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For many people, the term ‘research analysts’, ‘projects’ or ‘interim’ can be relatively obscure. But to those in the know, this could be your golden ticket to a range of opportunities.
For businesses, the hidden pool of resource waiting to be unlocked can be game-changing. For bright, commercial individuals too, the prospect to gain practical experience within top-tier companies should not be overlooked!
Read on to find out what it means for interims and businesses and how you can leverage expertise to get ahead.
Q. What’s in it for businesses?
A. Businesses often require ad-hoc support to ensure they can deliver on external projects within tight timescales. That’s where Research Analysts come in and can help with an extra resource by providing individuals or whole teams to alleviate capacity constraints or skills gaps that aren’t present in-house.
Additional support can allow managers to complete in-house projects that have been put on the back burner for too long and free up the extra time for more strategic tasks or business priorities.
Temporary resource can also often be more cost-effective where businesses are dealing with capacity constraints or niche skills gaps. Bringing in a Researcher with a language skill for a discrete short-term project, for example, means there is no need to increase headcount. Managers can delegate the nitty-gritty analysis to someone perfectly qualified, freeing them up to focus on bringing in that next big client for the business.
Q. What’s in it for interims?
A. There are many different reasons for working on an interim basis, our network is made up of graduates who are either looking to build up their commercial skill-set before starting a permanent position or working while completing further education. With the project's model, interims can get first-hand experiences working with senior stakeholders, large teams or within start-ups and scale-ups.
Whether conducting qualitative research or quantitative analysis, interims are able to get started immediately. Work can take one day, one week, one month or even one year and it’s completely flexible to accommodate your availability.
We work with top-tier companies in the UK and Europe ranging from strategy consultancies to tech companies to e-commerce marketplaces and investment banks based in London, wider UK or Europe. The opportunity for CV experience is highly valuable, varied and never undervalued!
Q. So what projects can interims do?
A. Typical projects can include due diligence, primary and secondary research, in-depth phone interviews, market mapping, and competitor analysis, marketing analytics, drawing insight and making recommendations from the analysis. These projects can also be completed in another language as our network spans over 26 languages so projects are open across EMEA!
Q. Where does Freshminds come in?
A. We have two Project’s teams at Freshminds, each working with high-calibre individuals; the Research Analyst team who works with those in their early career from 6 months – 4 years of commercial experience; and the Consulting Projects team who places senior and expert consultants.
We manage an active pool of interims, pre-screening and getting to know everyone who joins the network. This means that, when urgent roles come up which need solving tomorrow, we can easily reach out to the interims with the specific required skills that are immediately available. For the Research Analyst team, the turn-around time from taking a business brief can be as little as half an hour!
Q. Can you give an example of a previous project?
A. The Research Analyst team successfully placed a team of ten interims to work with our long-term client, a leading global search engine and technology business. The team was looking to build their business development pipeline across EMEA by implementing a new research method for sourcing potential business partners.
The Minds, who had language skills from across Europe, worked closely as a team for 3 months conducting desk research and analysis of company profiles to produce a finalised report of the priority potential partners. The team reached out to those on the list which resulted in a significant increase of revenue for the business within the quarter and Freshminds has now gone on to work with the team further to roll this methodology out across the globe!
So if you’re a business in need of a little support, or a bright and ambitious individual looking for some experience, projects could be for you. Get ahead of the curve and explore the world of freelancing!
