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

The new four-step Blueprint career ladder aims to offer more ways for teachers to become school leaders and advance their careers and salaries faster. —Lilly Price, Baltimore Sun, 1 July 2024

Baltimore City Schools moved to end the district’s decade-old career ladder by the end of June to make way for the Blueprint plan. —Lilly Price, Baltimore Sun, 1 July 2024

But what happens when all those aspirant professionals climb the career ladder and begin to take on managerial responsibilities? —Daniel Rodgers, Vogue, 28 June 2024

She was hired by the city as a firefighter in February 1999 and over the years climbed the career ladder to the rank of lieutenant. —Martin E. Comas, Orlando Sentinel, 26 June 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined above