I Just Changed Jobs — Does That Affect My Personal Loan Application?

Changing employer resets your employment duration clock for loan assessment purposes, even if you're doing the exact same job for more pay. What's counted is your start date with your current employer — not your years of experience in the field — and the threshold before that resets to Strong likelihood depends on your employment type: 3 months for PAYG full-time, 12 months for casual.

Why the clock resets

`Employment duration` — how long you've been in your current role, with your current employer — is one of the factors lenders use to gauge income stability, and it's assessed literally: the start date on your payslips and bank statements, not your total years of experience. The logic is straightforward from a lender's side — a new role, however senior or well-paid, carries more uncertainty in the first few months than an established one, regardless of your track record elsewhere.

This is genuinely counter-intuitive for people who've changed jobs for a promotion or a pay rise. It can feel like your financial position has improved — and it may well have — while your employment duration factor has gone backwards at the same time.

The thresholds, by employment type

These thresholds reset with every genuine change of employer — moving from one PAYG full-time job to another still means starting again at the top of the PAYG full-time row.

Why a lender can't simply average your history

It's tempting to think a lender should be able to look at ten years of continuous, similar employment and treat a six-week-old job as low-risk on that basis. In practice, the duration factor exists specifically because the *current* employer relationship is what's actually being assessed — a new employer is a new set of circumstances a lender hasn't observed yet, regardless of how predictable your career has otherwise been. Your broader work history isn't ignored entirely — it can support a conversation with a broker — but it doesn't change the number the standard rule engine uses.

What actually counts, and what doesn't

• Counted: your start date with your current employer, as shown on payslips and bank statement deposits
• Counted: your employment type in the new role — moving from casual to PAYG full-time puts you on the PAYG full-time timeline from your start date, not a continuation of your casual history
• Not counted: total years of experience in the industry or role type
• Not counted: your reason for changing jobs, whether it was a promotion, a pay rise, or a layoff at your previous employer
• Not counted, but relevant to a different check: your new income, which feeds into the affordability calculation separately from the duration factor

A worked example

Someone has worked in accounting for eight years, most recently four years at one firm. They move to a new firm for a 15% pay rise, starting a new PAYG full-time role. Six weeks later, they apply for a personal loan.

On the employment duration factor specifically, they're assessed as 6 weeks into a PAYG full-time role — which sits in the 1–2 month Possible — lender dependent band, not the 3+ month Strong likelihood band. Their eight years of industry experience and improved income don't move this particular factor; income feeds into the separate affordability check, where the pay rise does help, but the duration threshold is unaffected by it.

If they wait roughly six more weeks — crossing the 3-month mark — this factor alone shifts from Possible to Strong, assuming everything else about their new role stays the same.

A second scenario — changing employment type at the same time

Take someone moving from a casual retail role of three years into a permanent part-time position at a different company. Even though they've worked continuously in retail for years, the change of both employer and employment type means they start fresh on the part-time timeline — 6 months to Strong likelihood, 1–5 months Possible. Their long casual history at the previous employer doesn't transfer across, because it was a different employer and a different employment category. The clock genuinely restarts on both counts, not just one.

What lenders actually look at

The start date, cross-checked

The start date on your current employer's payslips is cross-checked against bank statement deposits showing salary from that employer specifically. A mismatch between the two — payslips showing a recent start date but bank deposits from the new employer going back further, or vice versa — is the kind of inconsistency that slows an application down, so it's worth having both lining up before you apply.

Whether your employment type changed along with your employer

Moving from casual to PAYG full-time is generally viewed positively for long-term stability, but it still starts the PAYG full-time clock from zero — there's no carryover from the casual history.

Probation status isn't assessed as its own category

What matters is actual elapsed time in the role, which in many cases will already exceed a probation period before it formally ends. A 6-month probation period, for a PAYG full-time role, actually crosses the 3-month Strong likelihood threshold at its halfway point — so "still on probation" and "already in the Strong likelihood band on this factor" can genuinely both be true at the same time.

If you're weighing whether to apply now or wait

The T3 Loan Approval Calculator takes your actual start date and employment type and returns your classification on this factor alongside everything else — DTI, credit score, and bank statement history — so you can see exactly where you stand, and how close you are to the next threshold, before deciding whether to apply now or wait a few more weeks.