By Bob Van Rossum

A recent article on www.cnn.com, entitled “Say goodbye to full-time jobs with benefits“, discusses the trend we are seeing towards an interim workplace.  Employers are looking to simply get work done, not necessarily add to headcount.  The article does a good job of describing the trend and why it exists.  Ultimately it understates how high up the corporate ladder this change is taking place and for how long the change will occur.

The fastest growing part of our business is our interim marketing executives.  Not necessarily the Chief Marketing Officer, but every position reporting to the CMO is now open for a discussion on whether it needs to be a permanent headcount or whether the needs of the corporation are better served by an interim professional.

Historically our contract staffing business has been more tactical (junior level) professionals and our executive search group handled placing marketing executives directly into corporations.  Currently our contract staffing business is experiencing growth, but it is at the senior strategic level where we are seeing the biggest shift.  Now for every two senior searches we engage in, one is for an interim marketing executive.  

This shift is significant and logical.  The world is changing quickly and as a CMO, the talent you need today might not be the talent you need a year from now.  Are you sure you want to invest in full-time headcount when the world around you dictates their skills might be less relevant to you in a year?  Do you really need an expensive marketing consultant when an interim marketing professional with strategy and implementation experience is available to you?  

The shifts in the marketplace regarding an increased pace of change and continued pressure on costs are here to stay, which means this trend is here to stay as well, long after unemployment dips back below 5%.

By Bob Van Rossum

There is a lot of bad data out there on how to prepare for an interview, much of which is actually counterproductive to the process.  Please DO NOT go out on Google, search for sample interview questions about behavioral interviews or any other type of interview process and waste your time writing out and memorizing answers to these questions.  The result is likely to be disaster, first you have no idea what type of questions the interviewer will ask. Even if you hear from someone who has interviewed there before that Company X uses behavioral interview techniques, you do not really know if they do or just the person they interviewed with did.  Additionally, no matter what methodology a company uses there are always multiple high ranking employees who can’t be bothered to learn the process and therefore interview the same way they always have.   So now your friend told you to prepare for behavioral based questions and you spend hours doing so and you go in and the very first interviewer asks none of the questions you have painstakingly memorized questions for, first you get a little nervous, second your confidence goes downhill and next you are fumbling for answers to even the most basic questions.  You just lost the opportunity to work for this company.  Worse is you go in and they ask you exactly the questions you are expecting and you answer them all based on the memorization game you played with yourself.  You leave the interview feeling great and you never hear from that company again.  You have been rejected and they never even bothered to call and let you know, let alone let you know why.  In this case the reason you were rejected was your answers sounded rehearsed and therefore fake.  Best case scenario is you lacked credibility, worst case scenario they just flat out did not believe you.   When you interview you are competing and when you compete with others of similar skills and background, it is individual most prepared who will win.  How are you separating yourself from the competition?

Check out:

How to Prepare for an Interview

The Phone Interview

MarketPro – is the leading marketing staffing and marketing recruitment firm utilizing top marketers to find you top marketing talent.