Race to get first for keen professional? (9)
I believe the answer is:
careerist
'keen professional?' is the definition.
'race to get first' is the wordplay.
'race' becomes 'career' (I've seen this before**).
'to get' says to put letters next to each other.
'first' becomes 'ist'.
'career'+'ist'='CAREERIST'
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for careerist that I've seen before include "Maybe workaholic" , "Ambitious worker" , "Ambitious person" , "Ambitious type" , "he wants to get on" .)