Career ladders may be broken, but a fulfilling job is still within reach

Recently, I sat in a lecture hall with a couple of hundred final-year undergraduate students. Looking around, I thought about my own uncertainty at their age. When I was about to graduate, the future seemed unclear.

- André Spicer

I didn't have a place on a company graduate programme like many of my classmates. Decades on, I realised that what seemed like obvious career ladders weren't so simple.

In the UK at least, the job market for today's graduates seems good. The annual report by the Institute of Student Employers found that graduate recruitment could increase by 5% in 2023-24. Companies struggled to recruit in areas such as digital, engineering and finance. Despite this strong demand, each position was hotly contested with an average of 86 applications for every opening.

Once today's generation of graduates find a job, only some will find opportunities to advance. The Chartered Institution of Personnel and Development's good work survey found that only 35% of people said their job offered good opportunities for career advancement.

There are a few reasons why people find it difficult to advance on the career ladder. A survey by consultancy firm McKinsey found one of the biggest drivers of the unequal representation of women in top leadership positions is "broken rungs" further down the ladder.

The second reason many people struggle is that career ladders are becoming smaller. As large organisations have slimmed down, so have the internal paths for promotion.