Author: Claire Jarvis welcomes Aly and Carla!
In this installment of our ongoing ‘meet the recruiters’ series, we meet someone new and bring back a familiar face.
Aly Budny is a Senior Marketing and Recruiting Associate. She oversees Sci.bio’s marketing efforts – which include the company’s website, social media, newsletters, webinars – and covers a broad range of contingency and RPO recruiting
Aly obtained a Cell and Molecular Biology degree from Northeastern University. Her interest in her current career stemmed from a marketing-focussed co-op she completed as an undergraduate. “Marketing was what I thought I wanted to do after graduating, but I also wanted to test the waters with something new.” Since she enjoyed another co-op at a biotech firm, Aly knew she wanted to stay in STEM, and so applied to her current role with Sci.bio.
Carla Yacoub was profiled last year shortly after she joined in February 2021. She’s currently a full cycle recruiter for contingency and RPO accounts. In addition to recruitment, Carla oversees Sci.bio’s new ‘Alternative Careers in STEM’ (ACIS) webinar program, and is involved with interviewing and training new hires. “It’s nice to show people who were in a similar space as me who don’t know what they want, but this could be a good fit for them,” Carla explains.
Training process
Both Aly and Carla completed a similar training process once they started at Sci.bio. New recruits shadow more senior recruiters, who talk them through their own workflow. Shadowing allows junior recruiters to find a style that works best for them. “Everybody’s process is different,” Carla explains. “New hires can take what is useful for them and turn it into their own unique process.” Carla enjoys building the confidence of new hires who aren’t sure if they can succeed at biotech recruiting, by showing them what’s possible.
Aly found the early exposure to different projects and types of recruitment helpful. “You can’t find a niche at the company until you’ve tried lots of things.”
Webinar series
The ACIS webinar program showcases different career pathways available in biotech companies, such as medical writing, accounting and bench positions. With her background in videography, Carla was especially keen to get involved with the webinar program, which asks “how can we target people with a STEM degree who know they don’t fit into a traditional STEM career path?”
Despite being in its early stages, responses to the webinar program so far have been positive. The webinar centers around a panel discussion where participants get their questions answered, and receive career advice tailored to them. To Aly the benefits of such a program are huge: “[STEM degree holders] can read a career advice column but it is generalist advice for everybody: these webinars are a little more personalized and can dive into tougher questions.”
Carla notes that it also gives attendees access to the Sci.bio network of contacts, enabling participants to build new connections in the biotech sector.
Organizing and balancing
When Aly started at Sci.bio her workload was split 50-50 between marketing and recruiting. However, after developing and refining the company’s new marketing process, she’s been able to focus more of her time on recruitment projects. Aly uses Google Calendar as her work planner, and sets their reminders and notifications to keep on track of her tasks. “Every single minute has a purpose,” she says.
Aly also uses Gmail labels to differentiate between clients and Sci.bio emails, and all emails are archived once they’re no longer relevant, so she can focus on the most important messages.
Carla’s philosophy for managing her time is to remember: “Recruiting requires managing many moving parts” and “even though there’s always more to be done, the quality of my work would suffer” if she tried to do everything.
She keeps on top of her workload by making a note of everything the second she receives it, so she won’t forget. She also encourages different groups to contact her through separate channels: Microsoft Teams is reserved for her RPO clients, and everyone at Sci.bio communicates with her via email. Carla finds these separated communication channels help her distinguish between tasks and their priority level.
