The importance of interim contract recruitment

There are many reasons for hiring a contractor, from budget sign-offs to project deadlines and time scales. In many cases, business-critical roles come with several responsibilities and challenges. This can range from longer notice periods in permanent senior roles to candidate dropouts last minute. In this market, it is not uncommon to see counter offers, or candidates having multiple offers on the table in which they may decide to take an offer with a higher base salary.

These can all cause headaches, with timelines to hire now being delayed, already having a team to manage, key deliverables to be met and potentially falling into a red zone, and all the while stakeholder meetings still going ahead and needing progress updates.

So what would be a viable and realistic solution?

A contractor, or interim resource. A contractor or interim resource should be seen as a project resource in order to hit the aforementioned obstacles and keep the project on track.

A contractor could well be a solid option to come in and manage this whole process. Of course, they come with a cost to the business, however, as previously mentioned, a contractor should be seen as a resource factored into the budget of the project, after all, would the cost of an interim solution outweigh the cost of a project going into the ‘red zone’?

Let’s unpack this further.

What would this mean for a project to enter the red zone or business-critical stage? 

Initially, this could damage the reputation of the business or the specific department, both internally and externally with key stakeholders, board members or investors. This could lead to demotivation, burnout through extra workload distributed among the remaining members, and ultimately a workforce or team not working to an optimal level, or even leaving the business.

It goes without saying that delays to projects usually result in incurring extra costs due to overrunning on initial time frames or deadlines. This can cause a plate spinning effect across the wider company, which could ultimately end up with something being dropped further down the line or to a team in another department, potentially leading back into displeased stakeholders internally with a risk of losing clients and revenue, creating more pressure on the remaining members across the business.

How can hiring a contractor benefit a permanent starter?

Having a contractor in situ before a permanent member of staff joins the business supports a “smooth landing” introduction, offering a technical and detailed handover from a peer who supported in enabling the project from a technical perception.

Contractors with varied skill sets can also provide more junior members of staff with invaluable knowledge.

A contractor’s chameleon-like approach to projects could create a new dimension to the project. This is because they can look at certain challenges from multiple angles, giving a clear, concise and unbiased viewpoint and solution.

How can InfoSec People’s contract division support your business?

InfoSec People’s contract team know that the current interim market is incredibly candidate-driven at this moment in time. Hiring Managers are measured by the success of their team & C Suite leaders are under immense pressure to deliver business-critical change projects at pace and with certainty. Therefore, having a specialised contract consultant business partner is an invaluable resource when you have a gap in your team. Our contract team are very analytics-driven, we work with business as talent partners, sit in on steering calls and help with time-to-hire processes in order to maximise return, and negate delays within projects.

With access to market insights, we can share how your competitors hiring trends and attrition rates compares to your own, this will lead to being able to hire the right people at the right time to build out a best-in-class team to go above and beyond when setting expectations for a project. This can set your business apart, and intern increase project output and maximise business efficiency and profit margins.

The team here keep an ear to the ground and can have a short list of people across to you within a couple of days. This means that you can have someone in-post and ready to hit the ground running within 1-2 weeks, depending on your company interview process.

In the market, most businesses conduct an average of 2 stage interviews when hiring in this contract/ interim space. From our experience this can be too slow, with the market moving more rapidly than we have ever seen it, contractors are having multiple interviews at a time and now have the option of which project they would like to engage with.

InfoSec Peoples 7-day time-to-hire process.

We work with businesses on a 7-day time-to-hire process. This includes an initial steering call, setting clear objectives for CV delivery, feedback schedules and interview slots, we would advise a one-stage interview that may be slightly longer to increase the chances of securing the right people for the project or having the second stage the next day. After this, we can have the required contract in place, and the team working on the project, all within 7 days from the initial steering call with one of our consultants.