Interim Jobs - Information About Interim Management

Interim jobs involve using skills that connect with immediate employment and many organisations in the private and public sector work with interim managers for an incredibly diverse range of assignments, from directing the delivery of tightly defined projects to fulfilling broad leadership roles, such as CEO or functional head such as Human Resources Director.

This means that there are lots of interim management job opportunities for you and many people pursue this type of a work as a career change option.

Whilst the ratio used to be 30/70, now just over 50 per cent of interim jobs are in the public sector and in an environment where the number of permanent civil servants have to be reduced and where contractor costs have to come down by 50 per cent or so, the prime role of interim management jobs is to look at how to help organisations to reorganise functions in order to operate with a slimmed-down structure. Are you over 50 and looking for a job? You could find an opportunity as an interim manager using the skills you've built up.

Each of these assignments requires a different blend of skills and experience and during the initial stages of their work, interim managers can be said to perform a similar role to management consultants: they agree a set of target outcomes; research the current system, processes, working practices and personnel; evaluate the client’s relationship with suppliers; and put forward a plan of action. But there is a caveat: an interim manager cannot operate without the wholehearted support and engagement of top management and key stakeholders, so you must be comfortable with aligning people and staff behind you.

Personal Characteristics Of Interim Managers

There are some personal characteristics that all interim managers need to bring to their role:

• An ability to take on board and assimilate information from multiple (sometimes conflicting) sources;
• The personal charisma to gain the respect of your new teams and temporary colleagues;
• A willingness to take responsibility and a dedication to identifying the real priorities;
• Being relentlessly focused on the delivery of your objectives.

The most successful interim jobs are the ones where the interim manager understands the need to learn fast, deliver the required results and secure a transfer of knowledge in order to leave a sustained and lasting impact.

Therefore if you are considering taking up interim management as a career, whether permanently or as a means of beefing up your experience here are some of the things you will need to do quickly and effectively:

Stage One:

• Rapidly establish your credibility and discern the fundamentals of the business;
• Build relationships internally and agree your assignment objectives and expected outcomes.

Work out before starting on interim jobs exactly what outcomes you need to realise: it’s not about performing a role, but achieving a result.

Stage Two:

• Secure some early wins within the agreed objectives, provoking the internal team into positive action;
• Ensure key performance indicators are understood and continue to be met;
• Manage ongoing relationships with key stakeholders and confirm their acceptance.

Interim managers can help to build consensus around a particular plan, but before you begin work there needs to be a consensus among the key people that change is necessary. Problems occur when you can’t get the stakeholders onside – and bear in mind that most departments have links into other departments or into shared services that can prevent that leap forward.

Stage Three:

• Ensure that robust systems and processes are in place to sustain improvements;
• Transfer knowledge and capability by coaching individuals and teams;
• Organise a successful handover and leave a valuable legacy for the organisation's future.

Interim managers must ensure that permanent staff develop the skills to pursue change programmes after their departure, leaving an organisational memory that should save clients from having to hire them again in future.

Although not all companies will need an interim manager everyday, at least, there are a lot of job opportunities that await you. If you are searching for interim jobs, be it interim manager, interim executive, or interim director, don't worry because there are a lot of resources that you can actually use to make your job search easier. Many public sector organisations, it seems, are scrambling to find an interim manager who can help them save cash, in the hope of retaining their freedom of manoeuvre during the looming cost-cutting drive. This means you may well be able to take interim jobs while you develop your longer-range opportunities.

You can also concentrate in just one or two fields by narrowing your search depending on the function like health care, engineering, recruitment management, general management, marketing services and a lot more options. Temporary as it is, there will always be a lot of people looking for interim management jobs.

Two good sources of finding Interim vacancies are :

• www.theinterimchannel.com

• www.interimpartners.com

You are here: Interim Jobs

Return To Career Change or go on to read about how to prepare your Functional CV which works best for interim management jobs.

Return To Your Career Change Home Page

---

Looking for something else about interim jobs?

An answer to an interview question? How To prepare your CV or layout? How to start Networking?

Just enter your keyword in the search box below to find your answer on this site or anywhere else on the web. You will see some adverts that may be of interest since Google targets ads to your particular interests, but your results will be below that.