Overview
Company:
US based biotechnology company, looking to expand within European markets
Role required:
Medical Directors, Executive level
Recruitment situation:
Our US based client was looking to launch a new site, based in Geneva. They needed a medical director with experience across all stages of clinical development.
The role had been open for 12 months, but all their previous candidates were more focused on late phase rather than the who process.
The situation
We were approached by a US-based biotechnology company that needed a senior director to join their executive team in their new Swiss site. The role was a strategy focused role, where the chosen candidate would be responsible for overseeing the programmes through all stages of clinical development as well as taking a key role in the leadership team.
They had been working with recruitment companies, but they were unable to find medical directors with enough experience across the phases of development. As such, the role had been open for 12 months and was limiting the development of their Swiss entity.
Based on our global experience aiding companies across the world source candidates on an international level, we were approached to help source potential candidates on this role. As a senior and critical role that had already experienced disappointment for the client, we referred them to our executive search team and began the process of identifying the optimal.
Hobson Prior executive solution
The initial focus was to identify which candidates had already been interviewed and why they were not offered the final role. By understanding the client’s minimum requirements and identifying where unsuccessful candidates had been sourced allowed us to minimise future unsuccessful submissions.
As part of this process, we worked closely with the client to identify pre-existing role models within their business and the industry. Utilising our advanced recruitment software, we were then able to isolate candidates in Switzerland with similar education and employment history as they would have the skillset required for the role.
Our European team began proactively headhunting our extensive mainland network. By utilising our contacts, we were able to collect referrals of skilled professionals that matched our client’s criteria. We were then able to build a pool of potential candidates and pre-interview each candidate before submission to ensure we only put forward those that would benefit our client.
We worked closely with their US team to facilitate the phone interviews and follow-up face-to-face interviews, ensuring that despite the time difference, all parties were aware of the process and maintaining effective communication.
The result
Following a successful interview period, a candidate from the UK was offered a role within 5 months of the role being with us, a 60% decrease from the previous attempts. Based on the success of this process, we found another candidate who was offered a similar roe in their European team two months after the first placement.
By working with our executive team, they were able to expand across Germany and the UK, with the qualified medical directors they needed. We dramatically reduced their time to hire and they have gone on to create and addition third and fourth role to allow more of the candidates we sourced to join their team.
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