Candidate or worker after seeing hope curtailed (8)
I believe the answer is:
aspirant
'candidate' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'or worker after seeing hope curtailed' is the wordplay.
'or worker' becomes 'ant' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'seeing hope' becomes 'aspire' (I've seen this in another clue).
'curtailed' means to remove the last letter.
'aspire' with its last letter removed is 'aspir'.
'ant' put after 'aspir' is 'ASPIRANT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for aspirant that I've seen before include "One who wants to succeed" , "Candidate; one with a desire to succeed" , "One seeking eg promotion" , "One works hard to achieve something" , "One with ambition" .)