Why become an interim manager?

Increasing numbers are discovering the attractions and benefits of choosing an interim management career. Here are the facts:

• A more flexible lifestyle that you may take advantage of to use your skills to help other organisations or pursue other ambitions, or to provide more time for other interests.
• You may be expected to fulfil several assignments with different organisations over a period of year. This should prove interesting and challenging, and ultimately provide you with a valuable portfolio of business experience.
• You should not expect to receive a regular income. There could be periods when you do not have an assignment. Managed correctly, assignments should provide you with earnings over the course of a year or alternately free time.
• You may well need to spend time away from home working on an assignment with sometimes demanding travelling requirements.
• You should also take pleasure in greater job satisfaction by avoiding the corporate politics, stress and distractions that is incumbent on a permanent management position, and so being able to focus on the job solely to achieve effective results.

Will you make a good Interim Manager?

• You need to be an expert in your field; with a background of progressive achievement, demonstrating clear success, budgetary and people management. Recognised as credible and a high performer when measured against your peers, you will have a track record of real, quantifiable achievement, capable of contributing a wealth of knowledge and adding value from day one.
• Experience; you have worked at Board/Operating Board/Executive Committee level, or as a senior line or functional specialist, senior management generalist or professional Project Manager/Programme Director.
• You are financially secure and able to manage periods when you are not billing.
• You are able to hit the ground running; and move quickly into a new organisation delivering from day one.
• Flexibility in your approach to your work and to the practical demands of working in different settings.

Personal qualities:

• Tenacious; possess sufficient energy and drive to secure a new assignment every six to nine months.
• Engaging; capable of quickly establishing a rapport, building trust, able to sell yourself quickly and confidently as the selection process for interim positions is much shorter and more focused than the standard corporate recruitment process.
• Perceptive; do you have the skills to quickly assess what's going on in a totally new environment? You need to be able to analyse, develop solutions, influence and then deliver on time and within budget.
• Adaptable; happy with change, ambiguity and comfortable moving from one organisation culture, always adapting to the needs of the new client.
• Communication; well developed people management and communication skills.
• Flexible; on location and able to commit to a weekly commute for the duration of the assignment.
• Motivated; wanting to use your experience to help other organisations.
• Resilient and self reliant; you may be living away from home, working long hours in a new environment with new faces. If you seek familiarity and routine perhaps this is not the career choice for you. You will need to consider the demands upon your family and relationships as well.

Working as an Independent Contractor:

All interim managers need to operate through a limited company which is set up by them as their means of placing them as an independent consultant. This provides definition to the required status for HM Revenue and Customs and gives the client and the agency confidence that there is no risk of employment status being applied to the contract.

There is helpful independent guidance on aspects of setting up a company, national insurance and professional indemnity insurance on the website of the Professional Contractors Group - www.pcg.org.uk - with a free downloadable guide to freelancing.

So what is the process?