The “Great Resignation” was a genuine phenomenon. Between April and December 2021, American workers voluntarily left their jobs at monthly rates of 2.7% to 3.0% of the total employed workforce — levels unprecedented since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began measuring voluntary separations. The narratives were ubiquitous: restaurant employees, retail associates, mid-level office workers concluding that pandemic-era introspection had crystallized what they no longer wanted from their professional lives. Resignations from positions paying under $65,000 were running at approximately 4x their pre-pandemic frequency.
For those of us who recruit senior US professionals, the Great Resignation generated an entirely distinct pattern. Voluntary departure rates among senior executives and VP-level professionals in 2021 were somewhat elevated — but only marginally, and driven almost exclusively by factors unrelated to the sweeping themes dominating media coverage of the era. Exploring why this was the case is worthwhile, because it exposes something fundamental about how senior US labor markets function that the Great Resignation narrative largely overlooked.
How senior professionals actually responded
Our 2021 data reveals voluntary departure rates within the senior professional cohort (VP and above, Director in expanded-scope roles) at roughly 0.8% per month — higher than the 0.5% to 0.6% characteristic of pre-pandemic senior professional markets, but dramatically lower than the 2.7% to 3.0% rate commanding national attention.
Three factors explain the bulk of the divergence between the senior market and the broader US quit rate.
First, equity and deferred compensation impose specific retention constraints. A VP-level professional at a public technology company in 2021 was typically partway through vesting on an equity grant whose value had approximately doubled since the 2020 market lows. Departing meant surrendering unvested equity that, in many instances, exceeded a full year’s base salary. The “wealth effect” of appreciated equity served as a concrete brake on senior voluntary departures — one that simply did not apply to hourly workers or salaried employees lacking equity compensation.
Second, senior professional job searches require substantially more time than entry or mid-level searches. The median time-to-offer for a senior US professional search in 2021 (VP and above) was 14 to 18 weeks. For junior or mid-level professionals, it was 4 to 6 weeks. The elevated switching cost for senior candidates — measured in time, disruption, and concentrated reference risk — acts as a structural brake on voluntary attrition at senior levels irrespective of broader labor market conditions.
Third, the “what do I truly want from my career” reflection that propelled broad workforce quit rates did not trigger the same resignation impulse at senior levels. Senior professionals who engaged in 2021 soul-searching about purpose and fulfillment were far more inclined to negotiate modifications within their existing roles (remote flexibility, scope adjustments, reporting structure changes) than to resign outright. Their leverage to secure such accommodations was greater, the cost of departing without a plan was steeper, and the spectrum of alternatives short of resignation was considerably wider.
The preemptive compensation response
The other major structural distinction between the broad Great Resignation and the senior professional market: employers acted far more swiftly to address senior retention through compensation than they did for junior and mid-level employees. Throughout 2021, we witnessed unprecedented proactive pay adjustments at VP and C-suite levels — off-cycle salary increases, equity refreshes, retention bonuses — explicitly designed to preempt the departures companies feared among their most senior personnel.
The irony is that these preemptive measures were, in numerous cases, more generous than what the same employees would have secured by presenting an external offer. A VP who received a 15% salary bump and a $420,000 equity refresh in Q3 2021 without going anywhere had effectively captured the Great Resignation upside while assuming none of its risks. This pattern — which we observed repeatedly across our network in 2021 — represented a rational employer response to the elevated quit rate. It also somewhat distorted the senior market by producing a sizable population of well-retained, generously compensated senior professionals who felt no pressing motivation to explore external options.
The tenure and equity calculus
Average tenure at VP-and-above levels across major US companies stood at approximately 4.2 years in 2021. This matters for the Great Resignation narrative because it means a substantial share of the senior professional population in 2021 was within 1 to 2 years of a significant equity cliff or vesting milestone. Walking away from that cliff by resigning — even into a compelling external offer with a sign-on designed to bridge the gap — produced a financial equation that simply didn’t pencil out for many senior professionals who modeled the numbers.
By contrast, the broader Great Resignation was overwhelmingly driven by workers in positions carrying no meaningful deferred compensation. Leaving a $45,000-per-year service role involves no equity forfeiture analysis. The structural gap between equity-laden senior professionals and workers without equity stakes explains far more of the quit-rate differential than any attitudinal or motivational theory about how senior versus junior professionals relate to their work.
What shifted nonetheless
Three developments did reshape the senior US professional market in 2021, even though “the Great Resignation” as a mass phenomenon did not materialize at this level. First, geographic flexibility norms transformed. Remote-viable senior positions became dramatically more accepted by both candidates and employers during 2021, establishing the foundation for the geographic redistribution of senior professional talent — toward Texas, Florida, and other lower-cost markets — that gained momentum through 2022 and 2023.
Second, the negotiating leverage available to senior professionals in 2021 was genuinely stronger than pre-pandemic levels. Competition for senior talent intensified across industries as companies worked through backlogs and expanded headcount. Candidates who opted to negotiate — whether for in-place compensation improvements or stronger external offers — generally secured more favorable terms than they would have achieved in 2019.
Third, the dialogue around work structure at the senior level underwent a permanent shift. The “you must be physically present in the office” expectation that had prevailed at most major US companies gave way to a more negotiated framework granting senior professionals considerably greater influence over their working arrangements. This does not constitute resignation, but it represents a substantive evolution in the employment relationship. For our current compensation data, the 2021 dynamics serve as the baseline from which subsequent trends diverged.
The lasting changes for senior professionals
Three developments genuinely transformed the senior level during the Great Resignation era, even though the mass-quit phenomenon never fully materialized at this tier. These shifts have produced enduring effects on the architecture of senior US professional labor markets.
The geographic presumption was permanently rewritten. Prior to 2020, most major US companies assumed their senior leadership needed to be physically co-located at the company’s headquarters. The COVID period demonstrated, at the majority of organizations, that senior leadership could function effectively through a blend of in-person and remote work. For senior professionals, this revision permanently broadened the geographic opportunity set. A CFO or VP of Engineering could now realistically evaluate roles in Austin, Miami, or Denver that would previously have demanded relocation irrespective of family circumstances. The geographic expansion was tangible and lasting, even as return-to-office mandates began clawing back some flexibility by 2023 and 2024.
The negotiating power dynamic tilted toward candidates. During the 2021 and early 2022 labor market, senior professionals in high-demand functions (engineering leadership, finance leadership, medical affairs, revenue leadership) encountered genuine multi-offer competition for the first time in a decade. This recalibrated the benchmark for what “standard” negotiating terms looked like. Companies that had been extending below-market packages for senior roles found themselves losing candidates they had expected to close. The market correction was partially absorbed through higher offer levels and partially through more flexible structures (equity, remote arrangements, retention bonuses). Leverage has since partially swung back toward employers in most sectors, but the 2021-2022 baseline established a higher floor for what well-positioned senior candidates anticipate in negotiations.
Expectations around scope and autonomy rose permanently. Senior professionals who proved their capacity to operate with complete autonomy during the COVID remote period, and who were subsequently asked to revert to prior levels of management oversight and process, experienced a form of scope contraction that was deeply dissatisfying even when it didn’t directly precipitate a departure. The cumulative frustration of scope regression became a meaningful catalyst for 2022 and 2023 departures, particularly in technology, that didn’t register as Great Resignation statistics but did manifest as elevated voluntary attrition among the cohort of senior professionals who had been granted expanded authority during 2020 and 2021.
Implications for 2026
The Great Resignation has become a historical chapter, but its enduring impact is structural. Senior US professionals assessing roles in 2026 are navigating a market permanently reshaped by: the geographic diversification that accelerated during 2020-2021 and continues to mature; the compensation floor recalibration that occurred at senior levels in 2021-2022; and the expectation of meaningful working flexibility that, even amid return-to-office mandates, has produced hybrid arrangements at most major US companies that would have been inconceivable before 2020.
For current compensation context encompassing all of these dynamics, see our 2026 Executive Compensation Report. For the specific geographic developments that emerged from this period, our analyses of Texas and Miami address the most significant trends.