The Biotech industry has a people challenge. Rapid growth and shifting trends have created high stakes competition and demand for new talent that is both creative and specialized to maintain momentum. In a recent BioPharm America panel discussion, one of the themes that resonated for most of the participants was that recruiting great talent was the #1 biggest challenge in biotech today.
However, as a small biotech company, it can be particularly challenging to find the chief medical officers, directors and project managers with both the industry experience and specialized experience driving drug development and ensuring timeline expectations are met in a smaller environment. This person should ideally be able to wear whichever hat is needed and should never shy away when there is ambiguity about what needs to be done. The bottom line: small biotech needs talent that can make things happen, but finding specialized biotech talent can be tough. In this blog, we’ll go over a few strategies you can use to win the war for specialized biotech talent.
Employee Referrals are Helpful, but Limited
In many cases, employee referral programs can be among the most effective methods for finding new biotech talent. Employees often have solid networks of connections that grant companies access to quick, high quality hires with high retention rates. However, as a small biotech company with few employees, referrals can run out fairly quickly, forcing your HR department to rely on screening alone. Without the right approach, screening can be unsuccessful and result in irrelevant or unqualified candidates, particularly due to the increasingly specialized nature of the industry.
When you’re looking for extremely specialized talent in areas like oncology, cell therapy, gene therapy, or RNA delivery, screening may lead to a dead end if you don’t have access to the right candidates, network and other recruiting resources. Often, the right candidate isn’t even in the market for a new job and, unless you have a ton of extra free time on your hands, it can be difficult to find these people. are only a finite number of candidates in any given specialized biotech pool and many of them are most likely currently employed. This is why so many biotech companies reach out to niche Life Science recruiting firms like Arris Partners to manage the search, screening and hiring process on their behalf. With so much at stake, it makes sense for many of these companies to seek outside assistance, even when you factor in the additional cost of hiring a recruiting firm. The lifetime value of an A-Player employee will far outweigh the cost of hiring a recruiter.
A Recruiting Firm can Help You Overcome Biotech Recruiting Challenges
When it comes to almost any employment situation, the most critical issue is “fit”. And while recruiting the best talent available can be difficult in any industry, it’s particularly challenging for biotech and pharma employers due to the highly specialized skills most positions require, combined with stiff industry competition for candidates and the constantly changing nature of the marketplace
With the help of a recruiting firm that knows the biotech industry inside and out, you can find the candidates you’re looking for. Whether you’re in need of an employee who will stay for a specific stage of development or the long term; someone who is data-driven or creative, a talented biotech recruiter should be able to deliver a candidate with the ideal skill set you need.
Most biotech companies have a core technology that are the center of the company and its mission. It’s important that candidates have a strong understanding of this first so they can have a faster learning curve and an easier time acclimating. While biotechnology companies commonly need talent that is technologically savvy, that’s not the only mark of a great biotech hire. The best candidates will have a well-rounded skillset and the ability to think logically and problem solve on the spot. Additionally, you should be on the lookout for hires who have faith in your company’s vision and hope for its future.
Recruiters Can Leverage Networks and Unconventional Avenues
Some recruiters spend decades building their networks, which gives them far greater reach when it comes to the search process. A recruiter’s only goal is to bring in the best candidates possible to a biotech company’s hiring manager, which makes them a great asset for hiring managers and job seekers alike.
Recruiters also have access to the sought after passive candidate. According to a recent Talent Trends Study by LinkedIn, the majority of the employed workforce is actually open to exploring new job opportunities. 25% of respondents indicated they were actively looking for new jobs, 15% said they were not looking but were chatting with their close personal associates, while a whopping 45% said they weren’t actively looking but were open to new opportunities. Only 15% of respondents were satisfied enough that they wouldn’t consider looking for a new job. These are the candidates that are in the highest demand–gainfully employed with attractive in-demand skillsets. The good news? Most professionals will consider a career change when approached appropriately.
The challenge is that they are hard to engage with, as they can be finicky about how they’re approached and what they’re approached about. Many candidates are turned off due to an over influx of impersonal, irrelevant attempts to connect. An experienced biotech recruiter not only knows where these qualified satisfied passive candidates are working, they also know the delicate art of communicating and connecting with them about exciting opportunities. Recruiters can carefully nurture candidates and know exactly how to sell an opportunity in a way that makes them see the growth potential and merit relative to their current position. Moreover, they also know that, while speed is critical, it’s quality that wins out in the end. You can be sure that if you hire the right recruiter, you will be delivered only highly qualified and exceptional candidates that fit well at your company in terms of both hard and soft skills.
Connect With Arris Partners to Identify and Recruit Your Next Biotech Hire
Arris Partners understands what individually motivates each biotech candidate, depending on the specialty. We’ve helped countless biotech companies in pharmaceutical hubs like Boston and DC find top talent, despite the limited pool of candidates. Whether your company is in need of a new Director of Clinical Development, Chief Medical Officer, Project Manager or Study Manager, Arris Partners can provide a personalized talent acquisition service designed to assist you in building and retaining human capital.
Our goal is to assist you in achieving your hiring objectives and develop a complete recruiting strategy. We have established conduits to qualified biotech candidates and can work directly on your behalf to bring qualified candidates out of hiding and into your recruitment process. If it’s become a challenge to source the right talent or your employee referral program is coming up empty, contact us today to get started.