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Hobson Prior are recruiting for an experienced Senior CRA to be based in France to monitor phase III oncology trials across 4 sites

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Case study: Securing a homebased position for more work-life balance

Michael Masoomi our consultant managing the role
Author: Michael Masoomi
Michael Masoomi our consultant managing the role
Author: Michael Masoomi
Posted:06/11/2019

The situation

*Names have been changed to provide anonymity

We worked with a biometrics job seeker, called Simon*, who was unhappy in his current permanent position at a CRO and wanted a new job that would elevate his career. Based in Swansea, his local opportunities were limited and while many of his colleagues were relocating to Europe for work, he had family commitments in Wales.

He spoke with other recruitment agencies, but was feeling frustrated as they continued to present him with overseas roles that didn’t match his career goals. He wanted to progress in his career, but needed to be able to stay in Wales to secure a practical work-life balance.

Hobson Prior solution

Simon was recommended by his colleague to Michael Masoomi, a principal recruitment consultant at Hobson Prior specialising in the biometrics sector. His colleague has worked with Mike before, who was able to find him a job at a company that other recruiters didn’t have access to.

Simon spoke to Mike about his career, experience and personal commitments, allowing Mike to build an accurate idea of the type of positions he would be interested in pursuing.

As location was a key aspect of his requirements, Mike suggested Simon explore home-based opportunities. This would open his options to an international level, without the need to relocate.

Mike was able to widen the search and include global, leading pharmaceutical companies and CROs to the search, whilst focusing on jobs that allow for a balance between Simon’s work ambitions and family commitments.

Having built strong relationships with our clients, Mike was able to go direct to hiring managers and consult his network to identify roles that were yet to be publicly released yet, many of which we had exclusive access to.

The result

With this knowledge and his connections, Mike was able to offer Simon various home-based positions with reputable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across the UK and Europe, none of which required relocation.

With Mike’s help identifying unreleased roles and his support throughout the interview process, Simon was able to accept a home-based role with a well-known pharmaceutical company.

Since then, Simon has returned to Hobson Prior for his last three placements, choosing to work exclusively with our biometrics team thanks to their understanding of his work-life balance.

Download the case study

Click here for a printable version of this case study

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Competing for top talent as a small biotech

Taking calculated risks has led to some of the ground-breaking developments within biotechnology, particularly amongst younger businesses. From bringing a new orphan to market, to delivering solutions that reduce suffering for patients; the growing rise in emerging biotechnology solutions is transforming healthcare and the life sciences industry. Despite making waves across the industry, many of the emerging biotechnology companies that we work with, highlight the difficulty they have in securing quality candidates. With investors needing timely results and budgets often tight, having qualified employees on the team is key, but how can these lesser-known companies compete with the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are also vying for exceptional candidates? What motivates life scientist to take a job? To attract the best talent within the industry, it is important to understand what encourages life sciences professionals to take a new job. 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We work closely with our clients to ensure that the candidates in the interview process are aware of the numerous benefits of company life as well as the opportunity within the role.It can be difficult to compete for talented scientists and specialists against globally established businesses. Often, the issue is not convincing candidates in taking the risk to join a newer or smaller company, but rather, getting access to them in the first place. By outsourcing recruitment and continuing to network within the industry, your reputation and visibility will continue to expand, allowing your headhunting efforts and headcount to grow as your business continues to develop and establish itself within the market.

Andy Haywood

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Competing for top talent as a small biotechnology company

Taking calculated risks has led to some of the ground-breaking developments within biotechnology, particularly amongst younger businesses. From bringing a new orphan to market, to delivering solutions that reduce suffering for patients; the growing rise in emerging biotechnology solutions is transforming healthcare and the life sciences industry. Despite making waves across the industry, many of the merging biotechnology companies that come to us highlight the difficulty they have in securing quality candidates. With investors needing timely results and budgets often tight, having qualified employees on the team is key, but how can these lesser-known companies compete with the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are also vying for exceptional candidates? What motivates life scientist to take a job? To attract the best talent within the industry, it is important to understand what encourages life sciences professionals to take a new job. We asked over 1,280 life sciences professionals what was their key motivator for changing job, and the top three results were: Career progression (24%) Flexibility and work-life balance (23%) Ability to work on an exciting project (23%) Interestingly, only 2% ranked company reputation as their main motivator in selecting a new job, suggesting the focus appears to be more on career opportunity and the vision of the company, rather than the infancy of the business itself. Now if this were truly the case, lesser-known enterprising biotechnology companies wouldn’t struggle to compete for top talent against established, internationally renowned biopharma. Ultimately, numerous factors, beyond company reputation, encourage professionals to work a for a company, but it is promising to see that size and infancy of the company are have less influence than may be expected. Competing as a smaller biotechnology company The biotechnology industry is continuing to grow. As greater investment and improved accessibility to resources evolves, more advancements and breakthroughs keeps small, independent and start-up biotechnology companies in competition with big pharma. Talented life sciences professionals are regularly headhunted by global pharma companies and rarely stay out of a job for long. There are numerous reasons for candidates to consider joining a smaller company at a junior or senior level: Greater exposure to processes Exciting projects to work in a ground-breaking industry sector Potential fast-track to leadership positions A more targeted benefits package relevant to their lifestyle More flexible working hours and less rigid internal policies Potential investment of shares Despite these exciting career opportunities, there are still roadblocks making it more difficult for a smaller company to attract experienced and skilled candidates: Vacancy Visibility Limited budget and minimal experience hiring within the life sciences industry can make it difficult for start-up and small biotechnology businesses to promote their vacancies. Even with a competitive salary and desirable career development opportunities, if the job advertisement is not visible to the relevant candidates, it is unlikely to draw in applications. The biotechnology employment market is seeing a greater demand for professionals with niche specialist knowledge. Often these skillsets are limited and without the ability to promote vacancies to a broader audience, particularly on an international level, this creates a higher risk for frustrating and costly hiring delays. Resources Without an established internal talent acquisition or dedicated HR function, the role of hiring within smaller businesses can often fall onto senior leadership. This can be problematic in the early stages of a company’s development as these leaders’ time is sparse. Even with a dedicated team to aid in internal recruitment, smaller companies are short on budget, time and will be unlikely to have the same resources available at a blue-chip pharmaceutical company to attract top talent. Without candidate sourcing tools, headhunting processes and an interview planning and execution process, hiring can become a tedious and draining project, alongside the various other important tasks of establishing a new lab and developing new business. Reputation Despite only 2% listing it as their main motivation, it is naive to assume that candidates will not be interested in previous success and the future stability of their prospective new employer. Arguably less of a prominent issue within the contract employment market, professionals looking to move into their next permanent position will be cautious of moving to a company they may not have heard of before. The best candidates that will bring efficiency and innovation to a small company are likely also being headhunted and offered positions at businesses with extensive teams, proven history of development and a global reputation. 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Social forums such as LinkedIn can be a useful way to engage with industry professionals and builds international bridges across the sector. A few moments a day contributing to discussions within groups, expanding your networking and communicating with relevant professionals can have a large impact. Outsource your recruitment If time resources are limited, it is worth looking into utilising a recruitment agency to remove the pressure of sourcing candidates, arranging interviews and managing candidate feedback and communication. A recruitment agency will also enable you to quickly and effectively widen the scope of your candidate search, with pre-built, global networks of experienced life sciences professionals. Working on your behalf, they will engage the industry and ensure that you have access to a diverse selection of talented and skilled individuals who can bring value to your business. Clear career development progression, company benefits and flexible working, achievements and goals for the company’s future, a strong and inspiring mission statement; all of these can help your small business stand out against larger pharmaceutical companies, where company culture and employee value can be difficult to demonstrate or more rigid. However your small business operates, highlighting your forward-thinking and unique company culture is a great advantage, particularly when engaging candidates who are fed up with some of the difficulties and restrictions of working as part of a global enterprise. Size doesn't matter There are numerous advantages in joining a smaller team, including more influence and experience, faster access to leadership roles and potentially greater flexibility to offer better working benefits. Understanding and actively promoting the benefits of your business and its culture, you are in a much stronger position to attract top talent. We work closely with our clients to ensure that the candidates in the interview process are aware of the numerous benefits of company life as well as the opportunity within the role. It can be difficult to compete for talented scientists and specialists against globally established businesses. Often, the issue is not convincing candidates in taking the risk to join a newer or smaller company, but rather, getting access to them in the first place. By outsourcing recruitment and continuing to network within the industry, your reputation and visibility will continue to expand, allowing your headhunting efforts and headcount to grow as your business continues to develop and establish itself within the market.

Andy Haywood

Andy Haywood

02/03/2020

Hobson Prior awarded for European Supplier Excellence 2019 from AgileOne

(London, UK), September 19th, 2019 – Specialist life science recruitment company, Hobson Prior is proud to announce that on 19 September, 2019, we received AgileOne’s UK Platinum Award for European Supplier Excellence 2019. The award was presented to David Chipp and Calum Watson during an award ceremony that took place during the AgileOne Supplier Excellence Awards held in London, England.  All the winners at the AgileOne Supplier Exvellence event “With each candidate interaction and each successful placement, our suppliers play a critical role in our success at AgileOne. We are constantly evaluating our suppliers to ensure they are providing the best possible service to our clients. The Supplier Excellence Awards allow us to recognize the suppliers that consistently exceed expectations,” Brian Clark, Senior Vice President Global Operations of AgileOne. “As a trusted partner, Hobson Prior has risen to the challenge of delivering world-class customer service and high-quality talent for AgileOne’s clients around the world.” “The entire Global Strategic Sourcing team is dedicated to building strong partnerships with suppliers around the world. The Supplier Excellence Awards are just one of the many ways AgileOne seeks to showcase our ‘Best of the Best’ suppliers,” said Jaideep Majumdar, Associate Vice President of AgileOne “Our supplier partnership program strives to connect, build, foster, and grow our supplier partners so that they curate innovative, technology-based workforce solutions to better serve our clients. From sharing world-class processes to giving suppliers the opportunity to grow their business, our ‘Best of the Best’ suppliers serve as an example of what can be done when you create win-win partnerships that benefits everyone.” Calum Watson accepting the Platinum award on behalf of Hobson Prior "We are honoured to have been recognised by AgileOne. Collaboration is key to providing innovative and effective life sciences recruitment solutions and we take great pride in working with AgileOne to provide an exceptional service,” commented Managing Director of Hobson Prior, Patrick Forster. “A crucial part of Hobson Prior’s mission is to develop and build recruitment partnerships, so we can help our clients find the specialist candidates they need to make an impactful difference to patients around the world. We hope to continue developing our partnership with AgileOne as a go-to solution for life sciences recruitment.” Hobson Prior managers David Chipp and Calum Watson accepting the Agile One award About Hobson Prior Hobson Prior is a leading specialist life sciences recruiter focused on finding and placing exceptional candidates across the global life sciences industry. Our highly selective clients trust us to source and secure the best contract and permanent candidates to contribute to their success.We’ve been recruiting exceptional life science professionals since 2002 and our team of consultants, many of who used to work within the industry themselves, have been delivering tailored and successful recruitment solutions. About AgileOne From cutting-edge technologies to award-winning services, AgileOne has the resources to provide true total talent management. Good vendors can provide cost savings, risk mitigation, vendor management, and talent acquisition; but a great partner supports your business goals and navigates the legislation, regulations, and trends that will shape the future. Go beyond traditional workforce programs with a single consultative partner that understands where you want to go, and how you can get there. Minority/woman-owned, with operations in 32 countries around the globe. One World. One Workforce. One provider: AgileOne.

Andy Haywood

Andy Haywood

20/11/2019

Case study: Finding a new job after a mis-sold role

The situation It is frustrating when you start a new job, but it doesn’t live up to the vision you were sold throughout the interview process. We were approached by a job seeker who was experiencing exactly this; she’d joined a CRO for a permanent position, but the job she’d accepted wasn’t living up to expectations. Having just undergone an arduous job search, she turned to Hobson Prior to help her find a job that lived up to expectation. Hobson Prior solution The first thing Hobson Prior did was introduce her to a recruiter that specialised within her area of biometrics. This way, she could talk in detail about her niche, knowing the recruiter she was working with not only understood the terminology, but had a network of connections within her sector. After an initial call with our biometrics team, we understood that she was she enjoyed working on varied projects, but wanted to work directly for a pharmaceutical company rather than through a CRO. She was also starting to think about her retirement, but didn’t want this to slow down her working life. We suggested that she think about contracting opportunities as these would give her the diversity she wanted and meant she could continue working with various pharmaceutical companies before her retirement. Having recently been disappointed by her the permanent job she’d just accepted, she was excited about the opportunities contracting may supply her. The result By understanding her requirements and utilising our connections within the industry, we were able to identify opportunities not yet released. Her years of experience and desirable skillset were well received, and we were able to supply her with several roles at pharmaceutical companies that would provide her with the diverse and exciting projects she was looking for. She accepted a 12-month contract at a leading global pharmaceutical company, with a higher pay rate than she’d asked for, where she is still happily working. Download the case study Click here for a printable version of this case study

Sam Attard

Sam Attard

06/11/2019

Case study: Helping a job seeker get back into work with gaps in her CV

The situation Gaps in your CV can make looking for your next job feel more daunting. Often, job seekers can feel pressured to take lower salaries or take a step backwards in order to get back on the career ladder. One regulatory affairs specialist approached Hobson Prior having been out of work for three years. She had become the primary carer for her parents and was finding it difficult to secure the work-life balance she needed. She knew she would have to compromise somewhat, but other recruitment agencies were using the gap in her CV against her and were offering her very junior roles with substantially less pay. Hobson Prior solution When she spoke with Hobson Prior, she was connected to our specialist regulatory affairs recruitment team, who spoke to her to better understand her situation and what she was looking for. With over 20 years’ experience and proficiency in pre and post CMC experience, she had a wealth of knowledge that was being overshadowed by her career break. She was looking for a permanent position, but our team advised her not to discount contract opportunities. These would allow her more flexibility to care for her parents and give her the opportunity to work with global leaders within pharmaceuticals to get solid, recent experience on her CV. We spoke to our connections within her commuting radius, utilising our established relationships with our clients. Through our recruitment partnerships, we were able to identify unreleased roles at reputable pharma companies that would benefit from her skillsets. Despite the gap in her employment history, we were able to ensure her CV was seen by hiring managers and that her level of experience was the centre of her applications. The result Through our relationships with our clients, we were able to identify a handful of relevant contract opportunities that were both local and had minimal compromise on her pay rate. She interviewed for two positions that offered flexibility at globally renowned pharmaceutical companies that would help her rebuild her CV, one of which she is now working at. We were able to consult her on the best plan of action to achieve her ultimate goal of moving into a permanent opportunity at a global pharmaceutical company.  We were able to identify roles not available publicly and used our relationships with hiring managers to make sure she was still considered as a credible and desirable candidate for regulatory affairs roles. Download the case study Click here for a printable version of this case study

Francesa DeNieffe

Francesa DeNieffe

06/11/2019

Case study: Finding a redundant job seeker work before redundancy

The situation We got in touch with a job seeker that had recently been made redundant when his company had decided to close their research and development sites in the Netherlands. As a tenacious and skilled worker, he wanted to get back on the career ladder as soon as possible. Simultaneously, he also wanted to take this opportunity to pursue his and his wife’s dream to move to Switzerland. Unsure where to start and juggling redundancy with an international relocation for his family, he turned to Hobson Prior. Hobson Prior solution The first crucial step was to learn a bit more about what he was looking for from his new job as well as how his career fit into his future plans. He knew he wanted to move to Switzerland and we wanted to be sure we were in touch with companies that would allow him to progress in his career and matched his requirements. With so much on his plate, we helped get his CV in front of leading Swiss pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and used our network of connections to identify opportunities within his sector. With our exclusive recruitment partnerships, we had insight into various positions that had not been released publicly and matched his career profile. Working proactively with him as he was finishing his employment at his previous job, we secured him 4 interviews with a selection of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in Switzerland, all of which matched his ideal job requirements. The result Out of the 4 interviews, he was given two offers and he accepted a position that matched his career goals and allowed him and his wife to pursue their dream. As a result, before he had seen out his redundancy, he had a new job lined up and was already preparing for the relocation. We were able to support him with the relocation process and he and his wife have been living happily in Switzerland since. Download the case study Click here for a printable version of this case study

James Inwood

James Inwood

06/11/2019

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€50 - €65 per hour

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Description

Hobson Prior are recruiting for an experienced Senior CRA to be based in Spain to monitor phase III oncology trials across 2 sites

Roxie Parkins
Roxie Parkins
Read more
Shortlist
Senior CRA (Home-based - France)
Salary:

€50 - €65 per hour

Location:

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Description

Hobson Prior are recruiting for an experienced Senior CRA to be based in France to monitor phase III oncology trials across 4 sites

Roxie Parkins
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Read more
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£40000 - £45000 per annum

Location:

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Description

Hobson Prior is currently working with a gene therapy organisation who are determined to develop possible curative treatments for patients who are living with serious illnesses.

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Shortlist
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$78000 - $128000 per annum

Location:

Reykjavík

Description

Hobson Prior are currently working with a specialty biopharma organisation who are focused on the advancing and manufacturing biosimilar medicines.

Sophie O'Neill
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