In the Biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, it takes more than a big salary to attract, and keep, better candidates.
Finding candidates
A successful pharmaceuticals recruiting strategy is essential when it comes to finding more, and better, candidates. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. But finding a candidate with the skills that fit current vacancies and who also aligns with corporate culture can be a challenge. Nothing feels better than getting it right. And nothing seems more frustrating when it doesn’t. Unsuccessful placements impact morale and are costly to the company.
And while there isn’t a secret formula that can guarantee every placement will be a success, you can stack the odds in your favor. Enjoy successful placements with these tips for finding more, and better, candidates.
A Better Job Description for A Better Candidate
When you need to find better candidates, you need to start with the job description; it’s critical to your success. By taking the time to craft a detailed, attention-grabbing job description you’ll see more, and better, candidates send in their applications come across your desk. And a job description that contains relevant job-specific terminology and speaks the language of biotech and pharmaceutical job seekers will help attract top professionals.
Painless Application Process
One-touch applications, from a mobile device, is one convenience that you can’t afford to overlook. Want top technical talent? Then you’ll need to advertise you’re relevant and up-to-date with technology as well, and nothing says that better – or easier – than a mobile application process. When the biopharma recruiting process is mobile-friendly, you’ll not only let job seekers know you’re on trend, but you’ll attract more and better millennial candidates.
Good on The Job? Or Just Good During the Interview?
There’s a big difference between acing the interview and excelling on the job. Did a candidate sail through the initial screening with ease and get top marks in the interview? That’s great, but it doesn’t always mean that will translate into job success. Taking a little extra effort to evaluate technical skills and abilities will help you differentiate between candidates who not only stood out during the interview process but who will also be top performers in the role.
Social Media
If you’re not using social media as a regular part of your pharmaceutical recruiting process, you’re missing out on talent. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are all outstanding resources when it comes to finding better candidates. With social media, you can
promote current and upcoming vacancies,
reach passive candidates who might not be actively searching for new jobs,
reach a wider audience than just posting on your company’s job board,
gain insight into whether a candidate will align with a company’s corporate culture.
And best of all, social media is free for both recruiters and job seekers to use.
With a little attention to these tips, you’ll be attracting more, and better, pharmaceuticals and biotech candidates than you ever expected.
Are you looking for a long-lasting career in pharmaceuticals or biotechnology that will allow you to explore your true interests? There are 5 questions you can ask yourself that will help you decide if it’s time to switch jobs.
How do you feel about your current job? What’s your next move? These questions will help you make the call about whether it’s time to move on.
Am I inspired, have I done anything new?
Do you look forward to going to work on Monday? If your pharmaceutical work constantly drains you, you should look deeper into what’s making it so difficult. Perhaps you should change your schedule so you’re addressing tasks in a different order, or taking longer or more frequent breaks to recharge when the going gets tough. If that doesn’t help, it’s possible you’re not a good fit for the position and should consider something else.
For inspiration, think about the things outside of work that give you energy. What aspects of that could you seek out as you look for a new job or even career? If you want to grow in your biotech or pharmaceuticals career, that won’t happen if you are doing the same thing every day. Ways to help: Look over your resume—or update it if it’s been awhile—and see how many achievements have come in the past year. You may be getting to comfortable and stagnant in your position and it may be time for a change.
Have I gotten a raise lately?
Your pay can be a good indicator to help determine whether you should stay at your job. Ask yourself: do I make enough money to cover my cost of living? Typically, salary upticks are granted once a year, so if you haven’t had a raise or a promotion in that time or aren’t getting opportunities to earn one, it may be time to move on.
Can I make a change?
If it is possible for you to can change what you don’t like about your job – and what you are asking for is a realistic request, this could be a discussion to have with your manager to see if there’s something that can be done. If there is no room for flexibility, change, or future growth this is a sign that it’s time to move on.
Is the grass truly greener on the other side?
If you are unhappy in your current position, consider whether it’s job/company related or if it’s a personal dissatisfaction. Even if you do make a change, will your unhappiness follow you? Also, consider whether the things you don’t like about your job are unique to that job or workplace.
Many times people think the grass will be greener, but it’s not, To make sure you’re really moving to a better place, you first have to know for sure why you want to leave. If you can pinpoint something specific, you can research prospective companies by talking to current or past employees and checking business social media and ranking sites.
What is my future with this company?
If you can’t picture yourself at your current organization in a year or two, or if the track you’re on doesn’t lead to where you want to be, it’s time to seriously look at whether it’s the right place for you. Ask yourself whether the job aligns with your overall career goals. If it’s not a step on the path to your career dreams, it may be time to make a change.
Hope these questions can help you make the right decision in your future career planning goals!
In pharmaceutical recruitment and biotech excutive placement, there is a lot of emphasis on the overall candidate experience. It’s highly suggested that offering candidates the best possible experience, regardless of the outcome, is key to securing the best talent. But what about the recruiter experience? A successful recruitment process, from sourcing to hiring, depends a lot on a positive experience for recruiters as it is for candidates. There are known challenges for recruiters… and balancing the need to improve the candidate experience and meeting hiring targets just to name a few.
The importance of the recruiter experience?
A good pharmaceutical recruiter experience is dependent on the process of finding the best talent. This needs to be as efficient and structured as possible. Optimizing the working processes and experience of a recruiter leads to a more efficient and successful hiring process. Recruiters can focus on the more important aspects of their job – sourcing and building relationships with top candidates. Also the focus can impact the candidate to have a positive experience, resulting in an improved image and reputation for the brand. To make sure you achieve these goals there are two things that come into play:
Time management
One of the most important factors of the recruiter experience is time management. This includes: searching for candidates, reading through numerous applications, and liaising with both candidates and hiring managers can be time consuming. Therefore, the more efficient workflows can be, the better. One way to achieve this is by using Sci.bio Recruiting, which provides numerous options to assist in making the recruiting process seamless and less daunting. Having assistance with candidate sourcing and screening tasks significantly reduces the workload on pharmaceutical recruiters or companies as a whole. The combination of specialist tools and process optimization will free up valuable time and enhance the recruiter experience.
Communication challenges
Communication from candidates can significantly impact the pharmaceutical recruiter experience – every recruiter knows how frustrating non-communicative candidates can be. However, there are ways for pharmaceutical recruiters to encourage better communication from candidates. Avoid emailing a candidate over and over… pick up the phone and call the candidate. Also try texting or contacting them through social media. Trying different contact methods when appropriate will help with communication. Using the right communication channel improves responsiveness and can strengthen the relationship with the candidate.
Don’t forget…
While most can confirm that the candidate experience is crucial from a business perspective, the recruiter experience should never be forgotten in the pharmaceutical industry. The more time and effort that is put into this process to improve the experience of pharmaceutical recruiters, the better the experience will be for candidates. Optimizing both time and communication will be extremely helpful along with providing recruiters with more time to build relationships and identify the best talent. In the end this will benefit everyone: recruiters have more time to dedicate to the very top talent, candidates have a positive experience even if they don’t get the job, and businesses receive top quality hires much faster.
Leveraging personal connections is probably the single-most effective approach in landing a job . Roughly half of all employees say that they found their job through a friend, family member, or other type of social network contact. Although all connections are not created equal. In a job search, talking to people and networking is clearly important, but who are the best people to talk to?
The importance of social networks for getting jobs
Studies show that the “strength” of the social tie between job seekers and the people giving them employment leads, and found that of those who found jobs through contacts, only 17% saw their contact “often,” while 56% saw the contact “occasionally,” and 28% saw him “rarely.” The people in your life who you don’t know too well are the ones who often matter the most when it comes time to find a job.
Other studies since have backed up the importance of “weak ties.” The general consensus is that people you don’t know well tend to belong to groups that aren’t your own. They therefore have access to information about jobs that you wouldn’t otherwise come across. The people who you’re closest to, your “strong ties,” usually move in the same social circles as you do. Most jobs they know of, you could have found out about from someone else. As painful as it can be to talk to people you don’t know too well about the fact that you’re looking for work, those could very easily prove to be the most important conversations.
What else can job seekers learn from social networks and personal connections?
Weak ties are important, but don’t ignore the strong ones. weak ties can play the largest role for people who already had jobs—those switching positions rather than looking to leave unemployment. Among the unemployed, strong ties actually matter more. In moments of pressure, it seems that strong ties might very well be the ones that come through. So while it’s important to utilize your acquaintances in your job search, that doesn’t mean you should neglect the people closest to you.
Willing. Your connections have to be willing to go to bat for you, since the jobs people know about are often at the place where they work. Letting folks in your social network know that you’re looking for work is the first step, but you should also work to sell them on the idea that you’d make a great employee. Explaining your professional life and selling yourself is very important.
Getting a job and getting a great job are two different things. we know that social connections are important for getting jobs. But do they also help people get jobs that are better than the ones they’d find in other ways? There is a lot of back and forth with this… Some suggest that having high-status connections helps land more prestigious jobs, but other argue that while people with high-status networks do tend to get higher-paying and more prestigious positions, the first isn’t necessarily causing the second. Instead, people simply have contacts similar to themselves. Therefore, networks are important for getting jobs, but if your goal is moving up the career ladder, don’t rely on the people you know as the only factor.
During a job search, social connections matter in different ways. The reason weak ties often lead to job tips is because of how information travels through social networks. But a job search usually involves a lot more than just looking for information about open jobs. It might also involve rewriting your resume, researching industries, understanding your personal career goals, and keeping a focused mindset as this process tends to take some time. Weak ties may be the key to getting your next job, but the strong ties are the people who will help push you and keep you motivated until the end!
Technology continues to enhance the biotech and pharmaceutical recruiting process and here are some trends to consider as a hiring manager or head hunter.
Technology can significantly enhance your recruiting process
Tablets/smartphones are replacing computers as preferred methods of electronic communication – especially among millennials. It’s already beginning to replace many web-based approaches and options.
One-Touch/Easy Apply
The ease of submitting an application from your phone is a convenience that shouldn’t be overlooked. Streamlining the initial application submission process to accommodate mobile-based applications is essential to staying relevant. A recruiting process that is mobile friendly should be everyone’s goal for 2017, especially if you’re interested in attracting top Gen Y talent.
Texting
Texting is slowly edging out phone communications, and as widespread acceptance grows across industries, the recruiter who offers text as an option for communication will stand to benefit greatly. While you may personally have a preference for a phone call or face-to-face communications, adapting to the changing needs of the workforce will help you reach the potential candidates you’re hoping to attract.
Is texting the new email? No but you can’t ignore it in today’s application process.
Recruitment Technology Software
Thanks to the complex and intricate algorithms used by recruitment technology developers, it’s becoming easier to identify, attract and assess pharmaceutical and biopharma candidates. And their 24-hour response options mean faster response to qualified candidates. With advancements in interview assessments, these data-driven systems offer more than increased accuracy; they can actually help you make faster placements. And that means happy clients.
Blind Resumes & CVs
The use of blind resumes and CVs increased in 2016, and it shows little signs of stopping now that 2017 has arrived. By removing inherent and institutional bias from the recruiting process, blind resumes and CVs increase merit-based diversity. They’ve also been shown to decrease the risk of bad hires. It’s here that algorithms will play a dominant role in blind resume & CV assessment and pharmaceuticals candidate evaluation. At the very least, you no longer need to include your address in your resume. Companies will generally email all but the most important documents and a physical address is no longer necessary.
Video
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. Well, closer to two million words for one minute of video, according to Forrester Research. Add to that, increased odds at Google showing your content a little love and it’s easy to see why video is a powerful technology trend for 2017. Just look at this 5:50 minute YouTube video Google Interns First Week. It’s been viewed more than five million times and has nearly six thousand responses, like Aliana Welth’s most recent comment, “is this supposed to make me want to work for Google?…cause it’s working.”
Leveraging technology to become more competitive, cost-effective and efficient can help you stand out. By embracing technology trends, you’ll be telling biopharma and biotech candidates you’re relevant, and your vacancies are relevant. Implementing just one of these technology trends for 2017 can help you attract the right candidate, speed up your hiring process, and make more successful placements.
AI/Machine learning for automated résumé screening
Let’s face it. The bulk of applicants are not qualified for the job. By some measures 75% don’t have the qualification listed yet will still apply. This makes manual resume screening the most time consuming part of the interview process. New AI applications like Mya, the newest job recruiting and application tool and IBM’s Watson can substantially shorten the
AI Can streamline your qualifying process but you’ll still need recruiters
qualification and screening process though, be careful, as no digital tool can replace human instinct and computers can’t read between the lines very well. There is a potential to lose qualified candidates through the process.
Clearly, technology is changing the way we apply to jobs and screen candidates. Recruiting is still however, very much a human dependent process and its success is still predicated on traditional human interactions. Keep a balanced approach and add technology to avoid bottlenecks but keep a human touch throughout the recruiting process to avoid making it feel too sterile and non-personal.
