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

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

From there, the brand's career ladder soared, with the remarkably cool G35, M45, and FX45, but other efforts, including the I30 and QX4, turned out to be underdeveloped and overstyled Nissan clones. —Georg Kacher, Car and Driver, 19 Mar. 2023

This 37-page section includes a career ladder, goals for diversity in recruitment and retention, and sustainable talent pathways for educators. —Katia Parks, Baltimore Sun, 15 Mar. 2023

Attempting to climb a career ladder from home is more difficult. —Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Mar. 2023

Look for women mentors within the company who have been able to go up the career ladder despite the pet to threat. —Luciana Paulise, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined above