What’s Your Company’s Personality?
As modern life-science career matchmakers, we focus a lot on personality fit. So of course, we ask our potential candidates many questions about themselves and how they handle all types of situations. We’re definitely not unique in this – lots of companies do this (or lets hope they do) – but our clients, the companies hiring these candidates, are often surprised to find that we spend just as much time asking about the company’s personality as we do about the candidate’s.
“Do companies even have personalities?” you might ask. Sure, it’s the company culture! Every business has one: the sum of the leadership, their mission and means of achieving it, and the people they hire. It’s what makes your company unique. And it’s critical to internal and external growth. Now more than ever.
The Modern Key to Success
Why? For one, the life-sciences industry, especially the clinical-trial industry, currently has more positions available than talent to fill them, and there is fierce competition for the best people.
Candidates are not only looking for right title for their career; they are also looking for the right fit for their personality and lifestyle. They’re looking for a job at a company where they can be themselves and be happy – whether in terms of work-life balance or just the energy in the office.
Candidates are also, more than ever, looking to be inspired. They want to be moved and motivated by the company’s mission, vision and values. Get the culture right, and find the right candidate matches – the company culture is a unique selling point when it comes to hiring modern professionals.
Capitalizing on your Culture
The first question you should ask yourself is: do you know what your company culture is? Can you describe it? What makes your company stand out, makes it special? If you have an answer for this, great. Hopefully your culture is already an asset, internally at least. If not, then employees can do their part to turn it around, but it is up to the management to lead the way. (Here are some tips on how to make it better.)
Once you get the culture right, though, you still need to figure out how to capitalize on it. Part of that is, of course, finding the right candidates that get along with and enhance your company’s unique personality. Not every great candidate is the right candidate for your type of business and values. The right ones, though, will make a good thing better, from office atmosphere to bottom line.
Fantastic if you have a very fleshed out brand with a defined mission and values, and you know which potential employee you want. But how do you communicate this culture to these candidates? When writing job descriptions, remember that candidates want to know about more than just the tasks of the job. Don’t forget to talk about the “wow factor”! What makes your company cool? Definitely not a robotic list of tasks and certification requests… Of course you need to let candidates know what you’ll expect from them in this role, but you also need to let them know what they can expect from you in return. (Ongoing training, for one?)
Not only will this help you attract the right talent, but it will help you keep it too. And not only will it help you keep it, it will help your team of talent to work at their peak, which can only mean good things for your company.
Seuss Recruitment recruits Rock Stars in the life-sciences industry! Click here to learn more about how we partner with phenomenal pharma, biotech and CRO companies to attract and recruit awesome life-sciences professionals.
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