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Attracting top-tier business talent
02:17 - Source: CNN

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Story highlights

A growing number of experienced professionals are looking for an alternative to the 9-5 work schedule

Business Talent Group, founded by Jody Miller, seeks to help workers who are after a project-based career

Sourcing projects in industries such as Healthcare, Media and Manufacturing, Business Talent Group look to revolutionize working life

CNN  — 

High level workers are looking for an alternative to the 9 to 5. Armed with years of experience, a growing number of professionals are looking to fashion project-based careers where the monotony of office life is exchanged for a varied and tailored work schedule. Business Talent Group, the brainchild of Jody Miller, works with nearly 300 companies to provide projects for its highly experienced pool of workers. Roping in opportunities from sectors such as Healthcare, Media and Manufacturing, the ‘full-time’ employee may be a role of the past.

CNN: What is the landscape like for employee recruitment?

Jody Miller: Typically, companies that have to get work done have two ways they look at it: one is that they usually hire full-time employees or they can go out to firms, consulting firms, outsourcing firms and have them do work. In fact, there’s a growing population of people who prefer to work independently and create a project-based career, and those people are fantastic. Companies are now understanding that they can harness this group of talent to create exactly the team that they need to get their work done, and then disband that team and put another team in place.

CNN: Has there been a shift in how people view their work life?

JM: I think you’re seeing two different things happening. On the talent side, we’re seeing three demographic trends: we’re seeing baby boomers retiring, we’re seeing women increasingly joining the workforce, and we’re seeing Millennials who want a different relationship between work and life. These three demographic trends are driving more and more people into the independent talent market.

CNN: What kind of people are in the talent pool?

JM: The talent pool has about 3,500 professionals, and those people are coming to Business Talent Group for one reason - they want great projects. They want to be able to say “I want to do this but don’t want to do this”. These people are very senior people, these are people who have MBAs and have experience at the best firms in the world - people who really value great work. So it’s not just about finding a senior executive and putting them in a permanent job and it’s not just about going into an expensive outside firm. This is a new resource.

CNN: How is the Business Talent Group different from other talent pools?

JM: The thing that’s revolutionary about what we’re trying to do is that we’re introducing a model that has worked in other segments into the very highest echelons of corporate America. So we’re taking very top consultants and very top executives and enabling them to work in a different way. So it’s all in their control. I want companies to feel like there’s a reliable source for this kind of talent so they can bake this into their planning. Our best clients actually budget independent talent into their next year’s planning because they know now that there are great people in this pool that they can rely on.

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