With millions of workers joining the Great Resignation, the labor market is still navigating unknown waters, creating labor shortages and a seemingly never-ending list of available positions for firms everywhere. Top companies are leveraging high-end independent talent within interim roles as they seek long-term solutions to fill in these gaps and continue facilitating growth, change, and impact as evidenced by a 137 percent year-over-year increase in requests for interim leaders, according to the 2022 High-End Independent Talent Report.
Here are five takeaways from the webinar that can help you flourish as an interim leader.
Rather than being an afterthought, becoming an interim CEO should be part of your long-term career strategy. It may be tempting to get on the Great Resignation bandwagon, but you should first sit down and consider why you want to leave permanent employment and whether temporary roles are the right option for you.
Interims have the freedom to choose the companies for which they work, are interested in a wide range of projects, and enjoy making an influence at a variety of organizations during their careers as independent talent. It’s crucial to emphasize that talent is happy with independent employment, with 83 percent expressing that they are and 88 percent saying they would recommend it to others.
Interim leadership offers a lot of variety and exposure to diverse industries, business conditions, cultures, and organizations, which may be extremely beneficial to someone’s career path. It also provides a great deal of flexibility because the talent has a say in the temporary jobs they choose.
Be very specific about who you’re reaching out to and why you’re reaching out to them. Make sure the value proposition is clearly stated.
Consider it a paper version of an elevator pitch. Remove any fluff from your resume or CV and emphasize KPIs, you’ve assisted your clients in achieving. Avoid making hiring managers look for information elsewhere (i.e., portfolio sites). If it’s been a while since you updated your documents, seek outside help if necessary.
Consider being an interim as a business. Your company, and thus you, must be simple to work with, and the value you provide must be obvious, or the client will look for another option. Make it as simple as possible for the decision-makers to see you in the role.
While you’re learning the ropes, be flexible with your initial cost because it’s simple to stop the conversation unintentionally if your fee is outside the client’s budget range.
To get a couple of tasks under your belt, set your rate a little lower for the first one or two assignments. You can then adjust your rate accordingly.
Interims’ ability to get in, get started, and support growth rapidly is one of their strongest selling points, and many of these interim roles allow you to make a significant impact in a short amount of time. Interim executives have demonstrated the ability to drastically alter a company’s strategic direction in a short amount of time. That’s vital to remember since firms typically hire interims because they want to make a quick effect.
Interim Leaders, for example, can ask pointed, perhaps obvious questions that internal teams frequently overlook. Their outside viewpoint allows them to see nuances that others may overlook, and their diverse experience allows them to provide innovative suggestions to help projects move forward.
The chance to create strong, high-level relationships across top firms is one of the most unique career benefits of interim work. However, networking as an interim can be tough, especially if you are mostly remote.
I think we can all agree that the search industry isn’t easy to navigate, but there are always resources to emphasize the importance of taking the time to learn about the landscape and making connections with both traditional executive search consultants who can serve as indirect conduits to interim roles and networks like Business Talent Group where project-based assignments can be found.
There’s no better time than now to begin your interim projects. Interim talent is in higher demand than ever before. International Executive Consulting LLC is one of the best firms and provides the top-rated Interim Executives or Interim CEOs to the business owners to boost their growth. To get the instant solutions for your Interim needs, give us a call – +1-202-258-5376!