Find permanent success in interim roles

A business growth agency has released five key pointers for professional consultants who are looking to join organisations on an interim basis.

GRO.TEAM’s recommendations come as demand for interim consultants, across a range of UK sectors, continues to rise*. Typically, interim consultants are skilled and experienced managers who can step into senior roles to quickly add value.

Interim specialists are increasingly being put in place due to the ongoing economic uncertainty, particularly among organisations who aren’t yet in a position to recruit staff on a permanent basis or who require short-term expert assistance.

Rorie Devine, from the GRO.TEAM founding team, advises the following:

• Firstly, and most obviously, choose the right role for you, even though it’s only temporary. Don’t set yourself up for failure by taking an interim consulting role with a team size, company culture or business model you’re not completely confident you can add real value to.
• Companies may be looking for you to act as a change agent, or alternatively ‘act like they got the job for real’ and do their ‘sensible best’. Make sure you understand whether you will need to be a good cultural fit, or whether being counter-cultural is one of the reasons why they want to hire you. Be clear from the start about the brief and that you really understand what success will look like.
• In your first week, try and meet as many people in the team as possible. It’s important for you to get to know them, and they to get to know you, so schedule 30-minute interviews to better understand what you’re walking into. Avoid at all costs the ‘here’s the solution, now tell me about the problem’ approach.
• At the early stages of any assignment make sure you don’t ‘write cheques you can’t cash’ by offering the unachievable. There is no surer way of destroying your credibility and causing discontent than by overpromising.
• Remember to add value to your client in any way you can; it’s not just about the goals. Doing things such as sharing their job postings on LinkedIn, retweeting their tweets, liking their Facebook page etc will all help embed you within the business and enhance your credibility.

Rorie said: “In my experience, few people get treated any differently day-to-day in interim consulting roles to those in permanent positions. The fact you’re temporary won’t be a big issue but the expectations of you as an interim consultant will probably be higher.

“That’s why you should choose interim roles carefully and hit the ground running. By following these simple recommendations you’ll survive and thrive – and if you find your feet carrying out interim roles they may well become a permanent arrangement.”

GRO.TEAM has a range of interim consultants on its books, who have worked for the likes of Google, Amazon, WhatsApp, Sky, Tesco, Betfair, HSBC and the BBC.