Why Should They Work for You?
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! XYZ Biotech has an open job and you should all thank your lucky stars!”
OK, I’m exaggerating, but this isn’t much more than a short stride away from how most companies talk about, and think about, their hiring content. Many years ago (back in the nineties? I’m not even sure…), employers held all the power. There was less transparent information in the market and so a very formal, very stiff relationship developed where jobseekers jumped through hoops, competed with each other and complied with archaic hiring processes to secure a new role.
Now, though, the world has changed. Biotech professionals have such specialized knowledge and skills that they can be selective about where they ply their trade. Even in the wake of industry layoffs — which, despite media doom-mongering, are nowhere near as severe as they were during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/2009 — talented candidates have options. Your competitors are still hiring. In the last three months, we’ve registered more new vacancies here at Singular than over any three-month period since mid-2021, so rumours of the death of the job market are greatly exaggerated.
Funding is recovering too — slowly, but surely. The US is typically around 6 months ahead of the rest of the world in this area, and indicators there are very positive. We’ve seen plenty of examples of Series A rounds in excess of $100m, and the top 20 Biotech startups raised $2.9bn in Q1 of 2024 alone. It’s unlikely to be a rapid recovery, but confidence is returning.
So, it’s still crucial to focus on attracting the right candidates, not simply announcing a new position and sitting back to wait for great people to come rushing in. The key to doing that is to focus on answering the question that everyone’s asking, all the time:
“What’s in it for me?”
The first step in developing that answer is understanding what the people you’d like to attract are looking for. I did a deep dive into this for the Biotech market in a previous blog, “What Biotech candidates really want in a job”, so you can go there for more insight, but the short version is that the most common drivers of career moves in this sector are career progression, learning & development opportunities, stability and experienced leadership. Depending on the specific position you’re hiring for, there may be others you’d like to emphasise — Business Development professionals, for example, are more likely to be motivated by individual reward and recognition, while software engineers and bioinformaticians may be particularly interested in the tech stack they’re working with.
Once you’ve defined your target audience’s interests, think about which of those needs you can meet. Not every organisation can provide stability or career progression, so cobbling together a flimsy proposition in those areas may not be productive. Instead, put yourself in the mindset of your ideal candidate. Based on your understanding of the things that are important to them, what’s great about your company, from their perspective? Create a Candidate Attraction Proposition that contains the unique selling points of your business and of this role, covering the company and the work you’re doing (including the science), the role itself, the potential opportunities someone would have, the logistics (location, flexibility etc), the package on offer and the environment and culture (including things like leadership and financial stability).
Note that this Candidate Attraction Proposition is an internal document — you’re trying to capture every possible selling point so that you have them to hand and can tailor them to the interests of each individual candidate. It’s not to be shared externally, but can be used when writing job adverts, pitching the role to specific people, creating social media posts and asking for referrals.
Obviously, you think your company is a brilliant place to work. This isn’t an exercise in justification or trickery. It’s about capturing all of the things that make it great in a way that lets you communicate effectively to the people you’d like to hire. Most of your competitors are terrible at this and are still approaching the market in a way that puts great candidates off. Tell them why they should work for you instead, in terms that resonate with them, and you’ll stand out a mile.
