10 Ways to Locate Hard-to-Find Pharma Talent

Locating and engaging hard-to-find talent in the Life Science industry is only getting tougher in today’s competitive job market. However, there are some simple things you can do to make your search for highly specialised, niche talent that little bit easier.

In this article, we outline 10 ways to locate hard-to-find talent in the Life Science industry; from rewriting your job adverts and strengthening your employer brand, to making the most of social media and niche job boards…

Review Your Job Adverts

First, take a look at how you’re marketing your roles to jobseekers. Start by looking through your job adverts from a jobseeker perspective and ask yourself “What can this role do for me?”. Jobseekers want to know what they can gain from working with you, so make this the core message in your job adverts. Improving your job adverts should be something you do regularly, and can make all the difference when it comes to engaging top talent.

Strengthen Your Employer Brand

In today’s job market, it’s more important than ever to strengthen your employer brand and position yourself as an employer of choice. Your employer brand is much more than the packages you offer new hires and the way you describe your organisation online. It should also be something that evolves along with changing jobseeker needs and hiring trends and challenges.

Click here to learn how PharmiWeb can help to strengthen your online presence with our Employer Branded Careers Hubs.

Introduce an Employee Referral Scheme

If you haven’t already, consider introducing an employee referral scheme to your organisation to tap into your employees’ professional networks and expand your talent pool with high quality candidates. According to LinkedIn:

• 45% of employees sourced from employee referrals stay for longer than 4 years
• In 2020, 60 days was the high end of the average days to fill a position without a referral, yet with a referral this was reduced to 35-40 days

You can encourage employees to make referrals with different incentives, from referral bonuses to additional paid time off.

Look at Your Social Media Presence

There are so many benefits to using social media in your recruitment strategy; from being able to target both active and passive candidates, to having additional space to strengthen your employer branding. However, you need to make sure you’re putting your time and resources into the platforms where your target candidates already are, instead of rushing to create an account on every platform you can think of.

Whilst LinkedIn might seem like an obvious place to start, don’t overlook platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Pinterest, as all have valuable tools for jobseekers. Once you’ve identified the platforms that are right for your organisation, focus on growing your network and engaging talent with meaningful content.

Introduce Graduate or Apprenticeship Schemes

If you’re struggling to fill certain roles with experienced talent, consider introducing new schemes for graduates and school leavers to fill these vacancies with people who are ready to learn and who can be moulded into your ideal candidate with the right guidance. Although you may spend more time and resources on initial training, investing in these schemes can improve your employee retention, which in turn will help to attract new talent in the future.

94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development, with good career progression opportunities being especially important to Millennial and Gen Z jobseekers. So, don’t overlook the value of candidates with less hard skills and experience, and instead look for candidates with a strong desire to learn and the soft skills needed to succeed in your organisation.

Tap Into International Markets

Consider opening up applications to candidates overseas to expand your talent pool, diversify your workforce, and bring new skill sets and experiences to your organisation. You could either implement a global hiring strategy that supports international candidates with visa processing, relocation and accommodation, or alternatively offer international candidates the chance to work remotely from where they are.

If you’re hiring in Australia, find out more about the Global Talent Visa, and how it can help you reach more highly skilled Life Science candidates.

Make the Most of Niche Job Boards

Using niche job boards such as PharmiWeb.Jobs can help you take your roles straight to your target audience of candidates. With PharmiWeb, you can do this using our targeted email campaigns which take your roles and other information about your organisation to a candidate list segmented by location or discipline. You can also discover your ideal candidates using our CV searching tool, allowing you to search our database of more than 57,000 active CVs.

To find out more about using PharmiWeb to locate hard-to-find talent, visit our Recruiter Services Information Page.

Use the Tools You Already Have

Locating hard-to-find talent doesn’t always mean investing in new software and creating new ways of finding jobseekers. You can also take a look at the tools you already have and identify alternate ways of using them. One example of this is Google, which can be useful if you know exactly what types of candidates you’re looking for.

Read our article on how to locate hard to find pharma talent using Google to get started.

Be Responsive to Jobseeker Needs

All the materials you use in your recruitment campaigns should be regularly reviewed and adapted to evolving jobseeker needs. Especially over the past two years, jobseeker priorities have changed massively, with flexibility and work-life balance more important than ever before. Stay up to date with what your target candidates are looking for in their next job and find new ways to appeal to these needs before your competitors do.

Target Both Active and Passive Talent

Only targeting active jobseekers will massively reduce your candidate reach. Due to having workers with highly specialised skill sets, there is a huge amount of passive talent in the Life Science industry, so find new ways of reaching your target audience of candidates, regardless of the stage they’re at in their job search. Growing your network with passive talent on places like LinkedIn will also help you tap into these users’ talent pools, ultimately helping to expand your reach and online visibility.

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Visit PharmiWeb's Recruiter Blog for more tips on Life Science recruitment, or visit our Recruiter Services Information Page to learn how we can help you attract the best talent in the industry.