What Talent Management Looks Like in Action

In biotech and biopharma, attracting top talent in the industry’s hotbeds – such as Boston/Cambridge, New York, and the West Coast’s San Francisco and San Diego – is extremely competitive. Well-funded companies that need innovative solutions to the world’s most elusive health problems demand the most skilled, dedicated, and passionate leaders. 

For most leading recruitment organizations, navigating the challenges that come with such a high demand market can be overwhelming without strategy and systems in place to ensure deliverables are met. Therefore, BayBridge Executive Search Partners works using a fully integrated Talent Management approach. 

There are many aspects to maintaining a diligent talent management approach, and they all center around building long term relationships with candidates and clients. Below are a few of the ways Talent Management is woven into the fabric of BayBridge’s operations.

Being Selective

Building long-term relationships means being selective with both clients and candidates. There is a myriad of emerging biotech companies and fostering supportive, productive relationships requires getting to fully understand a company’s science, technology, team members, and culture. It also means knowing where there is room for negotiation and compromise when searching for talent, and how to approach this transparently while continuing to cultivate trust and dependability. This takes time and dedication, and frequent conversations on feedback and changes.

Being selective with candidates comes down to understanding in-depth what the client is looking for and tailoring searches as best as possible to those needs, while also mining existing networks for the perfect fit. Understanding what the most talented individuals in the industry are seeking is multifaceted. What are the candidate’s most important desireables? This doesn’t just mean job and salary, it includes personal preferences and obligations, working arrangements, commuting, and cultural fit in the company to name a few other considerations.

Being Agile

 Using a talent management approach ensures agility in a market where talent is in high demand. It isn’t uncommon for a company to conduct a nationwide search, build a healthy pool of candidates, make the decision to hire someone and then have the offer fall through due to the candidate accepting another offer (Loveless, 2021). Agility means being able to anticipate and accommodate changes like this that can happen in the search, and truly embodying the role of consultant and trusted advisor. 

 In using a talent management approach, BayBridge consultants mitigate common search challenges through various arms – firstly understanding a candidate’s motivations and desireables thoroughly, and understanding limitations to moving into their next role, such as any bureaucratic red tape or contractual obligations, or projects underway. Our consultants deeply understand talent pools and the candidate ecosystem. This allows us to find candidates not immediately obvious in the market, and the ability to put forward candidates other recruiters might miss.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s not easy sourcing top talent in today’s highly competitive biotech market. Using a Talent Management approach not only eases the difficulties in sourcing top talent, it makes life sciences executive search extremely useful for clients who’s next executive placement could mean the difference between a successful platform, clinical trial, and creating therapies who make it into the hands of patients who desperately need them. If you are struggling to find talent in today’s highly competitive biotech market, the expert life sciences consultants at BayBridge are here to help.

Sources

 Loveless, L. (2 December 2021). Five keys to ensure success in biotech recruitment. Slone Partners. https://www.slonepartners.com/five-keys-to-ensure-success-in-biotech-recruitment/