Lauren Cirigliano

GETTING TO THE TOP: Strategies for Career Success
By Kathryn Ullrich
Publisher: Silicon Valley Press
Publication Date: June 2010
Price: $19.95 / trade paper
ISBN: 978-9843905-1-0-9

“Through countless interviews with senior executives of many of the nation’s most successful companies, Kathryn Ullrich has identified and provided key strategies for career advancement, enlivened by numerous fascinating stories characterizing the careers of outstanding business leaders.
This is a must read for those striving to ‘get to the top’!”
– James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus, the University of Michigan

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR CAREER

New Book, Based On Interviews With Hundreds Of Top Executives, Reveals Specific Strategies For Climbing The Ladder To Success

“Whatever your definition of success, it is your responsibility to figure out and execute a development plan to get there,” advises career expert Kathryn Ullrich, in her new book GETTING TO THE TOP Strategies for Career Success (Silicon Valley Press, June 2010). “Building a career is not just about the job search. Career advancement comes from learning and practicing – continuously – those skills that will help you rise to success as a leader,” she adds. Ullrich, who is a well-respected executive recruiter, has been running the Getting to the Top® programs for alumni at both the UCLA Anderson School of Management and Stanford Graduate School of Business for the past five years. After interviewing hundreds of executives from such companies as Cisco, Adobe, and Yahoo!, Ullrich has identified the specific skills and strategies that people need to reach the highest levels of business success including top C-suite executive positions. With her guidance, readers learn how to create their own action plans for career growth.

In the first part of the book, Ullrich helps people define what success means to them personally and then develop a strategy for guiding future career decisions. “People need to think strategically about their careers and set, in essence, a business plan for career growth. Having this long-term objective is really the foundation for then understanding your career path and skills,” she explains.

In part two, Ullrich analyzes the resumes and paths that dozens of successful executives have used to build their careers in such functional business areas as sales, marketing, product and brand management, corporate communications, strategic alliances, and business development. Her groundbreaking research on career paths applies science to the art of careers. The third part of GETTING TO THE TOP focuses on the career paths of CEOs revealing the strategies they used and the decisions they made to become business leaders. The book is filled with lively anecdotes and advice from these executives that readers can immediately apply to their own lives.

In the fourth section of GETTING TO THE TOP, Ullrich identifies a new career pyramid model of skills that are vital to career advancement:
Strategic Vision – setting a strategic direction and aligning the team
Customer Perspective – understanding the customer’s needs
Communications – communicating with your team, peers, boss, customers, and partners
Team Leadership – hiring the best, developing the team, delegating, empowering, motivating, and, if necessary, firing quickly
Distinguishing Skills – mastering certain functional skills that are necessary to get the job done as a senior executive

The final section of GETTING TO THE TOP is devoted to helping readers develop their own personalized action plans. “By implementing a Career Action Plan, you take hold of your own career development,” Ullrich writes. “You need to consider your risk-reward in taking action to build your career. Some actions may require you stepping outside your comfort zone; others may be natural extensions of your current job.” To get started, Ullrich advises readers to think about the career paths and skills described in the book, and then answer the following questions:

What is your long-term career strategy?
What are potential career paths toward your objective?
What are your current skills, those that are needed for your goal, and the gap – the skills that you need to develop?
What is your development plan for getting there?

Ullrich then shows readers how to move ahead, deciding what steps they should take to develop new skills; what resources they can tap; and what obstacles they may need to overcome on the road to success.

Whether you’re just starting on the path to career success or already have many years of business experience, GETTING TO THE TOP is the perfect guide for your career journey. Ullrich provides both the strategic and commonsense tactical tools necessary to fulfill your potential and your dreams.

About The Author
Kathryn Ullrich leads a Silicon Valley executive search firm and Alumni Career Services for UCLA Anderson School of Management. Ullrich brings corporate world management experience from Siebel Systems, Accenture, GTE, and Motorola to recruiting and careers.

Ullrich has an MBA with top honors from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. She moderates the Getting to the Top® career development programs and founded a non-profit with the mission of developing women in technology.

Visit www.GettingtotheTop.com