same-panel signals: (a) 38% regret having spoken up in a meeting — a signal of active workplace assertion that produces post-action regret in roughly 4 of 10 cases, and (b) 59% regret not prioritising work-life balance, an inaction regret implying many people who pursued advancement traded balance to do so. Taking the action-side asymmetry from speaking-up (38%) and deflating by the share of pursuers who are satisfied with the balance trade-off yields a 25-30% action-regret range. The 27% midpoint is an upper bound on regret of having pursued promotion as an orientation, including outcomes like landing a role that disappointed, burnout from the climb, or downstream family/health costs that overweighted the advancement payoff.
Source date: 2024-03-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-30
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51% of workers regret not asking for a promotion; 60% regret not asking for a pay increase; 58% regret staying at a job too long
“"Top career regrets include not asking for a pay increase (60%), not prioritising work-life balance (59%), staying at a job too long (58%), and not negotiating salary when taking a job (58%). 51% regret not asking for a promotion."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets Survey of 1,000 workers across the US, UK, France, and Germany, fielded January 2024. The 51% headline is directly reported. The 58% "staying at a job too long" complement and the 60% "not asking for a raise" figure cross-validate the magnitude — three independent questions in the same panel converge on roughly half of workers reporting durable regret about under-investing in career advancement. Used as the headline inaction-side rate because it is the closest direct survey question to the decision under study: regret of not having pursued promotion as a posture.
Source date: 2024-03-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-30
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58% of workers say staying in a bad job too long is their biggest career regret
“"58% of people say their biggest career regret is staying in a bad job too long — compared with just 38% who say they regret quitting a job. Workers regret 'job hugging' more than not speaking up in meetings, not asking for a promotion, or not getting a college degree."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now polled 1,000 workers across the US, UK, France, and Germany in January 2025. The 58% is the share naming "staying too long" as their single biggest career regret from a list of options. This is a "biggest regret" ranking, not a binary stayed/didn't-stay question, so it captures intensity rather than simple prevalence.
Source date: 2025-01-15 · Accessed: 2026-04-26
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38% of workers have regretted speaking up in a meeting
“"53% have regretted not speaking up in a meeting, compared to 38% who have regretted speaking up in a meeting."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets Survey of 1,000 workers across four countries (US, UK, France, Germany), fielded January 2024. The 38% figure represents those who specifically regretted having voiced an opinion in a meeting. Used directly as action- side regret rate.
Source date: 2025-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-04-26
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53% of workers have regretted not speaking up in a meeting
“"53% have regretted not speaking up in a meeting, compared to 38% who have regretted speaking up in a meeting."”
Calculation notes
Same Resume Now survey as the action side. The 53% figure represents those who specifically regretted remaining silent in a meeting when they had something to say. Used directly as inaction-side regret rate.
Source date: 2025-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-04-26
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More than 4 in 10 workers (44%) regret not making a full career change
“"66% of participants have work-related regrets. ... More than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change. ... Not making a full career change – 44%. ... Only about one-third (34%) say they do not have any career-related regrets."”
Calculation notes
Resume Now International Career Regrets survey of 1,000 workers in US, UK, France, and Germany (January 2024). 66% of participants report work-related regrets overall; the directly itemized "Not making a full career change – 44%" line (corroborated by the survey's "More than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change" callout) is the closest measured proxy for entrepreneurial inaction regret. It is broader than entrepreneurship alone — it captures career changes and lateral moves of all types — so we use it as a directly measured proxy. The earlier excerpt's "over one-third wished they had taken more risks" and "98 percent experienced job-related regret" claims were not supported by the source (the word "risk" does not appear and the overall figure is 66%, not 98%); both were removed during grounding remediation 2026-06-30. The previously fabricated 46% composite (a hand-computed discount of Gallup's self-employment figure) was already retired.
Source date: 2024-01-10 · Accessed: 2026-06-30