Episode 39: The Executive Search Consultant who places C-Level Leaders: These 3 Traits Decide Who Gets The Top Job! - Caroline Salen

Guest: Caroline Salen - Executive Search Consultant - Spencer StuartHost: Alexander Greb Most advice about reaching the top comes from people who have only ever watched from the outside. Caroline Salen did the job first.She spent twenty years in tech at HP, Gartner, SAP and SAP Fioneer before moving into executive search. Today she advises boards and CEOs at Spencer Stuart on who should get which job. Which means she knows both what the work really demands and what the people in the room actually decide on.And most of this conversation is not about the top job at all. It is about the years before it.We talk about why being excellent at your work stops being enough at a certain point, and what replaces it. Why the strongest CV rarely wins, because hiring is a context decision rather than a beauty contest. Why so many senior hires leave early for reasons that have nothing to do with ability. Why sideways moves often do more for a career than upward ones. Why she tells people to write down every business outcome they deliver, starting today, because you will not remember it in five years. What hands-on experience with AI is currently doing to people's market value, whatever their company says about its appetite for it. And why low ego and learning agility are now things clients ask for by name.This episode is for anyone aiming at the top level, and just as much for anyone who wants their career to pick up speed again.Follow Caroline here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinesalen/Follow Alexander: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandergreb/Follow Johannes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanneslangguth/Thanks to Steven Spears for lending his voice for our podcast intro.Theme music by Luis Álvarez a.k.a. Fourth Dogma