Flo Nicolas is a technologist, lawyer, speaker, mentor and writer as well as founder and CEO of tech startup CheapCheep and director and creator of Get Tech Smart. She is a dedicated professional with a passion for technology and creative innovation, intent on helping her community to become more tech-savvy and forward-thinking.
On this episode of Get Tech Smart, Flo Nicolas talks about biotechnology and recruiting with Carina Clingman, CEO, and Alison Hall, chief operating officer, of Recruitomics, a New Hampshire-based consulting company that helps biotechnology businesses develop strategic plans to attract and retain talent.
This article has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Flo Nicolas:
Today we’re going to focus on the biotech market, what’s going on? And why should we be paying attention to that market? Because, to be honest with you, don’t really put a lot of emphasis on that market.
Carina Clingman:
Yeah, that’s a good point in New Hampshire, that makes a lot of sense. We are up and coming in the biotech market. We are hoping to change that – there’s some great organizations. You’ve spoken with a lot of them here. We are hoping to help some small companies stay here, but we do typically work with companies in Cambridge, across the United States, as well as San Francisco, North Carolina — the hubs.
Flo Nicolas:
Let’s talk about why you started the company in the first place and why focus on biotech.
Carina Clingman:
When I was actually leaving my Ph.D., I started to interview for jobs, and the first thing I noticed was that the recruiters, while perfectly nice people, didn’t have very much of a background in science to be able to explain why the company was exciting, why I should care about the role and what my day-to-day would be. I was also getting outreach for roles that I would say were not appropriate for me, because I’m a biochemist, but that doesn’t mean I’ve done everything in biochemistry. It’s actually a huge umbrella. And so I remember getting outreach for a job in NMR, which I don’t do. It’s nuclear magnetic resonance. And I collaborated with somebody who did that, but I couldn’t tell you how to think about setting up an experiment or running an experiment. But a recruiter doesn’t know that because it is a biochemistry technique. So there was a clear niche and a need for somebody who had a passion for speaking with scientists, both in the companies and outside of the companies and making those connections with more of that scientific bent.
Flo Nicolas:
So walk me through the process, because not every recruiting agency is the same.
Carina Clingman:
So from your perspective, you would not know that we are not part of the companies that we’re working with. We actually approach recruiting really differently than most firms. I’m sure people are familiar with a fractional CFO — a baby company needs a CFO, but they don’t need the full-time work of a CFO. They need five hours a week of that CFO’s time. We do that, but for talent. So we are the entire talent acquisition function of a small company. We do the strategy, the recruiting, the scheduling, the candidate communication, the nurturing — all of those things that a company like Pfizer, or BMS [Bristol Myers Squibb) would probably have teams of 30 people doing those things.
We help the little companies have all that expertise in-house because we’re fractional for them, and then they can compete with those bigger companies. So from your perspective, as a candidate you would think, “Oh, this is a really knowledgeable recruiter. What a lucky company, they have a Ph.D.-level recruiter, telling me exactly what the day-to-day is.” And we really do know, because a lot of times we get in really early and craft the entire branding strategy for these clients. So as a candidate you would have a really seamless experience. The emails would be coming from the company, you would be you shepherded through the process within the company.
Flo Nicolas:
One of the other things that I hear a lot, and being somebody who was on the job market a couple of years ago, one of the stresses is just the process of submitting your resume. With LinkedIn, Indeed, and some of these places they get in thousands of applications. How are you maintaining the human-centric aspect of recruiting?
Carina Clingman:
That’s a great question. With technology, it’s becoming a little bit easier. I know that you love AI and talking about AI, so I can talk about AI here. There are a lot of new tools coming out. And we’ve actually just adopted one that we’re very excited about, because it’s going to give us that ability. It actually allows us to engage every single applicant where that wasn’t possible before. Now, when a candidate applies, we can automatically start a text exchange with them, to let them allow their personality to come through a little bit because the application is so dry, right? Then we’re going to be able to say, “Hey, thanks so much for the application, do you want to expand a little on your experience in XYZ area”? And let them start to bring some of themselves to the table there. And the candidates that are really engaged are going to filter to the top, because we’re going to start to see them engaging. We don’t have to engage, but it’s recommended.
This AI, when we start a new job search, also allows us to go back through database of 150,000-plus candidates that we’ve worked with over the years. This AI tool starts to filter people out based on our notes or our past interactions and things like that, so that we can then go back and say, “We talked to you five years ago. How is your career now?” It’s kind of exciting how we’re leveraging that. But from the candidate’s perspective, too. We’ve recently started a sister company, and Alison is a co-founder of that works on candidate education and helps them learn how to even craft a resume because, really, it’s marketing yourself, and nobody knows how to do that very well.
Flo Nicolas:
So when we look at the biotech industry, what is the current landscape? Is there a massive higher end?
Alison Hall:
My personal opinion is that we are looking at an optimistic landscape. It’s been a really, really tough year. I think anyone in biotech would certainly agree with that. We’ve seen a significant number of layoffs, of reduction in force and of biotechs just shuttering. Venture capital has been really tight, so their funding has not been there the way we’ve seen it historically.
Over the past few years across a lot of the tech industry we’ve seen a lot of layoffs. Some people attribute that to over-hiring during COVID. It was really a candidate’s market. So there is a leveling off, I will say that, from what I’m seeing come across my desk and in the news. It looks as though we may be turning a corner there and I think that we will see more companies going for IPOs getting the venture funding. We’re starting to see, from our end, more interest in people bringing on our firm to help them with their hiring plans. People are looking ahead to 2024.
So my optimistic assessment is that 2023 was a really big recalibration year. It was really challenging, and it was really difficult for a lot of people and a lot of biotechs. People were put in terrible situations and had to make really bad, really just gut-wrenching decisions, about what they were going to do to maintain either a skeleton crew or shot their companies. But I do think in 2024, things are looking like they’re going to improve. And I think that that will trickle down to candidates. And hopefully, we’ll see biotech really bounce back. It’s been very, very tough for anyone in talent acquisition.
Flo Nicolas:
I want to ask this, because I see this happen a lot with students. For example, with my husband, he’s an electrical engineer, he’s actually working on his PhD. But when he finished his bachelor’s he was like, “I want to go get my master’s” I’m like, that’s great, but you need to start working, because you want to start showing on-the-job skills. That way, when you finish a master’s, you’re going to be able to say, “Hey, I’m commanding X salary, because I already have hands-on experience.” When it comes to commanding higher pay, do you think it’s a bad idea when students who start from their bachelor’s and go to their master’s, and then carry on right to their Ph.D. and don’t put in any time to get that real-world experience
Carina Clingman:
I actually do have some data around that. We’re just talking about biotech. I think this is unique to biotech. But the answer is no, you’re not going to command much more than you would have. I actually know somebody specifically that he probably commanded a little bit more. I knew him in my Ph.D. He had gotten his bachelor’s and his master’s. He went and worked for industry for a couple of years and realized his career trajectory that he wants, He’s really sharp. He probably wants to be CFO of a company of chief scientific officer someday. But he came back to do a Ph.D. because he realized he couldn’t really break through a sort of a ceiling. It’s interesting, because now we’re not seeing that as much. It used to be that you couldn’t break into a scientist title without a Ph.D. Now you can, you absolutely can. It’s really common in companies.
But anyway, he went back, he got his PhD, he went out into the workforce. And I actually hired him at one of the companies that we were consulting for. And he talked to me about this very thing. And he said, “I worked for three years”, and I thought, “That’s great.” But the company has the salary band which he would fit into, and I can bring him in at the top of that band, but there’s actually no room for more than that because you still have the same kind of pedigree that somebody who went in did their Ph.D. then worked for a couple of years afterward would have. So we were able to give them a little bit of it, few thousand.
Flo Nicolas:
Thank you both so much for being here. Let’s see how we can work together to make some noise and put that spotlight that is so needed on the biotech community right here in New Hampshire. To everyone at home, thank you for watching another episode of Get Tech Smart. Stay tuned for more.
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