25 September 2024

Job Shadowing HE: The Podcast – Demystifying Executive Search and Interim Management

Akhil Yerneni and Claire Carter joined Susannah Marsden on the Job Shadowing HE podcast to help shed light on what an executive search and interim management firm does and how to work with one.

You can listen to or download the podcast here: https://www.jobshadowinghe.com/e/akhil-yerneni-claire-carter-demystifying-executive-search/ 

Alternatively, you can read the transcript below:

Susannah: You’re both Partners of the executive search firm, Anderson Quigley. Akhil, can you tell us a bit more about what an executive search firm is and, also, what the specific focus of Anderson Quigley is? 

Akhil: Executive Search firms typically specialise in finding and placing top-level talent within leadership and executive positions. My industry can use quite mystifying terms like headhunting, management consulting, talent advisory, client solutions and various others of its ilk to avoid using the ‘r’ word, which is recruitment. We are, at our core, recruiters, albeit for leadership and executive level roles, and I think that is just an honest statement of our profession. 

The logic behind shrouding ourselves in more esoteric language is likely due the fact that executive search firms want their service to be perceived and treated differently to high street, contingent / no win no fee recruitment firms. We want to espouse the values of long-term partnership, high quality and comprehensive searches, authentic EDI principles and consultative services that are akin to partnering with other retained professional services firms such as legal, accountancy, tax, consulting firms, and so on; The sentiment of differentiation which I can certainly get behind. 

Coming on to the focus of Anderson Quigley or AQ, we focus specifically on sectors that have a social purpose —for example education, healthcare, and charities. Our role is to deeply understand the needs of our clients and to find the right leaders who can drive those institutions forward, and ultimately have a net positive effect on society.  

AQ’s services are split into the following broad areas: interim management, consultancy, executive search for permanent staff, non-exec and board recruitment, leadership development and a number of ancillary services like assessment and profiling, workshops, webinars, thought leadership with industry experts, CV building, interview prep and so on.  

 

Susannah: We’ll go into a bit more depth about what an executive search firm does in a moment, but first of all, I’m interested to know a bit more about each of your own career backgrounds and what took you into the executive search profession, including working with HE? Claire, do you want to start off? 

Claire: Sure, Susannah. My journey into Interim Management wasn’t exactly a straight line. I fell into recruitment in the early 2000’s, and learnt my trade in a contingent recruitment business working in all areas of  public sector, but I always had a passion for  senior interim management and change and transformation.  

Over time, I realised that helping organisations find the right leaders who could make a significant impact in a short period of time was where I would thrive. I love discussing my client’s problems, what keeps them up at night, and I enjoy trying to work out what my clients need from a talent perspective to solve their headaches. And this is interim management! 

Higher education, in particular, intrigued me because of its unique challenges and the profound impact that leadership has on institutions, students, and society as a whole. I love what Interim Managers can offer, they are a special breed of people who really do move organisations forward and I love matching that talent with the challenges my clients are looking to overcome.   

I moved to AQ coming up to 3 years ago as I was really attracted by their foothold in the HE space, the work they were doing, and the relationships they held. The opportunity to help build their interim offering was really attractive. 

  

Akhil: I also fell into recruitment, but in many ways, I couldn’t imagine myself in a career that doesn’t share the same fundamental principles of match-making, talking to people, identifying problems and solutions, and, really, getting to learn a little about an awful lot. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a script writer, author, film director or even an actor (if you count being an extra on Cold Feet!).

Those all felt increasingly fanciful so I thought the next best thing was to be a lawyer advocating for people’s rights. My first professional job, fresh out of university with a law degree, was as a fee-earning paralegal within court of protection and mental health. I had some reservations about the business models associated with legal aid funding, and I felt that pursuing a career in a more openly commercially oriented field might offer greater clarity and transparency. The fact we stayed in social purpose recruitment rather than working in financial services or private equity recruitment, I hope, proves that we have hearts! 

Some of those parallels of earlier careers that I either fancied or practiced still live on in my recruitment career which is the chance to inhabit different worlds and play in the proverbial playgrounds of many different careers. Making a good match of a candidate with just the right skillset to solve key challenges for clients…that’s a feeling that never really gets old.  

I also have a great fondness for the HE sector – everything it symbolises, progressiveness, innovation, knowledge sharing, social mobility and socioeconomic empowerment, and the general collectivist mindset. I’m romanticising it a bit and I’m sure there are idiosyncrasies about the sector that has made everyone on this podcast want to rock in a corner, but there’s no other sector I would want to recruit to than education.  

And AQ is a supportive employer, with a line manager and business owners who championed my career. They are fundamentally good people who want to do good work, and understand that flexibility, autonomy and trust can get the best out of someone. And as Claire mentioned, AQ is a young search firm but we collectively have generations of experience and networks within our sectors. All of which played a part in me moving to AQ and building a career within HE interim management and executive search. 

 

Susannah: Akhil talked at the start of our conversation about the role of an executive search firm and, in summary, matching the right candidate to the institution’s – or the client’s – brief, dependent on what the client needs at a particular time. Your careers to date show the huge success you’ve had in achieving this, and I’m fascinated to know what you draw upon to secure these matches. Claire, can you share some more about what you do in your roles? 

Claire: There’s a significant amount of work that we do behind the scenes to ensure these placements are not just successful, but also strategic.  

More and more, we’re seeing institutions incorporate interim management into their long-term strategic hiring plans. They’re recognising that interim leaders aren’t just stopgaps; they’re key players who can bring fresh perspectives, drive critical projects, and navigate complex transitions. 

When working with clients, we start by deeply understanding their unique needs. This involves a lot of detailed conversations to get to the heart of their culture, strategic objectives, and the specific challenges they’re facing at the time. For many institutions, this means finding someone who can hit the ground running and make an immediate impact, whether it’s guiding them through a period of change, filling a critical gap, or bringing in specialised expertise that they might not have in-house. 

We also help clients see how interim roles can be part of a broader strategy. For example, an interim leader can be instrumental in preparing an organisation for a permanent hire by stabilising a department or implementing key initiatives that pave the way for the long-term vision. It’s about aligning the right talent with the institution’s goals and ensuring that the interim leader not only fits the current needs but also contributes to the future success of the institution. 

So, in matching candidates to these roles, we’re not just looking for someone who meets the criteria on paper. We’re looking for individuals who demonstrate a track record, can truly drive the institution forward, align with its mission, and fit seamlessly into its culture. It’s a combination of thorough assessment, strategic thinking, and a genuine passion for connecting the right people with the right opportunities that drives our success in these placements. 

Interim management isn’t just about filling a role, it is about making a connection that makes immediate impact and drives the institution forward. On the candidate side, it’s about more than just assessing their skills and experience. We take the time to understand their motivations, values, and long-term career aspirations. It’s about knowing what their value proposition is, how successful their track record is and which environments they with thrive in. We also consider how they’ll fit within the team and align with the institution’s mission. Often, it’s those intangible factors that make the difference between a good match and a great one.  

Ultimately, it’s a combination of thorough assessment, strategic thinking, and a real passion for connecting the right people with the right opportunities that drives our success. 

 

Susannah: And Akhil, in doing the role that you and Claire do, is it a help or a hinderance that neither of you have never worked in a university or HEI? 

Akhil: I think it’s definitely a help. I don’t say this to blow my own horn but over the last half a decade, I’ve appointed about 50 people a year, which amounts to about 250 appointments across 20 different functional areas, for over 90 Higher Education Institutions, which span Russell Group, Post-92s, research intensives, specialist, alternative and private providers (both degree awarding and non). There’s no part of the HE sector or geographic part of the UK I haven’t had the pleasure of helping a hiring manager solve a leadership challenge within. And when you can see all of those functional areas and connect how they work together, what problems they share – sometimes systems, sometimes processes – quite often people or resourcing related issues – it really helps build a holistic picture of the HE market as a whole. 

I think there are few other professions within HE that offer that birds eye view. Consistency and time spent in the market help me understand what solutions work, what don’t. I don’t think there’s any other profession that involves seeing as many person specs and job descriptions as we have! Or such an ever evolving understanding of market rates for an interim manager or consultant for example. 

I don’t claim to be an expert in any functional area and I certainly don’t know more about, just for example, being a Registrar or an interim Pro Vice Chancellor than the candidates themselves, but I have conversed with enough of them to speak some of the main language, and intuit how to match problems with problem solvers. I’ve also seen how market preferences can change over the years.  If you take marketing as a vertical, a lot of universities want very strong student recruiters with robust direct recruitment strategies – seemingly gone are the days where narrative, PR and brand marketeers seem to be in demand. It’s perspective like this that we can help client and candidates with. The whole of market picture, capturing the ‘zeitgeist’ that characterises a particular year or era’s problems, and providing contemporary and ever evolving solutions is key, whilst being scribes or record keepers of some sort of previous strategies and solutions.  

 

Susannah: You’ve both given us some insight there about working with the client or the institution, but let’s focus on the candidate. Akhil, you say on the AQ website that you find particular satisfaction in identifying and appointing candidates with developmental potential to become the forward-thinking leaders of tomorrow. Would you say there’s a right time in an academic or professional services career path for a colleague to be thinking about approaching an executive search firm, and how would they go about doing this?  

Akhil: I’ll split this into interim and perm. 

For perm, I’d say the candidates an exec search firm is most likely able to help are those that have already achieved their first leadership position. Where I tend to be able to help people is helping them get the next position on the leadership scale i.e. helping a Head of School progress to a Dean role, or helping a PVC progress to a DVC level role. Or for a professional service example, staying connected with a Head of Finance over a journey of 4-5 years on their journey to become a CFO.  

With interim roles, many clients look for people who are highly experienced and have done the job already, so there isn’t a great deal of potential for traditional upward seniority development, but there is potential for career development of a permanent candidate into a mixed portfolio interim and consultancy career. The breadth of seniority of positions you are able to achieve in the interim market depends on the highest point at which you exit the interim market i.e. you will have more interim opportunities to choose from if you leave a permanent Director role rather than a permanent senior manager role.  

My candid feedback to a number of candidates who approach me a little too early in their careers is to provide some helpful advice where I can and to be candid that the value I can add will be around the job after the next job, and that we should stay in touch for such a time. 

Having said that, we have a new management recruitment arm, which my colleague Az Ahmed leads. We kept getting business from clients who had a good experience with us, that asked us to work on management recruitment, who we kept declining as it would leave us spread too thin and stop us from cultivating our existing core networks. After turning down a little too much business and not being able to help our favourite clients with what clearly seemed to be a need in the market, we decided to hire Az to specialise in this sub-sector. With the hope that candidates who work with Az will be pipelined for more senior positions that Claire and I specialise in, months or more likely years down the line.

My advice to those who are yet to network with a search firm is to ask people in the position you aspire to which search firms they use – do some web research to identify firms who work in your desired sectors or professions, reach out to recruiters selectively – I make it quite clear that I focus on interim and permanent leadership and executive recruitment for public and private HE, so I won’t be able to help you if, for example, you are a hedge fund manager for example! So be selective and intentional in relationship building with let’s say 3 search firms who you have identified as a good match. 

Keep in touch, it’s a two way street. We do our best to remember you but given the volume of candidates and clients we speak with, it’s the candidates that make an effort to keep in touch with updates on their situation that end up staying front and centre of our minds.  

When you consider that I might place 50 people a year, when you factor in the advert phase, the headhunting or pro-active recruitment phase, the longlisting, shortlisting, you very easily reach about a thousand people in a year that I talk to! That means I place 5% of the people I talk to yearly on average. This is obviously skewed when you consider, for example, an interim chief marketing officer who has developed their value proposition and keeps winning interim work through us due to having a solid track record of interim delivery, great interim references and a growing reputation within the market.  

Essentially, we find people for jobs, not jobs for people. Which sounds a bit trite but it’s fundamentally true. But I’ll let Claire elaborate on that shortly! 

 

Susannah: And, Claire, in making that approach to a firm such as Anderson Quigley, what sort of expectation should a candidate have about getting that next job? Can you offer any guarantee? 

Claire: It’s important for candidates to have realistic expectations, Susannah. While we can certainly help open doors and guide them through the process, there’s no guarantee of landing a job immediately. Our role is to match the right candidate with the right opportunity, and that process can take time. However, our support for candidates goes far beyond just placing them in roles—we’re committed to building long-term relationships that help them grow and succeed over the course of their interim career. 

From the moment a candidate engages with us, we start by really getting to know them—not just their professional background, but their aspirations, values, and what they’re looking for in their next role. This relationship-building is crucial because it allows us to provide tailored advice that aligns with their career goals. For example, we often work closely with candidates to refine their CVs and craft compelling value propositions that highlight their strengths in a way that resonates with potential employers.  

We know that the way a candidate presents themselves on paper can make all the difference in securing an interview, so we’re there to guide them every step of the way.

In addition to this hands-on support, we also share market intelligence with our candidates. This includes insights into industry trends, what specific institutions are looking for, and how they can position themselves to take advantage of emerging opportunities and challenges. By keeping candidates informed about the broader market landscape, we help them make strategic decisions about their career moves, whether that’s considering an interim role to gain new experience or positioning themselves for a long-term leadership position. 

Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that when the right opportunity does come along, our candidates are not only prepared but are also the strongest possible contenders. This is about finding the best fit for both the candidate and the client—where the candidate can thrive and make a meaningful impact, and where the client gains a leader who aligns with their mission and strategic goals.  

It’s a collaborative process, and while it might take time, the relationships we build and the ongoing support we provide are what make it successful. 

 

Susannah: Thinking about applying for a new role or going through the process can be daunting. Akhil, in relation to permanent roles, what do you find to be the most common issues that can make someone feel daunted, and how do you support a candidate in helping mitigate those concerns?  

Akhil: There is a huge investment of time when applying for permanent roles, candidates are working full-time jobs, they are busy with personal, family and domestic lives. We’re complex, intersectional beings. As I alluded to earlier with the example of 1000 people talked to for 50 appointments a year, meaning I as a single consultant can only help 5% of our candidate pool per year, there is unfortunately only 1 job Vs many applicants.  

You can mitigate the frustrations of  this through compartmentalising the job search – consistent effort over time on focused and intentional applications – sharpening up your CV with key achievements – defining your value proposition– staying on top of CPD and following industry trends, networking continuously as painful as that is, virtual and online.  

Cover all routes to market, referrals through your own network, job adverts, networking with recruiters and so on.  

On the latter point, you can work with recruiters like Claire or I who can help with advice on CVs, cover letters, tailoring your application, interview prep, and sound knowledge of the client or sector through briefing calls with us. As cliché as it sounds, it’s worth knowing that every so-called failed interview is a learning opportunity to sharpen your next performance. We’ve guided thousands of people through interviews so it’s always worth asking a recruiter for advice ahead of an interview. 

Seeking constructive feedback, and easier said than done but developing a level of mental resilience is key. You can choose to be upset, you can choose to blame the industry or the job market, and it’s quite easy to get bogged down in the minutiae and cycle of recruitment. And I’m not saying those factors aren’t true, it is tough out there, especially in buyer’s market as we are heading towards.  

However I’m a strong believer in persistence, continual improvement and strong relationship building always eventually yielding success. Be the kind of person people want to work with, think about the colleagues who you worked with that you admire, and exemplify their best behaviours. Think about the technical problems in your industry, and showcase how you have dealt with those challenges. 

I could go on, but I’ll stop there! 

 

Susannah: Akhil talked at the start of our conversation about Anderson Quigley having a significant focus on interim roles as well as on permanent positions. Claire, your LinkedIn profile says that you have a passion for providing careers advice, especially for those people who have not considered interim roles before. Can you tell us more about the main reasons institutions approach you to find an interim?  

Claire: Absolutely, Susannah. Institutions often seek interim leaders during periods of transition, such as when there’s a sudden vacancy, a major project, or a shift in strategy. Interim roles are crucial because they bring in experienced leadership to provide stability and direction.  

For candidates, these roles offer a unique opportunity to tackle new challenges and make a significant impact within a relatively short timeframe. 

Broadly speaking, the reasons institutions come to us for interim solutions typically fall into three categories. The first is what I’d call critical gap fill. This occurs when a senior member of the leadership team leaves unexpectedly, and the university needs to fill that gap swiftly while they search for a permanent solution. In these cases, we usually secure an interim leader on a six to nine-month contract, providing the necessary continuity. Often, we run the executive search process for the permanent appointment in parallel with the interim placement, ensuring a smooth transition. 

The second category is capacity building, particularly in the context of change and transformation. Sometimes, an institution may lack the specific skills or the internal capacity needed to achieve certain strategic outcomes. In such situations, hiring an interim with the right expertise for a defined period can be the perfect solution. This not only helps the institution meet its objectives but also strengthens the team’s overall capability. 

Finally, there’s project-based consultancy. This is when an institution requires a specific skill set to deliver a particular piece of work, often related to change and transformation. For example, they might need someone to come in and lead a major change program. In these cases, hiring an interim specialist allows the institution to benefit from highly targeted expertise without making a long-term commitment. 

These categories highlight the strategic value of interim roles in higher education, both for institutions navigating periods of change and for candidates eager to take on impactful, short-term challenges. 

 

Susannah: And for someone is moving into an interim role – which can be high pressure, as we heard from Andrea Bolshaw in the previous episode – what sort of support and advice you offer to interim candidates before during and after the assignment? 

Claire: Moving into an interim role can indeed be high pressure. That’s why we place a strong emphasis on providing comprehensive support to our interim candidates before, during, and after their assignments. 

Before the Assignment: Our support starts well before the assignment begins. We offer extensive help with preparing for the role. This includes: 

  • CV and Value Proposition: We assist candidates in refining their CVs and crafting a strong value proposition tailored to the specific interim role they’re applying for. This ensures they present themselves in the best possible light to potential clients. 
  • Social Media Presence: A strong LinkedIn profile can make a significant difference. We work with candidates to enhance their LinkedIn profiles, highlighting their relevant skills and experiences to attract the right opportunities. 
  • Interview Preparation: We provide thorough interview preparation, including mock interviews and detailed research on the client organisation. This helps candidates understand the institution’s culture, expectations, and any specific challenges they might face, allowing them to enter the assignment well-prepared. 

During the Assignment: Once the assignment is underway, our support continues: 

  • Ongoing Check-Ins: We maintain regular contact with interim candidates to offer guidance and address any issues they might encounter. This helps them navigate the challenges of their new role and ensures they are effectively integrating into the organisation. 
  • Client Liaison: We act as a liaison between the candidate and the client, facilitating communication and ensuring that expectations are aligned. If any issues arise, we work to resolve them promptly, providing additional support as needed. 

After the Assignment: Even after the assignment concludes, our support doesn’t stop: 

  • Debrief and Feedback: We conduct debrief sessions to discuss the candidate’s experience and gather feedback from both the candidate and the client. This helps in understanding what went well and identifying areas for improvement. 
  • Career Development: We offer advice on next steps and career development, helping candidates reflect on their interim experience and how it can be leveraged for future opportunities. This may include updating their CV, enhancing their LinkedIn profile further, or discussing new career goals. 

Overall, our goal is to ensure that interim candidates are not only prepared for their roles but also supported throughout their assignments to maximise their success and satisfaction. 

 

Susannah: There’s an increasing amount of research and focus going on in the sector about the need to increase diversity in permanent leadership roles, including the storytelling project led by Dr Monika Nangia, Director of Student & Academic Services at Durham University who will be a guest later on in this series. It’s probably fair to say that less is out there about diversity in the interim market. Akhil, what are you seeing in that market and what reflections do you have about that?  

Akhil: It’s a difficult but topical question and one that deserves a podcast on its own one day to fully examine it from the lens of all the protected characteristics, not just gender and race, as important as those two characteristics are. 

Diversity is always going to be harder to get in the interim market because we are so heavily dependent on those exiting the permanent market for interims. By definition, an interim needs to be highly experienced, adaptable and able to hit the ground running, so they’re going to quite often be the ‘cream of the crop’ of those who have achieved senior positions in the perm market, who are going on to enter the interim market towards the latter part of their careers. There is a level of survivor bias and it’s symbiotic with the notion that if the permanent market has diversity issues, then the interim market has them doubly so.  

In the permanent market, we have access to all of the candidate pool as default. Everyone can be suitable for a permanent position but not everyone can be suitable for an interim position i.e. you have to be able to start an interim role immediately or on short notice, you have to be mobile across the country, you need to have a problem solving or interim manager mindset and approach…there’s a plethora of factors that limit the interim talent pool. So with a talent pool which is proportionally a fraction of the permanent pool, and that fraction exiting at the top of the funnel of a permanent talent pool which could use better diversity….you see how it’s difficult. 

There are upsides to the diversity conversation in interim management, however.

  • Black book Vs interim searching – modernisation and continual generation of new interim talent. We are always endeavouring to encourage or pipeline permanent candidates and new interim candidates on the market when forming our shortlists so we don’t rely on the ‘top draw’ of interim candidates like in the older days of interim management. We also try to include ‘wildcard’ candidates in each shortlist to encourage the client to think more broadly around transferable skills from functional areas and sectors. 
  • We have to consider intersectionality – a lot of interims can be carers that need flexibility, they may be wonderful allies and very clued into the D&I conversation. The numerous institutions and people they work with can bring a great deal of diversity of thought and approaches. 
  • We are making incremental improvements in the total pool of interims increasing which means more new faces and less repeated shortlists. There is a natural recycling of the interim talent pool with some interims retiring and new ones joining who provide contemporary perspectives (for example, those who have had unique experiences of managing institutions through COVID and drops in international student numbers). Ethnicity statistics have also been inching forward each year to be more representative of the UK census, which is a small win.
  • But work remains to be done, the number of women in IM has never exceeded 30% (Claire has written a blog series exploring why this is). 
  • The most authentic example I can give any client about D&I in interim is that yes, we can commit to searching in every corner and nationwide to present to you the most diverse and representative shortlist possible. That’s almost the easy part because we do this day in day out and put a huge amount of time and effort into making sure we know every possible new interim or interim ready candidate on the market.
  • However, the hard part is in the long term relationship building that encourages permanent talent that would provide greater representation in the interim market to make the jump. Those can often be years long conversations, hours of advice and time before someone takes the leap. And when that candidate makes the jump, they may be placed by another agency or snapped up directly. But that’s the commitment we make to the sector, in the hope that increasing the overall size and diversity of the talent pool benefits us all, whether that is direct and immediate gain for us or not. I think that the pipelining over years, being a trusted partner and guide, and encouraging those with potential, is a true example of inclusive recruitment principles in action within the interim market.  

 

Susannah: Through the services and support that you offer in your roles, you’re in a prime position to help the sector find the best academic and professional services leaders to support its development over the next few years.  But being in a leadership position can be challenging. You’ve recently established a programme called Strategic Organisational Leadership Experience, or SOLE for short. Claire, can you say a bit more about the background to setting this up and what it aims to achieve?  

Claire: The SOLE programme was born out of a recognition that many leaders need more structured support to develop their strategic leadership skills. We observed that while technical expertise is common, the ability to lead strategically in a complex environment is something that requires more focused development. SOLE provides this through a combination of mentoring, peer learning, and practical exercises, all designed to help leaders enhance their strategic impact. 

 

Susannah: Finally, your roles ultimately support the professional development of many people and the sector overall – which sounds highly rewarding – and that type of work may be of interest to some of the podcast audience. Akhil, what advice would you give to someone looking to get into your field of work?  

Akhil: I’ll cover traits, and perhaps Claire can add a bit on how to get into recruitment.

Traits: Passion for people and the sector, excitement for matchmaking, spotting opportunities for business development, a long term view and partnership building, being accountable, being creative, not being afraid to challenge the status quo, especially when it might result in a better appointment or a more balanced and inclusive shortlist, being compassionate and empathetic, staying resilient through market declines, these are all key in my view. You have to remember you are a service provider and that means having to be at the beck and call of candidates and clients sometimes – so flexibility and a customer first approach is key to success. Having a love for the sector certainly helps. For many, HE is a vocation beyond working hours, and I feel the same way.  

There’s a trite saying that ‘do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life’ – I wouldn’t go that far – but – it really helps when you’re happy to stay on top of sector intel on evenings and weekends because it’s not a chore – the natural curiosity and ability to reflect the personification of the sector you recruit to is important in my opinion.  

And most important is the ability to understand a client’s needs to help to formalise their problems into briefs and connect great talent to solve said problems. Sometimes clients don’t know what they want and candidates don’t know if they’re what clients are looking for, therefore your most valuable currency is providing clarity, being consultative, proposing solutions and facilitating connections. 

 

Claire: I’d add that adaptability is absolutely key. Each interim requirement is unique, and you need to be ready to think creatively and adapt to different situations. Beyond that, having a genuine passion for helping people and organisations succeed is essential—it’s what makes this work so meaningful and rewarding. If you have that drive, this can be an incredibly fulfilling career. 

One piece of advice I’d emphasise is to pick a sector that you love, because you really have to live and breathe it. As Akhil said, let it become your vocation. Once you’ve identified that sector, approach the search firms that specialise in it and start building relationships with them. The traits I mentioned earlier —adaptability, creativity, and a passion for success — will help you make the transition into this field. 

Additionally, we’re developing a microsite specifically for people who might be interested in working with us. This initiative is being led by our internal Talent Acquisition manager, Lela Gascoigne. The microsite will be a great resource for learning more about the opportunities we offer and how you can join us in this rewarding line of work. Please watch this space!