You can’t afford to hire a recruiter with no biotech recruiting exp.

January 10, 2018

We speak with a lot of Biotech startups from coast to coast. Typically we work with CEO’s, CSO’s and Head’s of HR and we listen to them talk about their challenges with recruiting, compensating staff, improving culture.

There are a lot of moving parts in recruiting and it takes effort to keep everything together and moving forward. One of the biggest mistakes we see in startup recruiting is seeing companies hire in-house recruiters without any industry experience. It is very rare that this scenario will pay off for the company.

In this situation, the feedback we get from hiring managers suggests that they spend more time reviewing resumes for unqualified candidates that have been passed on to them from the recruiter. We’ve also heard from hiring managers who say that some good candidates are not getting forwarded on to them because the in-house recruiter doesn’t fully understand the technical aspects and qualifications of the position. This lack of cohesion leads to internal strife that slows down the recruiting and hiring process considerably. Trust between the recruiter and hiring manager also dissipates.

San Francisco and Boston/Cambridge are popular locations for biotech startups. Attracting industry specific recruiting talent in those markets can be quite expensive but we believe that the services provided by an experienced in-house recruiter is quite valuable. Startups can’t afford to make bad hires! Hiring the right recruiter will help in attracting better talent and moving them through the recruiting funnel until an offer is extended and accepted. Saving a few dollars on a recruiter’s salary could cost you hundreds of thousands in the long run.

Paragon Search Group is an American biotech recruiting firm specializing in permanent positions in Process Development, CMC/Reg Affairs, Manufacturing, Project Management, and Quality for companies ranging in size from startup to Fortune 50.