The landscape of BioTechnology (BioTech) Talent Acquisition (TA) has never been more challenging. Reduced TA team staffing, increased role specificity, heightened compliance obligations, and the ever-present war for top talent for onsite roles with other nearby competitors. However, every single day, well-intentioned hiring teams make choices that negatively impact key performance indicators. The impact most often shows up as deteriorated diversity and elongated time-to-fill. These innocuous choices create butterfly effects that stretch TA bandwidth and limit the visibility, reach, and appeal of your jobs. Avoiding these will ensure you are positioned to improve BioTech hiring in 2024.
Battling this is a complex problem, but a solution is possible. Datapeople studies these issues every single day/. Alongside our BioTech customers, have identified five key strategies that are proven to improve BioTech hiring in 2024. Position your team to deliver a compelling candidate experience that secures qualified diverse talent efficiently and effectively for even the most challenging technical onsite roles.
1. Standardization secures consistency
Smaller TA teams, complex onsite jobs, and hiring managers focused on research and development may feel isolating. Standardization will be your bridge, reducing time and resources to hire efficiently and compliantly. Standardization can feel like a lot of work, but as our BioTech customers have shown, focusing on a critical few will improve BioTech hiring swiftly.
- Consistent Job Postings: Develop consistent templates that ensure all postings are easily scannable, accessible, and inclusive of your brand and compliance standards.
- Pay Transparency: Adhere to pay transparency, and other hiring compliance requirements. Consistent salary ranges not only ensure you are in compliance but also build trust with candidates from the moment they read your job post.
- Employer Branding Integration: Ensure every touchpoint, from job postings to your careers page to interviews, reflects your company’s unique value proposition and commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace.
2. Empowered hiring managers unlock impact
Hiring managers and hiring team members are often overwhelmed by additional hiring responsibilities. This may cause them to avoid training or even engaging with your team, making investment sometimes feel hopeless. However, with a focus on proven enablement capabilities, small TA teams can build high-performance relationships with hiring managers. Relationships that will help you improve BioTech hiring by ensuring they self-serve on the ‘easy’ jobs so you can partner more deeply on those that are more complex.
- Self-Serve Options: Identify roles that can be filled through a self-serve process. If you’ve instrumented your process for standardization, they should have everything they need to execute effectively saving your team time.
- Hiring Manager Learning Program: Support the learning and growth of your hiring managers by creating a toolkit with resources for writing compelling job descriptions, conducting efficient interviews, and adhering to fair hiring practices. And don’t forget upskilling, ideally through seamless learning experiences embedded into your standardized hiring process.
- Streamlined Communication: Foster clear communication channels between hiring managers, TA teams, and candidates to ensure a smooth and efficient hiring process. Don’t overlook the potential of the intake meeting and in-context commenting to more naturally align your hiring teams.
3. Data illuminates the path to efficiency
Metrics tell a powerful story but only if you’re positioned to listen. For many BioTech TA teams, data-driven hiring remains stubbornly out of reach. Improve BioTech hiring by prioritizing the consistent and accurate capture and extension of data to power insights that guide your actions and strategy.
- Critical Metrics: Identify and track the critical few metrics like time-to-hire, offer acceptance rate, and diversity pass-through rate. Understanding these metrics helps you zero in on areas for improvement.
- Automated Dashboards: Invest in user-friendly dashboards that provide hiring managers and TA leaders with real-time data insights. This empowers them to make informed decisions throughout the recruitment process.
- Data-Driven Strategies: Utilize data to optimize your recruitment strategies. For example, by reviewing candidate sources you can identify channels that offer better ROI to streamline the process and focus your efforts.
4. Technology removes the friction
Innovative technologies that reflect the way you hire, and work to hire, can be incredible accelerants to improve BioTech hiring. But with so many options out there and your limited budget, it’s critical to invest wisely. Focus your efforts by prioritizing user experience, ensuring seamless integration, and fostering a positive candidate (and hiring team) experience.
- Assistive Intelligence for Repetitive Tasks: Leverage assistive intelligence for tasks like interview scheduling and job writing. This frees up your team for more strategic work.
- Focus on Accessibility: Technology is only helpful if it’s used. Don’t lose sight of the importance of ATS integrations or browser-based accessibility. Breaking down friction will ensure your technology enhancement truly becomes an indispensable way you hire.
- Prioritize User Security and Privacy: Tools like AI-powered writing assistants can be helpful, but avoid compromising human judgment, ethical considerations, or data security and privacy. Ask the hard questions now to avoid falling into a trap later when AI regulations, such as New York’s AEDT law, become the norm.
5. Employer brand raises your profile
Building a strong employer brand and value proposition is essential, particularly for attracting in-demand top talent for onsite positions. However, success requires you to go far beyond codifying your EVP. It demands consistent application throughout your talent journey. To improve BioTech hiring, three engagement touchpoints make the most impact.
- Compelling Job Postings: Craft job postings that showcase not only the role itself, but also the unique work environment, diversity initiatives, and professional development opportunities your BioTech offers.
- Careers Page Optimization: Make your careers page a one-stop shop for prospective hires, highlighting employee testimonials, departmental culture, and career paths within your company. Consider developing a careers blog that showcases your BioTech’s thought leadership, commitment to diversity, and the benefits of working in your company environment.
- Thoughtful Audience Centricity: Too often BioTech jobs are written purely for scientific audiences. Not only does this complicate search on LinkedIn and Indeed, but it may also unintentionally exclude talent you desire to attract. For example, talent from a non-BioTech environment may not be able to decipher the industry-specific speak and choose to exclude themselves from your roles.
Improve BioTech hiring starting today
By implementing these five strategies, TA teams will improve BioTech hiring in 2024. Positioning them to impactfully navigate the competitive landscape and secure the talented, diverse workforce needed to thrive. Remember, talent acquisition is a continuous process. Regularly evaluate your strategies, adapt to evolving trends, and leverage data and innovation to stay ahead of the curve. Focus and iteration will ensure you are always positioned to improve BioTech hiring.
At Datapeople, we understand the unique dynamics and complexities of BioTech hiring. At Datapeople, we understand the unique dynamics and complexities of BioTech hiring. We are honored to partner with major leaders who are doing the sacred work of improving our health. By working together, we can improve BioTech hiring for you this year. By doing so we will architect a more sustainable hiring future. A future that more easily, efficiently, and consistently secures diverse and inclusive teams to drive your innovation and success.
If you’re curious about how you stack up against your competition, we would love to provide a free evaluation.
