Life Science Talent Market: Tips for Job Seekers and Hiring Managers
Are you a looking for a new job in life science marketing? Are you a life science marketing or sales manager seeking to hire someone for your team? What do you need to know about finding the best match?
Jeff Protentis is a recruiter as well as a marketing and sales consultant with over 30 years of experience in the life sciences. He shares his tips on searching for jobs and describes how the market for talent has shifted in the last year and a half.
In this episode we discussed:
3 ways to get the most out of LinkedIn
Where else you should look for job postings
How to broaden your skills and gain a competitive edge
Why training and mentoring your peers is important
What recent changes in the life science talent market mean for you
Our Sponsor: ACP-LS
LinkedIn Groups:
Life Science Commercialization Network
About My Guest
Jeff Protentis is a sales and marketing consultant for Genovative Solutions, and a recruiter for Biotech Recruiters. He has over 30 years of experience building teams in the life science industry.
This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.
Chris: My guest on this episode is Jeff Protentis. He is a sales and marketing consultant for Genovative Solutions, and a recruiter for Biotech Recruiters. Jeff, welcome to Life Science Marketing Radio.
Jeff: Thanks, Chris. Glad to be here.
Chris: Today, I want to talk specifically about job hunting and recruiting. So, for the listeners, whether you are looking to make a change or you are looking to fill a position this episode is for you. I’ll just say that we’re recording this in early January of 2016, in case you’re listening to this a lot later than that. So, first of all Jeff, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself as both a recruiter and as a consultant.
Jeff: Sure, Chris. So, I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years. I won’t say how much over. My responsibility has always been on the commercial side of things — sales, marketing, running sales and marketing and tech support organizations, etc. I had been a hiring manager for about two-and-a-half decades of that period. I should say hiring manager and/or a recruiter for two-and-a-half decades of that time.
So I have a very good sense for hiring for what people do when they’re job-seeking, what managers are looking for when they’re hiring, because I have probably hired in excess of 100 people.
So, between my sales and marketing experience, and I’ve been able to take that into the consulting field, and from my hiring practices and experience, I’ve been able to take that experience and move it into the recruiting field.
Chris: Great. So, let’s focus on the job hunting and hiring side of things. Of course, when we’re looking for jobs or we’re looking for people, everyone thinks of LinkedIn as a source for finding jobs. But where else should people be looking, either for positions or for candidates?
Jeff: Well, first of all, I’m going to step back and if you don’t mind, spend a little bit of time on LinkedIn, because I think LinkedIn is a very good source. But I don’t know if it’s used to its fullest extent.
Chris: Yeah, absolutely. That was kind of my next question, but go right ahead.
Jeff: Okay. So, a lot of people go on LinkedIn and they poke around and they might network with friends. But I’m going to just put together what I think is an overall strategy of what people should do.
First of all, as you and I both know and as many people know, networking is the key to finding new positions, and I think that LinkedIn is very good for that. But I think that also people need to be explicit when they poke around with the idea of the people that they’re trying to link with, and once they link with those people, making them aware that they would like that person to keep them in mind for openings, because those people may get calls from recruiters and be able to say to those recruiters, “Oh, I know of someone you should contact,” or maybe that they work at a company where there are openings that they can tell the person about. So, clearly networking is one key thing that LinkedIn exists for. But again, it has to be networking with a purpose, and that’s one thing that I don’t know that enough people do.
The other thing is that there are a number of other resources in LinkedIn. Discussion groups are actually a great resource for job hunters. There are a lot of discussion groups with a lot of different focuses. So let’s say that you’re looking for a job in the next generation sequencing field. There are probably 10 or 12 discussion groups that are focused on the next gen sequencing field.
So, there’s two things that I tell people that you should do. Actually, more than two. First, you should join those groups and look at the jobs postings. Now, there are actually two different places on a discussion group that jobs are posted. If you click on Jobs, you’ll see some jobs listed. But if you click on Jobs Discussions, you’ll see even more jobs listed. The ones that are in the Jobs Discussions are ones that are put up by recruiters and by other people, whereas the front page jobs are those that are paid for. So, you’ll certainly find a greater number of job opportunities if you look at job discussions.
Chris: Okay.
Jeff: The other thing is that you will find, by virtue of looking at the members of the group that you’ve joined, a lot of other people that are interested or part of the same field that you want to be part of. So it gives you a list of names of people that you might want to network with and link up with because they are in the next gen sequencing field. They may be hiring managers, or again part of a company that would be hiring.
Then, finally, I tell people that you should actively participate in as many discussions as possible. The reason for that is two-fold. First of all, you can show people your acumen and your knowledge by adding to a discussion or starting a discussion about the field, about the product area that you’re interested in becoming part of. But also, like anything, the more you do that, the more you stay in front of people’s minds and in front of their eyes, and if they happen to be hiring managers, they will see your name repeatedly. Then, when a job comes up, timing is everything, if you recently communicated and they are starting to look, your name will be in front of them and it will present an opportunity. So discussion groups are extremely good, and I think, an extremely underutilized resource for people searching for positions.
Chris: Right. So I have two questions. One is on the first part about just the networking with a purpose. Because, as you say, timing is key, and I’ve had recruiters call me, and it’s rarely right after someone else has asked me about a position. Right?
Jeff: Right.
Chris: So what do you recommend to stay in front of those people you are reaching out to? It sounds like you’re suggesting that people connect with people beyond the people that they regularly work with. too.
Jeff: Right.
Chris: So how do you stay in touch with them?
Jeff: Well, the easiest way is to post updates on your profile. So, you have the opportunity to go in and share an update anytime you want. If you share an update, everybody that you’re connected with is going to see that update. Now, of course, if you’re connected with hundreds of hundreds of people and they’re connected with hundreds of people, your update may or may not get seen, but by doing that, at least some people will see your name pop up on the screen. Again, that might spur them to think, “Oh, there’s somebody I should contact.”
In fact, Chris, there’d been a couple of candidates that I’ve found that have gotten jobs that they popped up on my LinkedIn feed and I thought, “Oh, that’s somebody that I should contact.” So, clearly it has worked and I would say it does work.
Then, as far as networking with a purpose, again, you might want to look up people that… You can look up companies. But you can also look up people that work at those companies. You might find out, let’s say if you look up Illumina, since that’s a next gen sequencing company and we’re talking about next gen sequencing, you might see that you have a bunch of second-level connections that work at Illumina, and you might find out that four or five of them are people you actually know. Therefore, linking in with those people is a good way to, as I said, link with a purpose.
Chris: Nice. Yeah. I like that. When you mentioned putting updates on your profile, because I do this reasonably regularly, I think my advice, and I’m not a recruiter, but just with respect to LinkedIn, you probably can’t do it too much.
Because as you say, other people are posting things as well, and those kind of dilute the feed. So you have to get in there pretty frequently to be seen, and it’s unlikely that someone’s going to say, “Gosh, that person is just posting way too much.” Do you agree?
Jeff: Yeah, I do. I do agree. There may be some people that post way too much. But it takes a lot to over-post. Because if you have hundreds, or in many cases thousands of connections, you’re not going to notice that somebody has been posting very frequently or too frequently. So, in fact, I would say post as frequently as you can, because it’s going to be hard to get above the baseline noise unless you do that.
Chris: Right. Yeah. Of course, always post good content.
Jeff: Of course. Good content, something meaningful, a promotion. Or if we’re talking about someone that’s looking for a marcom position, a recently successfully concluded marketing campaign that you executed, something about it that doesn’t quite look like self-promotion, but frankly it is self-promotion. Because just like a salesperson that’s trying to sell their product, this person seeking a job is trying to sell themselves. So, it’s okay to do a little bit of self-promotion. Just don’t make it overly sales-y, I guess.
Chris: Right. Then, with respect to the discussion groups, any suggestions for starting a discussion? Because what I’ve noticed lately is that the level of conversation has gone down. I see a lot of people starting things. But I don’t see as many follow-up discussions. Now, maybe I’m looking in the wrong groups too.
Jeff: No. I think you’re right, Chris. I think a lot of people belong to a lot of groups. So I would suggest two things. One is to share information. You may have seen something interesting in a publication or some piece of information that other people in the group might be interested in. You’re not, in that case, soliciting conversation. Maybe somebody will respond. Maybe a couple of people will like it, which of course gets you sort of double-level exposure. But if it’s an informative piece of information that shows that you’re up to date with a field, that you’re knowledgeable, people will hopefully notice it. Not all, of course.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: The other thing that you can do that I’ve seen gets a bit more response is you can actually start a survey instead of starting a discussion, where you give people a, “Select from the following, what do you find is the most effective for creating new leads?” as an example. Then you can give five different things. It’s more likely that someone is going to click on something and select one of those as a response, rather than giving a long thought out and typed out answer.
Chris: Exactly. That’s a great idea. I love that one. Okay. So, any other suggestions on LinkedIn, or should we talk about other places to look?
Jeff: The final thought on LinkedIn is, in addition to posting updates, there are things that you see as you look at other people’s updates that you might want to share. Again, all of the people in your network will get that. If it turns out that it’s something that’s pertinent, again, to your field that shows that you’re knowledgeable, that way you don’t always have to be coming up with original content in order to get yourself in front of other people on LinkedIn.
Sharing something that somebody else posted still gets your name and picture up on LinkedIn and in front of your contacts, so, it’s another good way to get yourself exposure, as would be commenting on somebody else’s post, because all of those things get your whole network alerted that you’ve done something, and they can look at it if they want to.
Chris: Right. Okay. Yeah, I like that. So besides LinkedIn, what other places should people be looking for that they might not typically think of, or even if they do think of them?
Jeff: Well, there’s another list called Indeed.com, and there are some other job posting places. But I think that probably between Indeed and LinkedIn, you’re getting most of what you’re going to need. There are other sites. I mean, clearly you’re not going to go to Monster or some other things like that, because those jobs are generally low-level and not necessarily focused on life sciences. But I think between Indeed and LinkedIn, you’re going to find most of what’s available out there.
The other thing though that I tell people is that a lot of companies use internal recruiters. While internal recruiters do post, a lot of times, if you’re doing a job search, you’re going to want to think about what companies you might want to work for that might not be posting positions on LinkedIn, that might just be putting jobs up on their websites, then go to those websites and look for jobs, because not every company posts positions, not every company uses recruiters. Some of them put the job link up on their websites and they leave it up to the candidates to find them and see if there’s a job that they’re interested in.
Chris: Right. Okay. Yeah. So, I’ve used Indeed. It’s been a long time. But the experience on it, I remember as being a pretty good one as far as searching and so on.
Jeff: Yeah. There’s certainly a lot of jobs listed. They’re generally not listed by geography, so you have to sort of poke around and figure out which ones fit. But there are definitely a lot of positions, and you can put in criteria for your search so that you can look for only marketing positions or whatever, and not be inundated with the literally hundreds of thousands of jobs that are posted on Indeed.
Chris: Right. Okay. So let’s talk about skills. You mentioned you have some thoughts about some skills that are less common, but might be very important to hiring managers. Job seekers, if they have those, should definitely work them into the conversation either through the resume or in an interview. What are those?
Jeff: Well, there’s a number of ways to answer that question. The first thing I’ll say is that, as might be expected, people are looking for technical acumen. I have had people that have a bit of scientific background and great marketing experience, but they are simply not really pursued with any vigor by the hiring company because they are looking for particular experience and particular knowledge. So, people that have that knowledge are going to… If there’s two candidates, one of whom has extensive technical knowledge and one of whom has limited technical knowledge going for the same position, clearly the person with extensive knowledge is going to have the edge.
A lot of that is based on experience. But you can also do things like reading, studying and learning, and somehow work that into interviews, into conversations, into cover letters or whatever, to show that beyond your work experience, you’ve gained a lot of technical knowledge by whatever, by working with people that are in the field, by reading, by following blogs. For instance, if you’re writing to a company directly, you can do things like, “I saw the recent publication about your company, etc., etc.,” so it shows them that not only are you keeping up to date, but you know specifically about their company and their company’s accomplishments, which are going to potentially separate you from the rest of the crowd, so to speak.
The other thing is companies are looking for a breadth of skills. Even though you might be looking at a product manager job or a marketing manager job, people like candidates that come to the table with an array of skills, because we both know, and as most of the candidates that are listening will know, that just because you’re hired as a marketing manager doesn’t mean that you’ll be boxed in necessarily to doing just that. You have to wear multiple hats. If you’ve already worn those hats on other occasions, even if it was only a part of your job and not even part of the official job description of what you were hired to do, emphasize that as a way of showing people that you’re well-rounded and bring more skills to the table than simply what is required or what is mentioned in the job description for the position you’re seeking.
Chris: Right. Yeah. I have a little bit of experience with that from hiring people. Sometimes you’re putting together a team and you’re looking for a specific thing. But you realize that there are other things you might like to have or ways you could redistribute the work in your team if you found out somebody was exceptionally good at something that maybe someone you already have isn’t as good at, and you could shift a workload around or something that.
Jeff: That’s right. I’ve created a lot of sales and marketing organizations. Especially when I was working at startup companies, my first hires were people that I had hoped would be able to assume leadership positions somewhere down the road. So, if I was hiring a salesperson who happened to mention in their resume that they helped train and mentor new salespeople, that shows a leadership capability. So if I was looking for perhaps a year or two down the road to try to move one or two of my salespeople into a management role, well when I’m looking to hire the salespeople, someone that has experienced that and has shown the initiative to do that is going to stand out for me versus someone that, yeah, has been a successful salesperson, but hasn’t taken any initiative or had the opportunity to do any mentoring or teaching, or managing of other people.
Chris: Nice. Okay. Yeah. That makes total sense. So you mentioned also previously that there’s been a shift in the hiring process of late. Can you explain that and the market dynamics around that?
Jeff: Yeah. So the market dynamics have changed a lot over the last year to year-and-a-half. After the downturn in the economy and the cutbacks in NIH funding, a lot of companies were laying off very talented people and they were doing very little hiring. So, companies were looking for extremely good people at moderate salaries and getting plenty of applications. It was a buyer’s market. That has changed.
And now I’m speaking now to both candidates and hiring person because hiring persons need to think about what they’re looking for and perhaps moderate their expectations, or perhaps think about adjusting the salaries that they’re offering to levels that were pre-2008. Because a lot of companies, because of the downsizing and the glut of great candidates on the market, they were looking for people with 7 to 10 years of experience and paying them at levels that previously might have been for somebody with 3 to 5 years of experience.
Well, now the market has shifted. It is now more of a seller’s market than a buyer’s market. So there’s more positions available than there are qualified candidates. That has two ramifications, and first I’ll talk about the ramifications for the hiring person. You have to think about the amount of money that you’re paying and the amount of experience and capability that you’re looking for. If you’re paying a moderate salary and you’re looking for someone, you need to think about matching the expectation of your skill set and experience to the salary level, and how that has changed over the last 18 months. Eighteen months ago, you could’ve hired a very good person at a very moderate salary. That won’t happen anymore.
As far as the candidates are concerned, they can understand that, number one, there is more demand out there so that they can look for the right job for them. They can be selective and pick a position not just because they need a job, but because there are positions available that they’re qualified for and there’s going to be more positions available for them. They can also look at positions where the salary might be below what they would expect, but that the company that’s hiring will probably realize that in order to get someone of this candidate’s caliber that they’re going to have to do something about the salary. I’ve seen a lot of companies doing that. They interview people. They find out this is a great person. But now they have to pay more than they had expected and they’re doing so in order to get that great person on board.
Chris: So candidates, you’re saying, should not ignore job postings where the salary looks like it’s a little bit below what they were expecting?
Jeff: Yeah. I always tell candidates to be open to having discussions. Just like in sales, and again, we are talking about a sales process, you might be talking to someone who’s a salesperson about a product that’s outside what their budget was. But you might convince them that they need this product so badly that the customer is willing to pay more. The same thing happens in hiring. Companies can say, “Well, this is my budget,” and they can talk to a candidate. I wouldn’t go for positions that are 70% of what you want. But if they’re 90% of the salary you’re seeking or something like that, have the conversation especially if you want the job.
If you really like the job, have the conversation and then at some point along the way, mention that your salary needs are above what they’re willing to pay. I would say that in many cases, if you sell the company on the fact that you are the candidate that’s going to make a difference for them, that companies are now willing to be more flexible in what they’re offering, because they’re realizing that the market dynamics have changed.
Chris: Great. So I’m just curious, and 18 months seems like a pretty small window to me, is there something you can point at? Or is it just an accumulation of events, circumstances?
Jeff: Yeah. I would say it’s an accumulation of events. But it also is a bit of a timing thing, in that our market is doing much better, because as a result of the general economy, but also because adjustments had been made to NIH funding.
I think also what you’ll find is that a lot of people took what we term “compromise positions” in the 2008 to 2011, or even 2012 time period. They took a job that they were overqualified for because they needed a job. Those people are not yet ready to leave those jobs because they don’t want to look like a job hopper. So, what you’ve got actually is a very limited supply of talented people, because some people are simply putting in their… Not putting in their time. That’s overstating it. But some people are reluctant to leave a job that they’ve taken in the last two to three years. So they’re going to stay there because they want to have a nice productive stay on their resume, which limits the talent pool.
As companies are doing more and more hiring, there’s actually a more limited talent pool than there might have been some years ago. So, what you’re seeing is a growing economy, a limited talent pool, which has shifted the dynamics of the hiring process.
Chris: Right. That’s fascinating to me, because I’m looking at this thinking that the very best candidates who might have been hired in that 2008, 2011, ’12 window, there’s an activation energy or a cost to even start looking for a new job. So even if it isn’t the ideal thing for them now, it’s creating an opportunity for everyone else because they’re not moving.
Jeff: That’s right. There’s the activation energy, and then like I said, there are some people that, A, maybe they like the job so they don’t want to leave. Maybe they also feel like they don’t want to create that impression of hopping from one position to another quickly.
Chris: Sure.
Jeff: So, for any number of reasons, the talent on the market is perhaps a bit more limited. Again, that’s important for both the candidates and the hiring managers to know is that there is a limited amount of talent. That makes the candidates worth more and able to really vet the job opportunities in front of them before they choose one. For hiring managers, it might require rethinking your compensation plan, or the specifics of what you’re looking for in terms of experience and so forth.
Chris: Right. Well, that’s very helpful. So do you have any last nuggets of advice for either job seekers or hiring managers? That sounds like a pretty big one.
Jeff: Yeah. No. Actually, I have a number of pieces of advice that I tell people. First of all, a lot of people, they ignore the requests from recruiters to network or talk. When I was in sales and when I was a hiring manager, I always talked to recruiters, because you never know when you might need or want those recruiters. Creating a working relationship with someone who is highly experienced in the field can’t be a bad thing. It can only be helpful. A lot of people feel that responding to a recruiter is indicating that you’re looking for a job when you’re not. I would say responding to a recruiter and developing a working relationship with that person can only reap benefits somewhere down the road.
The other thing is that a lot of people would say, “Well, I’m not looking for a job. I’m pretty satisfied.” But if the job sounds interesting, I would say, again, there’s nothing to be lost by having a conversation either with the recruiter or the hiring manager, whoever it was that reached out to you. You might find after talking with them, the job is a lot more interesting than what you had thought. The company may be much different than what you know, because the company may have done some metamorphosis over the last few years since you last really looked at them. So, nothing to be lost by having a 30-minute conversation, and very much to be gained.
So I encourage people, have the conversation, then make a decision. Don’t make a decision based on something you believe to be true or that might be old information. You might learn something that’s important and that makes you decide it’s worth a harder look. You might decide not to spend the time pursuing it any further based on that conversation. But until you know more, I wouldn’t shut the door on having conversations.
Chris: That sounds like good advice. It’s hard to imagine not wanting to learn something about what’s going on in your field, what people are looking for, or even things that hiring managers find important even if you’re not looking for a job, for your own career.
Jeff: That’s right.
Chris: You might think, “I ought to be thinking about this because even though I have a job and it’s secure, I could do more if I got better at X.”
Jeff: Right. That actually, Chris, reminds me of one other thing and that is any job can feel secure, but tomorrow, an acquisition can be announced, and suddenly, your very secure job at Life Technologies or Agilent, or somewhere else, could be less secure. So having those relationships with recruiters, with hiring managers, with people that you’re connected to on LinkedIn, and having practiced the interviewing skills and job seeking skills moderately, if not actively, if something happens, you’re more prepared to move forward than others of your colleagues who have shut those doors and not really listened or talked.
Chris: Yes. That one resonates with me. I was at a company that was acquired by Agilent. Fortunately, I found a job at Agilent, but not everybody did and it’s a stressful time.
Jeff: That’s right. That’s right. Like anything, if you’ve practiced behavior, if you’ve laid out the foundation for certain things, then when the time comes where you need it, you’ll be able to draw on it. It will be more productive if you’ve sort of worked on those skills or worked on the networking that you need should the eventuality come about that you actually need to look for a job or want to.
Chris: Great. So, Jeff, this has been really helpful. I learned a few things today, and I’m sure my listeners did too. Where should the listeners go to find out more about you and your business?
Jeff: Of course, because I’m a big believer in LinkedIn, you can visit my profile on LinkedIn.
Chris: I’ll put a link to that in the show notes so people can find it easily. But go ahead.
Jeff: Yeah. The other thing is the website for my consulting is genovative-solutions.com. For the recruiting is biotech-recruiters.com. There you can learn more about myself and my colleague, Derek, as well as the 20 or so openings that we have in commercial positions and life sciences. Of course, feel free to contact me. My contact information is front and center on my LinkedIn profile.
I should add, and maybe you can work this in somehow, but my colleague and I both run a couple of different discussion groups that people can take a look at as well to see what’s going on in the field. I run a sales and marketing group called “Life Science Commercialization Network” and another group called “Commercial Opportunities in the Life Science Market.” My colleague, Derek, runs a discussion group called “Genomics Jobs.” So they can learn about positions or learn about things related to job hunting, or interviewing skills, etc., on any of those sites.
Chris: Fantastic. Well, thank you again very much for this, I think a really interesting conversation, and I think people will be very interested to listen to this one.
