The Challenges of Life Sciences Recruitment in a Tight Market
We live in an era of exciting and radical change, often happening at breakneck speed. Incredible advancements in biomedical, biometric, diagnostic, and data science research and development have led to myriad breakthroughs in the ways we diagnose and treat a wide range of diseases.
The boom in research and discovery, along with the influx of venture capital and an expanding global marketplace, has sparked an explosion in the life sciences industry, not just in established areas like Boston/Cambridge, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area, but also now in North Carolina, suburban Maryland, Texas, and elsewhere.
And as the industry continues to expand, the competition for top talent in life sciences recruitment is becoming more and more intense. A reported skills shortage now threatens to slow the pace of innovation in the life sciences – both in the US and abroad.
Life sciences recruitment has therefore become a paramount challenge for companies who need the most skilled, experienced, and innovative leaders to drive their efforts to develop and commercialize life-changing and life-saving products.
When competing for top talent in such a tight market, companies must ratchet up their life sciences recruitment to underscore their unique value proposition. Salary and location matter for candidates, but so does job security, health benefits, and flexible work arrangements. For candidates, having the right ‘soft skills’ is also extremely important and is becoming more and more engrained in the life sciences recruitment process.
Looking for top talent outside the traditional candidate pool is a new emerging strategy for life sciences recruitment. That means identifying and recruiting people working in other sectors, but whose experience and skills in empowering successful teams will transfer well into leadership positions at biotechnology, diagnostics, data and analytics, and laboratory testing services companies.
At Slone Partners, we are working hard with our client partners to ensure that each of the candidates we select is a good cultural fit within the organization.
In a January 2019 commentary in StatNews, Slone Partners CEO Leslie Loveless wrote that companies need to demonstrate a commitment to three primary priorities to rise above the competition in the search for top talent: creating a unique and alluring work culture that potential executive recruits find attractive; offering enticing development and growth opportunities for top executives as well as mid-level leaders; and ensuring that executive teams are highly engaged in recruiting top executives.
As a professional agency that specializes in life sciences recruitment, Slone Partners has completed thousands of successful placements in dozens of positions across many specialty areas in life sciences organizations, and we utilize a nationwide network of offices, recruiters, and search leadership to equip us to continue making the right placements for growing organizations all across the country.
Our wide network and deep market knowledge allow Slone Partners to provide unparalleled access to the best leadership available in the life sciences fields. As a leader in life sciences recruitment, we emphasize quality, integrity, and professionalism with nearly 20 years of experience finding and placing the best possible executive candidates for dynamic and vibrant organizations.
The urgency to address the challenges facing life sciences recruitment is understandable, considering the life-altering issues at stake in this growing industry. Working together with our client partners, we at Slone Partners are committed to fulfilling our mission and theirs by helping place the right people in the right places where they can lead the next generation of research, development, and impact.