A recent survey by interim management specialists Russam has given us a greater insight to the current market for contract and interim staff.
66% of Interim Managers claim they are struggling as a result of the recession according to the second ‘Recession and the Interim Manager’ survey of 10,000 Interims from leading Interim Management Provider, Russam GMS. Only 31% of Interims said they had not been affected by current market conditions and 3% were unsure.
The figures echo the findings from Arras People’s own survey of programme and project management professionals earlier in the year. Programme and project managers also felt they had a significant role to play within the recession, with the interim managers “61% of Interims confident they can lead businesses through recession”
Further areas probed in the survey:
Half of all Interims said their main problem was the fact there were fewer assignments on the market, and 19% claimed that clients are taking longer to make decisions. 11% complained that the market is now flooded with people who have been made redundant from their permanent jobs; 11% said they have had to lower their daily rates to secure work and 9% said that job interviews were much tougher than previously.
All of the above concerns have been seen within the project management market, especially the reduction in the number of opportunities and the increased competition as more contractors and interims chase each opportunity. The claim that organisations are taking longer to reach a decision with regards interim hires has not necessarily affected project management in the same way. What we have seen is a longer time for the opportunities to reach the market in the first place as roles have to be triple approved internally before the organisation can go to market to hire. Once the recruitment process is underway, decision making at each stage has been quicker because approval doesn’t have to be gained retrospectively which has often been the case in the past.
In terms of where the new opportunities will come from:
Interims are confident too that new market opportunities will emerge. 58% said that the best opportunities will come from professional services, 16% predict the public sector will bring fresh opportunities, with others seeing the utilities and charity sectors as good hunting grounds for new assignments.
An interesting part of the survey, professional services seems to be the flavour of the month with the interim market but does this translate to the project management field? Personally I’ve seen an increase in the public sector for project management roles, in fact they can’t seem to get enough of them, which in some ways does get the alarm bells ringing, can they sustain the levels of project management recruitment?
All the latest advice to the HR department is twofold; look after the talent you have especially as the economy begins to recover and secondly, keep using interim and contract resources. These resources are a cost effective solution to bringing in top talent that hit the ground running and deliver successful project outcomes quicker.
Image © papalars and used with permission.
Hi,
Timely post.
The IT contractor market has definitely tightened with rates being reduced and less contracts being available.
However interestingly whilst Organisations have reduced their recruitment, for certain senior interims with the right experience gained in the right industry the demand is very much still there. Certainly I’m getting as many calls regarding contract roles as I was a year ago. The reason is that whilst many people are looking for contracts, Organisations are being extremely picky and as a result everyone is chasing after the same interims. I know this for a fact is happening in the SAP Finance area amongst others.
This of course is the key to successful project management and staying in demand even when the economy is in the throes of a recession. People need to really manage their careers (interim or otherwise) rather than sticking to the project management basics and thinking that will be sufficient.
Lastly I would rather guess that the increase in public sector recruitment is being caused by the fact that 2010 brings the next general election and a probable change in Government to one who has already said they will need to slash public sector spending. Therefore I would guess this sector has a good 6 months ahead of it before being decimated. At that stage we’ll discover how many private sector companies are dependent on public sector IT programmes for their business.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
I think since this article was first posted, jobs as interim managers have become more prominent. However, they do still remain hard to find.