Successful Land Top Life Sciences Regulatory Affairs Talent with These Tips
Any successful staffing process in the life sciences and regulatory affairs job market requires a discerning approach. You must first determine the ideal candidate profile for your open position, including the required skills and experience. Crafting a compelling job description that clearly details the job duties and other requirements is another must.
Advertising the open position on job boards specializing in regulatory affairs helps attract qualified candidates. Additionally, highlight your benefits package and organizational culture to find applicants that make a great fit. Expect your company to enjoy a higher retention rate by hiring candidates compatible with your culture.
With the goal of a successful hiring process, let’s explore some helpful strategies for hiring regulatory affairs professionals. We cover everything from writing job descriptions to strategies for employee retention. In the end, partnering with a staffing agency specializing in the regulatory affairs landscape optimizes any talent acquisition effort.
Identifying Key Skills and Competencies for the Open Regulatory Affairs Position
As noted earlier, create an ideal candidate profile for your organization’s open position before the job ad. As part of this process, identify the required technical skills and experience level needed for the position. This includes knowledge of relevant regulations, life sciences guidelines, and other duties related to the position.
Additionally, soft skills and other competencies typically help life sciences professionals thrive in any job. Of course, strong verbal and written communication skills are a must, especially when communicating with coworkers and business stakeholders. A strong attention to detail and accuracy also identifies the top candidates. Flexibility and problem-solving acumen also help regulatory affairs professionals’ performance regardless of the specific role.
Also, consider your organization’s office culture when creating the profile of an ideal candidate. Remember that cultural fit plays a critical role in the long-term retention of any new hire. Be sure to include a few attributes related to this concept as part of your candidate profile.
Craft a Compelling Job Description and Ad
Unsurprisingly, a well-written job ad with an inspiring open position description attracts talented candidates. Ensure the ad is clear, concise, easy to read, and contains no hidden biases. The latter point remains important when fostering diversity in your life sciences and regulatory affairs organization.
Highlight the essential responsibilities and duties of the job, including the required skills and experience. Leverage the hottest keywords on those skills to make it easier for candidates to find your job ad online. This assists your hiring team in creating a wider candidate pool for the open position.
Also, include information on the opportunities for career growth and professional development your organization provides. Take a similar approach by highlighting your office culture, considering the importance of a good fit, as noted earlier. You want to hire a candidate looking for a long-term relationship with their employer instead of a job hopper.
Leverage Online Platforms for Talent Acquisition
Needless to say, nearly all modern job searches mostly take place over the Internet. As such, your HR team needs to leverage online job platforms related to the life sciences and regulatory affairs. These industry-specific job websites provide a robust supply of candidates looking for open positions in a field like yours.
As part of this online staffing platform focus, having a strong presence on job networking sites remains critical. LinkedIn offers one prominent example of these online social communities for professionals. Stay active in any LinkedIn Groups related to the life sciences and regulatory affairs scene. Also, maintain a presence on the site by regularly posting articles by various thought leaders within your organization.
Consider engaging with online forums, communities, and industry associations serving the world of life sciences. This provides an excellent opportunity to highlight your organization’s work and potentially attract passive candidates. At the same time, make connections with local educational institutions. Creating an internship program offers a great source of emerging regulatory affairs talent.
Implement Effective Recruitment Strategies
Any well-considered staffing process requires your management team to devise a few strategies aimed at recruiting talented professionals. We’ve already discussed a few approaches that remain key parts of any successful hiring effort. Of course, the other piece of this puzzle involves implementing those strategies in the job market. In short, accomplishing your goal – a successful hire – without a detailed plan is nearly impossible.
Having an ideal candidate profile for your open position lets your organization craft a targeted strategy, resulting in success. In addition to leveraging online sources for announcing and recruiting for this job, consider other helpful approaches. For example, an employee referral program allows your staff to find talented candidates interested in joining your team. This is a great way to find those unicorn passive candidates in the life sciences.
Of course, partnering with an experienced regulatory affairs staffing agency helps your organization conduct an effective hiring effort. The best agencies in this sector boast candidate pools filled with life sciences professionals ready to join your team.
Be sure to conduct a thorough assessment and interview of each top candidate before extending a job offer. This final process must also include checking their references and verifying the contents of their résumé are accurate. Remember that a staffing agency partner typically handles this aspect of the recruiting process.
Invest in Professional Development Programs
Modern professionals want to work for companies providing meaningful professional development opportunities, no matter their specific industry. Many look for other openings if they don’t receive sufficient training and a chance to grow. Note that this benefit remains vital in fostering a high retention rate and attracting new candidates. In short, the need for strong professional development opportunities matters in life sciences and regulatory affairs.
In this sector, keeping your employees’ skills up to date becomes critical. As such, be sure your training program focuses on earning relevant life sciences and regulatory affairs certifications. This approach ensures a skills gap never hampers your organization’s ability to complete projects successfully. Of course, you also need to provide a pathway to additional responsibility for employees who show strong leadership potential.
Also, encourage your employees to advance their education by offering tuition reimbursement as a benefit. Requiring anyone receiving tuition assistance to stay with your organization for a period of time improves your retention rate. Finally, provide opportunities for your staff to attend relevant conferences and events in the field. Their attendance also highlights your organization to others within the life sciences community.
Create an Inclusive Hiring Process
We previously discussed removing hidden biases from your organization’s job ads. This simple task helps your HR team foster an inclusive hiring process. A focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) differentiates the top companies in the life sciences and regulatory affairs. Your organization must adopt a similar approach to attract new candidates while retaining current employees.
In addition to removing bias from your job ads, ensure its removal from the rest of your hiring process. Also, making DEI an essential aspect of your organizational culture helps attract candidates. Consider implementing a mentorship program to provide women and minority employees with the chance to build rewarding careers. Having these mentors in leadership positions within your organization also amplifies this diverse culture to candidates.
Fostering a welcoming culture focused on equality makes attracting talented life services candidates easier. It ultimately serves to attract and retain talented and experienced regulatory affairs professionals. Simply put, beyond an inclusive hiring process, you also need to build an inclusive organization. It remains a critical piece of any strategy for hiring top talent in this field.
Retain Your Organization’s Top Talent
In addition to hiring exceptional regulatory affairs professionals, your organization must retain them over the long haul. The benefits of any life sciences company retaining its staff remain numerous to any organization in this sector. These include improved efficiency and productivity, a more welcoming office culture, and significant cost savings. The latter comes into play when considering the expenses spent recruiting, onboarding, and training new hires.
Today’s professionals want to work for an organization offering a chance to learn new skills and gain meaningful experience. As such, be sure to provide copious professional development opportunities, including a robust training program, as noted earlier. Also, tuition reimbursement should be offered as a benefit to employees who want to advance their education.
Additionally, a competitive compensation and benefits package helps to retain your employees. Combining good pay with a positive and supportive work environment makes keeping your talent easier!
Partner With a Top Life Sciences and Regulatory Affairs Staffing Agency
All these strategies we detailed help your company hire the best life sciences professionals. However, partnering with a top regulatory affairs staffing agency, like Shepherd Regulatory Search, remains another piece of this puzzle. Connect with our experienced recruiters to discuss your organization’s needs and your ideal candidate profile.