career ladder

noun

variants or corporate ladder

: the series of progressively higher positions that can be attained in one's working career conceived of as a ladder to be climbed toward greater responsibility and financial success

… a twentysomething heroine working her way up the career ladder …

—Clarissa Cruz

The more skills you acquire and use, the more you can earn – even if you don't jump to the next rung on the corporate ladder.

—Jaclyn Fierman

Like most successful women in the pop-music industry, Rhone, 42, started off answering phones and watching men climb the corporate ladder to success.

—Lorraine Ali

… the kind of resentment that a man who has spent his life climbing the ranks of a large bureaucracy feels toward a man who leapfrogs up the career ladder through a special and obnoxious blend of deferments and degrees.

—Michael Lewis

Today as vice-president and director of global diversity, she works with the office of the CEO to ensure that women and people of color with the potential to move up the corporate ladder are identified and groomed.

—Rhonda Richards

Examples of career ladder in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There is a mysterious rung on the career ladder wherein young professionals are faced with an existential dilemma: to bob or not to bob. —Daniel Rodgers, Vogue, 20 Sep. 2024

At a certain professional stage, the number of such candidates exceeds the supply of available jobs, and sponsors help ensure that their candidates have a shot at climbing the next rung of the career ladder. —Reuben E. Brigety Ii, Foreign Affairs, 8 Dec. 2016

Attractive employees are more likely to get hired, garner more promotions, earn more money and climb the career ladder quicker and farther. —Bryan Robinson, Forbes, 6 Sep. 2024

Carroll County implemented a new career ladder ahead of this school year, which features a $60,000 salary minimum for teachers. —Thomas Goodwin Smith, Baltimore Sun, 2 Aug. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined above