If you’ve been relying on job-ready candidates to acquire new talent, you’re missing some valuable opportunities. To widen your net, be sure to build a talent-sourcing and -training pipeline into your company’s DNA so you’re never strapped for qualified candidates when you need them most. That’s where an internship program comes in.
Benefits of an Internship Program
Steady supply
In today’s competitive job market, an internship program makes it that much easier to secure a good match: you’ll broaden your network of potential hires, and you’ll have a greater idea of their strengths and goals than you can get from a regular interview process. Once your internship program is up and running, you’ll have a steady flow of candidates to consider the next time you have an unexpected hiring need.
The price is right
Most interns view their position as a temporary yet highly valuable personal investment. Because they are just beginning their careers, they’ll be highly motivated to perform well in their roles even at a lower pay grade. Of course, you should pay your interns for their contributions – but because they’re still learning, you can pay them less than what you’d pay full-stack employees.
Many hands make light work
Interns can help check off some of the less complex, less skilled tasks on your company to-do list. With the smaller stuff taken care of, your full-stack employees can enjoy uninterrupted focus on larger-scale projects.
That said, don’t deprive your interns of hard-hitting projects: a good internship program builds the skills needed to take on greater challenges in the future. Nowadays, only 8 percent of interns’ tasks involve clerical, unskilled work. The other 92%? High-level skills. Bottom line, prepare your interns to become your employees.
Implementing Your Program
Consider your needs
Not all internship programs need to follow the same template. While considering how to structure your program, ask yourself the following questions:
What role will the intern have within the company?
What skills and qualities do they need to have to be successful?
Who is available to mentor them?
Finally, think big picture: what is your long-term vision for your company, and what skills will future employees need to make it a reality? This is perhaps the single most important aspect of developing an internship program. Say you’re looking to build a patient information website in the near future. This means you’ll need tech-savvy employees who can handle its creation and maintenance. If you train interns in these skills and they return to work for you full-time, they can hit the ground running.
Recruit and hire
To get your program off to a good start, begin recruiting interns several months before your program launches. Consider posting advertisements on job boards, asking around, and working with a university to begin your recruitment process. Schools like Northeastern University have co-op programs that supply interns to biotech companies.
As you consider who to take on, think of interns as future employees, not just temporary assistants. Even if they don’t end up working for you, they’re likely to tell their peers about their experience with you, which can make or break your reputation among potential hires.
Onboard and train
If possible, assign every intern a mentor at the beginning of the program. This helps orient the intern and gives your existing employees a built-in leadership opportunity. As your interns integrate into your company dynamic, include them in company brainstorming sessions. They’ll appreciate the gesture and you’ll benefit from their outside ideas and insight.
Also consider conducting exit interviews to ask your interns what they appreciated about the program and what you could improve the next time. If you’re serious about your internship program, the learning experience should go both ways.
If all goes well, make them an offer
Recent interns make great employees – they’ve already integrated into your company culture and know the basic ropes of the job, making the training process easier for everyone. Once your interns have wrapped up their programs, discuss their contributions with your managers, mentors, executives and program directors. If you were all generally satisfied with their performance and trust that they can continue to learn and grow, make them an offer. If they’re like 79.6 percent of interns, they’ll eagerly accept it.
Internships bring long-term value to your company
Implementing an internship program is a long-term investment that can cut down on a lot of hiring risk and training time later down the line. In the short term, it’s the classic win-win: they need the experience and you need the help. Over the long haul, it makes your hiring process more efficient and broadens your talent pool. Another big win.
If you plan to start an internship program, but would prefer to payroll them through a third-party company instead of adding them to your payroll, Sci.Bio is available to offer payroll services. Sci.Bio will manage the employee and employer liabilities associated with contract/contingent hiring. We offer payrolled contractors benefits to help keep them satisfied in their role so that they could turn into long term hires once they graduate! And our payroll fee is remarkably reasonable. Find out more here..
Every year recruitment slows during the summer months, as employees go on annual leave, and travel to conferences. However, 2022 promises greater difficulties filling roles within the biotech sector.
For one, the American economy faces job growth slowing, rising inflation and the return to “normal” as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down. Many of these factors are a continuation of pre-pandemic trends. Increased inflation is leading to a demand for higher wages to compensate for rising consumer prices, and many startups are unable to compete.
After a period of sustained job growth in the biotech and pharma sector, the rate of layoffs at these companies is increasing, with some companies making drastic cuts to their workforce. Many of these cuts are due to disappointing clinical trial results or FDA decisions, though the pandemic also created additional hurdles for clinical trials.
How to reverse hiring in a summer slowdown
Despite the uncertain outlook, even smaller biotechs can work against the greater economic forces by implementing small changes to increase their rate of hiring.
With fewer candidates available per position, recruiters and hiring managers should lean into referrals during the slow summer months from current employers and recruiter’s connections. Former job candidates who performed well in late-stage interviews are another group to consider reaching out to again with new opportunities. These personal connections and words of recommendation are likely to carry greater weight and increase the likelihood of a successful hire.
The summer is also when new STEM graduates enter the workforce for the first time, giving hiring managers the opportunity to focus on filling entry level positions.
Companies can also use a summer slowdown to experiment with new hiring strategies and revamp their professional social media accounts and recruitment webpages. This is also the time to improve the candidate’s recruitment process experience, since the process itself plays an important role in the jobseeker’s decision to work for a particular company.
Need to fill technical roles at your startup? For many years Sci.bio has matched the best biotech candidates to the job. Contact us to learn how we can help you.
These days, it can be especially hard to hire at the entry level.
The next time a recruiting firm boasts about their superior ability to attract senior leaders, don’t be too impressed. Instead, ask them how well they can attract the next generation of talent. It may seem counterintuitive, but today’s market economies have made good junior people as challenging to find as corner-office-ready VPs.
STEM scarcity
It starts with a basic supply problem. For several years now, observers of the recruiting scene have noted the shortage of qualified junior scientists. A 2018 article in Recruiting Daily anticipated that the global shortage of new talent, already in evidence at the time, would become worse over the coming years, especially in STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] fields. Indeed, a report by the National Association of Manufacturing and Deloitte estimates that the US will have 3.5 million STEM jobs to fill by 2025—but will struggle to fill 2 million of them because of the lack of appropriately skilled candidates.
Much has been written about the root causes of this drought, from lack of encouragement for women to pursue STEM careers to university course content that doesn’t match the highly specialized requirements of today’s biotech employers. What’s more, events such as the OxyContin and Vioxx recalls have tarnished the industry’s reputation in the minds of some people. This “branding problem” may lead young people to turn away from the field.
Add a new influx of biotech seed money to the mix and you end up with a marked imbalance between the number of job opportunities (a lot) and the number of qualified candidates to fill them (a lot less).
“STEM has a branding problem with younger generations. [They] don’t understand how STEM skills translate into real-life applications.” -Recruiting Daily
The COVID conundrum
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t exactly made things easier. Throughout the world, the pandemic has pressed pause on young scientists and science students’ formative activities. An article by CBI, a business association representing 190,000 firms in the UK, reports that, while the volume and calibre of junior applicants was higher than ever in fall 2021, applicants may have “COVID-19 skills gaps” that may escape recruiters’ notice. Issues that may impact the “pandemic generation may include:
No formal exams: With widespread cancellation of exams over the course of the pandemic, candidates have not had to perform under the usual pressures.
Gap in transferable skills: After sheltering at home for so long and missing extra-curricular activities such as team sports or theatre, many young adults have not had the usual opportunities to build up such transferable skills as cooperation and leadership—and the confidence that goes with these skills.
Lack of interview preparation: With career fairs and mock interviews much harder to organize during the pandemic, new graduates may lack awareness of how to behave during interviews.
As an employer, you may have trouble differentiating these pandemic-related gaps, which a candidate can presumably surmount over time, from more fundamental weaknesses. Can you trust that the A+ in organic chemistry signals true competence? Does a candidate’s awkward interview style reflect a pandemic-related skills gap or an inherently poor communication style? While there are no easy answers, questioning a candidate about how the pandemic has affected them may offer useful insights.
Bringing junior talent on board
In this scarcity environment, attracting and retaining the best young scientific minds—or reliable back-benchers—calls for some strategy. Employers must understand that the perks that mean the most to older generations, such as salary and stability, mean a lot less to millennials, who fully expect to switch jobs several times during their careers—and even welcome it.
In a series of three surveys, which garnered a total of 236 responses, researchers sought to gain insight into the values espoused by young scientists and engineers. Dominant themes in the responses included the ability to work on innovative research and freedom to set research direction.
Start ups too focused on technology and not enough on cultural underpinnings
Huge delta in pay, i.e. overpaid senior leaders and underpaid new associates
Harder to find building blocks but easier to place them in the base of the pyramid. At the top is where it is easier to find but harder to place candidates in position.
Base of the pyramid
While your senior hires may accomplish great things, they depend on a team of juniors—the base of the pyramid—to get the job done. Today’s environment has made it especially difficult to source out the right building blocks for that base. There’s no lack of bricks: it’s finding the solid ones that poses a challenge.
At Sci.bio, we understand that life sciences superstars cannot accomplish great things without solid shoulders to stand on. We put the same effort—and science—into recruiting at the entry and senior levels. Talk to us to find out how we do it.
It’s a common refrain among biotech recruiters and clients that right now we’re in a candidate-driven job market, which has made it harder for some companies hiring to fill technical roles. Attracting and retaining the best talent in these conditions requires clients to rethink established recruitment strategies.
A candidate-driven market is one where demand for candidates outstrips supply, and qualified candidates receive multiple job offers during their search. It also means employees are regularly approached by recruiters with opportunities, even when they are not actively looking for work, and that an employee dissatisfied with their current company will find it easy moving into another position.
The onus therefore shifts to the client and recruiters to convince candidates to accept their offer, and to make sure their valued employees remain satisfied at the company.
There’s no ignoring the reality that candidates can afford to pick and choose between companies. Biotechs cannot afford to lose out on top scientific talent. For instance, while the majority of STEM jobseekers have the basic laboratory skills necessary to succeed in an R&D environment, a smaller proportion has the knowledge of industry standards necessary to bring a company’s product to market.
Bringing In The Best
How clients should make job offers appealing to candidates:
Compelling company brand and vision. Not just an enticing offer package and company perks, but an attractive company culture and working environment.
Match of values and aspirations between client and candidate. In a candidate-driven market, jobseekers care about matching their personal values with those of a company. Clients must pay attention to candidates’ values, emphasize their own values and identify alignment.
Listen to what the candidate is asking for and tailor your offer. What will make your company stand out from the crowd – in addition to values and offer packages – is the attention you pay to your candidate’s priorities and career goals. Make sure you ask the candidate about their desired career path and demonstrate in the interview and offer stage that your company is able to align on.
Fast and user-friendly job application process. With the rise of ‘one-click’ online applications, candidates are coming to expect a streamlined job application process. They also aren’t willing to wait weeks to hear back about another job offer if they’ve already received one. Clients therefore need to create a positive application experience for all candidates, and to make hiring decisions quickly.
Looking to recruit top STEM talent to your company? The recruiting and sourcing experts at Sci.bio are here to help. Reach out to us today and start the conversation.
An update on trends and career paths within the industry
Author: Gabrielle Bauer
If you had to pick a single word to describe the life sciences industry, “change” would be a safe bet. A continuous stream of medical advances keeps the industry on its toes at all times. If you’ve cast your lot with the life sciences, you can expect an exciting, occasionally bumpy, and never boring ride.
Overview
Life sciences is an umbrella term used to describe all branches of science devoted to R&D in human, animal, and plant life. This broad designation makes room for companies specializing in pharmaceuticals, biomedicine, biophysics, neuroscience, cell biology, biotechnology, nutraceuticals, and cosmeceuticals, among others.
Individuals working in the industry may settle into careers as research scientists, lab technicians, clinical research associates, research assistants, medical science liaisons, industrial pharmacists, and bioinformaticians, to name just some possibilities. Stepping further from the core of the industry but still under its generous umbrella, some people may find their niche as medical writers, medical illustrators, health policy analysts.
Pandemic-proof industry
The Covid-19 pandemic may have stopped the world, but it didn’t stop the life sciences industry. On the contrary, the industry had a rare opportunity to surpass itself. To cope with the crisis, organizations that normally competed against each other partnered to accelerate research and distribution of vaccines. While the development of a new drug takes 8.2 years, on average, the novel COVID-19 vaccines made it to prime time in less than a year.
These efforts allowed the industry to stay strong and vibrant. In the early weeks of the pandemic, while many other markets were dropping like stones, biopharma companies quickly regained their transitory loss of valuation.1 In March 2020, multinational biotech giant Regeneron Pharmaceuticals saw its shares increase by 10% while the company worked on Covid-19 treatments. Just over a year later, the overall biotech market (measured by revenue) is ringing in at $135 billion, representing a 4% year-to-year increase.
The pandemic also upturned health providers’ working environments and styles, creating additional needs for digitally transferable imaging technologies and software platforms that facilitate remote care delivery. A lot of players got in on the action: in 2020, corporate funding for digital health reached a record $21.6 billion globally, up by 103% from the previous year.2 Pharma and biotech companies have a unique opportunity to capitalize on this momentum.
What comes next
If expert predictions are any indication, the industry won’t be slowing any time soon. The rising life expectancy and aging population in the US have increased the incidence of age-related illnesses and the demand for medical care.3 In addition to better and more cost-effective treatments, the industry has an opportunity to develop curative and preventive interventions.
Some of the growth will come from analytics, a newer branch of life sciences that uses sophisticated techniques to analyze data and devise strategies to meet population needs. Valued at $7.7 billion in 2020, the global life sciences analytics market size is expected to grow at a compound rate of 7.8% between 2021 and 2028.
Even after the pandemic subsides, health systems will continue investing in care models that allow for virtual visits and home testing technologies.2 And the proliferation of companies specializing in third-party services, such as contract research organizations and patient support program (PSP) providers, will make it easier than ever for smaller pharma and biotech companies to outsource key processes involved in a drug launch.
Top trends to watch for
● Personalized medicine: customization of treatment based on genetic/genomic information ● Immune focus: treatments that target specific immune pathways or give new life to a failing immune system will multiply ● Data integration: Smart technology will help integrate data from different sources (e.g. MRI scans, laboratory tests), helping doctors choose the right treatments ● Digitalized assessment: online assessment, diagnosis and treatment will become increasingly common and will help equalize access for patients ● Collaborative innovation: Biotech companies will increasingly join forces with other scientific organizations to push the R&D envelope ● Value-based pricing: Pricing will become increasingly tied to the real-world effectiveness of a drug or other health product
Life sciences underpin the human experience. As long as humans need healthcare, the life sciences industry will remain strong and withstand threats that collapse other sectors. You’ve come to the right place. Sci.bio will be pleased to help you go further.
