There’s a simple truth about career progression that often gets overlooked. If you can already do 100% of a job, it’s not your job anymore.
At least, it’s not the job that will grow you, challenge you, or keep you inspired. And this applies just as much to employers as it does to ambitious candidates.
Great careers aren’t built on staying comfortable. They’re built by leaning into stretch.
A stretch role is any opportunity where you can confidently deliver around 70% of the job requirements on day one. The remaining 30% is the space where growth happens. That gap isn’t a weakness or a risk. It’s an invitation.
Comfort zones create stagnation. Stretch zones create innovation, creativity, enthusiasm, and future leaders.
When you step into a stretch role, you’re practising growth mindset in its purest form: choosing challenge over certainty, possibility over predictability.
For candidates, it’s a powerful signal.
For employers, it’s a strategic advantage.
A stretch role is any opportunity where you can confidently deliver around 70% of the job requirements on day
Good people don’t move sideways. They move up.
Sideways moves can have their place when you’re consciously building breadth, shifting industries, or repositioning your career. But if you’re doing it simply because you feel safe there, you’re missing the point of development.
Stretch roles are the ones that make your stomach flip a little. They’re the ones where you think, I can definitely do most of this… and I can learn the rest.
Those roles keep you energised, visible, engaged, and relevant. They sharpen your skills, expand your confidence, and force you to grow into your potential faster than sideways steps ever could.
The people who rise quickly in our industry are the ones who repeatedly choose roles that ask more of them than they’ve done before.
one. The remaining 30% is the space where growth happens. That gap isn’t a weakness or a risk. It’s an invitation.
Comfort zones create stagnation. Stretch zones create innovation, creativity, enthusiasm, and future leaders.
When you step into a stretch role, you’re practising growth mindset in its purest form: choosing challenge over certainty, possibility over predictability.
For candidates, it’s a powerful signal.
For employers, it’s a strategic advantage.
There’s a misconception that the safest hire is the one who’s already done the job. In reality, those people often get bored fastest.
The most motivated hires are the ones who are deliberately a little out of their depth. They’re excited. They’re hungry. They’re invested in proving themselves. They see the role not as a repetition of what they’ve already done, but as a platform to step into their next level.
When you hire for perfect fit, you get predictability.
When you hire for stretch, you get loyalty, creativity, and momentum.
This mindset is especially powerful in industries where innovation, agility, and fresh thinking matter. Teams made up of people who are learning will always outperform teams made up of people who are coasting.
When stretch becomes normal, two things happen.
First, you create a culture where growth feels expected rather than exceptional. People lean in. They take ownership. They stop waiting to be picked and start finding their own opportunities.
Second, you remove the stigma around “not knowing everything.” The myth of the perfectly qualified candidate dissolves, replaced by the reality that the best people are always becoming, not just performing.
Whether you’re hiring or applying, the question isn’t “Can they already do it all?” The better question is “Is there enough challenge here to keep them growing?”
Careers accelerate when people choose stretch over safe. Businesses accelerate when they hire for potential, not perfection. And industries evolve when both sides embrace the idea that growth is a journey, not a qualification.
Aim for the job you can do 70% of.
Hire the person who can do 70%.
Let the other 30% be where the magic happens.
