The world of work is changing quickly, and the way people move between roles is changing with it. Hiring for senior positions looks very different from the way it did even five years ago, while many people still approach their own careers with instincts shaped by a market that no longer exists.
What does it mean to manage a career well in this environment, and how do the people who navigate transitions successfully approach them differently?
My guest this week is Kelly O. Kay, Global Managing Partner of the Enterprise Software and AI Practice at Heidrick & Struggles. Kelly has spent more than twenty years in executive search, and together with his longtime colleague Jeff Sanders he has just published Show Up to Win, a Harvard Business Review Press book on how leaders should manage their careers and navigate transitions.
In our conversation, he explains how hiring at the top has changed, why career management needs to be a continuous and strategic activity, where AI does and doesn't fit into the process, and what people misunderstand about the way search firms work.
In the interview, we discuss:
How hiring at the most senior level has changed
What the best leaders do to get the best roles
Career management as a continuous process, not a response to wanting to move
Quality of company, quality of role, quality of offer
Showing them how you think via executive dialogue rather than question and answer
What people misunderstand about how search firms work
Using AI as an interview coach
What does the future of leadership careers look like?
Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Follow this podcast on Spotify.
