Biotechnology Recruiters Look Beyond Scientific Credentials

Biotechnology firms cherish their scientists -- molecular biologists, immunologists, biochemists, microbiologists, synthetic organic chemists. These researchers spend their days cloning and sequencing DNA, altering genes to create engineered proteins, developing diagnostics and therapeutics, and conducting other investigations that constitute the bread and butter of the industry. To many observers, it may seem ironic that the industry's human resources professionals the people who seek out these scientists and place them in their high-level positions-generally do not come from scientific backgrounds. In fact, their scientific naivete is often an asset to choosing the right hire. Wendy Reitherman, employment manager at Genentech Inc., based in South San Francisco, Calif., says that the nonscientific perspective offered by a recruiter often makes the difference between a good hiring decision and a bad one. "The hiring manager [the manager of the department in which the job is to be filled] is going to be focusing much more on the technical knowledge, which of course is critical," she says. "But it's not the only thing." A good human resources professional, Reitherman says is skilled at making more subjective determinations, such as, "Will this particular applicant work well in our company?" In the early days of the biotechnology industry at the beginning of the 1980s, recruiting was informal. Companies were small, networks close; chances were, scientists doing a particular kind of research knew just about everyone else doing similar work. If they wanted to hire another investigator, they just put down their petri dishes and picked up the phone. Explains David Nikka, director of human resources for the Boston based Genzyme Corp.: "Most small biotech companies started up with a couple of Ph.D.'s who networked. One of your first 10 people hired was not going to be [a human resources] person." Now, of course, things are different. Genzyme, for example, has grown to about 600 employees from fewer than 10 when it was founded in 1981. With such a vast expansion of staff recruiters and other human resources personnel either members of a biotech's staff or outside consultants are no longer luxuries. Nikka once explained to a colleague the job of recruiters and other human resources (HR) people. "HR is there," he said, "to solve the problems that [a candidate's] coming to the company would create." Let's start at the beginning of the hiring process and follow it through. Imagine that you're a lab manager at a biotech company let's call it Biogenocellotech and your immunologist has just quit. you pick up the phone, dial the HR department, and say, "Get me an immunologist." A little while later, someone shows up at your office to perform the first and most important job of a recruiter determining what type of candidate the manager wants. Says Ann Price, of Ann Price and Co., a San Francisco-area firm that handles most of the recruiting for such companies as the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Collagen Corp. and the Emeryville, Calif.-based Cetus Corp., "I help [hiring managers] determine what they're really looking for. "Sometimes they're looking for one person who crosses boundaries and is really two people. I had one manager who was seeking a cell biologist who really turned out to be a protein chemist." That is, the skills the manager listed in the position specifications given to the recruiter were those of a cell biologist, but when Price met with the manager, "he talked protein chemist." Jeanne Bertonis, senior associate, recruiting and development, for Biogen Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., says that the first thing she tries to determine when meeting with the hiring managers is how specialized the position is: "I'll get a sense are there 20 people out there who can do this job, or are there 2,000?" If she's seeking to fill a job for which there will be many candidates, her next step is to "talk to the people who do the job I want [to fill] and say, 'What do you read? What do you attend? Where would you go if you were looking for a job?' " This helps her determine which publications to advertise in, which seminars or job fairs to post notices at, and which academic fields to use as sources for referrals. Nikka agrees: "Usually the hiring manager can give you a good idea of where that type of work is getting done maybe he can give you the name of the labs," and of the most appropriate publication in which to advertise. "I get 40 percent of my hires through ads," he says. When it comes to doing the initial screening for lower-level departments, recruiters say that not having a scientific background is not a hindrance. The recruiter, says Reitherman at Genentech, "knows how to read resumes. They do know what they're looking for, at least enough to know the buzzwords." Says Price, who has a degree in biology: "I don't think it matters [whether a recruiter has had training in science]. What is really needed is the ability to understand requirements." The rest of the relevant information which labs are better than others, which journals denote excellence, what skills an applicant must have, and how they are Wendy Reitherman: A candidate's technical knowledge "is critical. But it's not the only thing" to consider demonstrated or fudged is easily learned, recruiters agree. But for higher-level positions, for which the talent pool is generally very small, the process changes considerably. After all, says Price, when there are few choices, "I'm looking for somebody so good that if his employer knew I'd called he'd probably raise his salary." In these cases, the recruiter does more "cranking on the phone," Price says. The recruiter, whether in-house or from an outside agency, contacts labs doing similar work or academic departments specializing in the skill needed. These higher-level hires also require a greater degree of participation from the hiring department. Once candidates have been determined, the department will examine each in detail. "A Ph.D. coming into the company to do an interview can plan to spend a whole day," Nikka says. Zoltan Csimma, vice president of human resources and operations for the Cambridge, Mass.-based Genetics Institute Inc., agrees: "We almost determine the stamina of the individual through the interview process." Commonly, a Ph.D.-level candidate will give a seminar at the offices of the prospective employer. "This is pivotal," says Csimma, "because people are able to see them in action." And though savvy candidates may assume that such a presentation is the heart of any interview process says Csimma, "I've seen people with significant backgrounds come in and show themselves to be fairly shallow. I've seen some very significant people absolutely blow off the seminar." When confronted with such a candidate, the manager doesn't need much help in deciding whether to: make a job offer. But where the recruiter adds the most value to the process is in the hiring decisions on which consensus is not so easily reached. Such as in our Biogenocellotech situation. Your recruiter has listened to what you said you needed, helped you determine what you really do need, advertised the position, and received dozens of resumes. She has even screened out those that with the knowledge of labs, schools, and buzzwords she gained on the job she was able to determine lacked the skills for the position. Now she brings them to you, and you start interviewing them. One of those interviewees seems fine to you, and so you're set; you've chosen your hire. Not so fast. "Say [a department is] looking for an X-ray crystallographer with experience in human protein," and a recruiter has found a candidate with the right experience, says Nikka. "The hiring manager starts licking his chops." In the interview with the hiring manager, the candidate talks the right talk. But his interview with HR doesn't go so well. Says Nikka, "I had one candidate who came in and stared window the whole time." The candidate, Nikka explains, did not grasp the importance of an interview with a nonscientist. "He said, am I talking to you?' " The point, says Nikka, outside of the lab, some candidates are socially inept. And the hiring managers don't see that- they get seduced by the scientific background." It's the recruiters' job to discern the candidate's personality traits. "And you have to be pretty adept to pick up those clues," Nikka says. "What you see is often more than what they say." He gives an example of a candidate who, when offered $32,000, folded his arms and refused to enter the company for less than $33,000. "And the manager says, `Give him the thousand,' but I say, `Take a closer look.'" A candidate who rejected out of hand a position for $1,000 may not be as committed as one who would have negotiated-or he may just be impossible to negotiate with. How will such a candidate work with others? What will happen when he's due for a raise? "I like to raise those kinds of questions, and I think that's the process" by which the HR professional adds value to a company, says Nikka. Biogen's Bertonis cites another example: an applicant who treated the hiring manager with tremendous respect but was imperious during a separate interview with her. When Bertonis recommended against hiring for those reasons, she recalls, the hiring manager was incredulous, pointing out that the candidate did not treat him with disrespect.' I said, "You're going to be his boss -- talk to his peers.'" When the manager asked the other lab members, he found they felt the way Bertonis did. Such considerations, says Genentech's Reithemman, are called fit factors. "They're interactive skill factors," she explains. "And they're important." In the words of Mike Melore, director of corporate human resources at Centocor Inc. of Malvern, Pa., a company has a "defining culture. Any good HR person worth their salt will assess whether that person fits their culture. What you're determining is: What do they bring to the party?" Back at Biogenocellotech, your recruiter, having used these screening methods, has helped you find your immunologist. Then, you figure, she climbs into a freezer and goes back into suspended animation until your next researcher leaves. Not quite. Recruiters also work to keep potential recruits thinking about their company. "I get Biogen's name out there," says Bertonis. "Our literature is at every school in the Northeast. My entire advertising program addresses that." The ads, that is, keep the Biogen name in the professional journals so that competitors, potential applicants, and students all know the kind of work the firm is doing. This keeps resumes flowing. "I hire an awful lot of people through unsolicited resumes," says Bertonis. Nikka makes the same point. In August 1989, Genzyme merged with Integrated Genetics Inc., bringing "new science to the company, and that's what I wanted people to understand" A series of ads headlined "Success Through Science" carried the news of the company's expansion to potential employees who read trade journals. Speaking engagements at colleges can accomplish the same objectives. Biogen's Bertonis says that during some of her past university visits, faculty considering taking jobs in industry or trying to counsel students who wish to do so have "pulled me over into that dark corner in the hallway and said, `What's it like?' The good [academics] don't necessarily know what it's like working in industry rather than academia." It's important, she says, for scientists to be aware of the difference between an industrial and an academic working environment: in industry, "your experiments today are changing the price of the stock next week," and that pressure is not for everybody. Recruiters also spend much of their time just dealing with prospective applicants, answering questions about the best way to get a biotech job. Consequently, they have some answers. Currently, with the industry more interested than ever in applicants with experience (The Scientist, Oct. 29,1990, page 1), Bertonis advises young job-seekers-to acquire a strong background in bench science as a graduate student or as a postdoc, or to get a firm grounding in a field such as the pharmaceutical industry, which does more hiring directly from universities- the experience, she says, will look good on a C.V. when the candidate does apply for a biotech job. Speaking of C.V.'s, Csimma says, "We do look at C.V.'s very carefully." In order to be placed at the top of the pile, he says, an applicant's C.V. "has to be a quality piece of work." All the recruiters agree on one point: Candidates should keep aware of what potential employers are doing. Says Bertonis, "Read the ads. If Biogen's advertising for a molecular biologist, you know in six months they'll need a technician." So if you're a technician looking for work, send in your resume. And finally, the recruiters encourage job-seekers to sell themselves. "This is the 90s," says Bertonis. "Stop putting down that you can run a gel -- that's a given. But [if you know how to do something with red blood cell ghosts, tell me more about that." The varied responsibilities of a recruiter's job keep biotech companies' human resources staffers busy. But Csimma cautions that managers shouldn't assume the HR department will do the entire hiring job for them. "It's not the recruiter who has the responsibility to fill a position," he says, "it's the manager's responsibility. The recruiter is just a vehicle." Scott Huler is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

Biotechnology Recruiters Look Beyond Scientific Credentials

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