As you’re growing your team in the biotech, pharmaceutical, or life sciences space, you’ll have many decisions to make. One of the first will inevitably be whether you’ll use in-house recruitment or an outsourced recruitment strategy to find the right candidates for your organization.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into in-house recruitment vs. outsourcing, with a focus on how the outcome of this key decision you’ll make could affect your organization long-term. At the end, we’ll show you where to turn if you decide to lean on an experienced external recruiter with deep ties in your industry.
The Case for In House Recruitment
As the phrase suggests, in-house recruitment references the decision of an organization to add new members to their team using the HR staff and resources they already have. It can be an easy pattern to fall into, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the right or most cost-effective call for your business.
Still, in-house recruitment has its benefits in the right contexts. Here are some of those considerations:
In-house recruiters understand your culture from the get-go.
In-house recruiting teams have a first hand understanding of your organization’s culture, which may provide an advantage if cultural fit is your number one focus.
In-house recruiters will get better over time.
As your in-house recruiting team builds experience, they’ll become more useful to your organization—as long as you can retain them across most of their careers.
Generalized HR Staff can help with recruiting efforts.
This consideration may weigh heavier if your organization rarely hires new employees. Recruitment takes up a considerable amount of your HR staff’s time, and not every organization has in-house HR employees in the first place.
How Outsourcing Your Recruitment Processes Can Help Your In-House Team Fill in the Blanks
While in-house recruitment has its benefits, science firms are finding the process leaves much to be desired. It makes sense that recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers are growing in popularity, especially in the biotechnology, life sciences, and pharmaceutical industries. Here’s how outsourcing your recruitment processes can help your organization find the talent that makes its operations tick—whether you have an in-house team in place already or not.
External recruiters offer access to existing connections with hard to find experts
Experienced recruiters have often spent years, if not decades building relationships with senior and highly specialized experts in the fields in which they recruit. They bring a deep understanding of needed technical skills for various roles, and know exactly where to find the experienced and qualified candidates you’re looking for.
External recruiters help cut costs for your organization
Your partnership with an external recruiting firm allows your organization to save its precious resources (namely, time and money). External recruiting firms rely on economies of scale to provide their client-businesses with access to advanced cutting-edge applicant tracking technology, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and more in order to cut costs while creating a streamlined recruiting process.
External recruiters will keep you from having to learn hard recruiting lessons yourself
Whether you’re scaling your business, replacing a strong former employee, or expanding your talent profile for a new project or initiative, an external recruiter knows the pain points and pitfalls you’ll want to look out for. You’ll avoid “rushing” through the recruitment process, but you’ll find talent in an efficient way.
When it Makes Sense to Outsource Recruitment Operations:
Are you weighing the decision of whether to rely on in-house recruitment or explore a partnership with an external recruitment process provider? As you’re making the final call, here are some considerations to help you understand where you might draw the line. This is when it may make sense to outsource your recruitment operations:
1. When Your Organization Operates in a Talent-Centric Industry
Certain industries are more reliant on others for highly specialized employees with unique talents. The biotechnology, life sciences, and pharmaceutical industries are some of the foremost examples of this concept. If you’re looking for your next superstar in one of these highly technical and competitive industries, partnering with an external recruiter who has ties in your industry and knows where to look can make all the difference.
2. When Every Day (and Every Dollar) Counts
Outsourcing your recruiting operations means you can build hiring momentum while keeping costs low. In fast-paced industries where innovation and time-to-market are crucial, prolonged vacancies can disrupt business operations and delay projects.
Outsourcing recruitment with an external recruitment firm can help your organization reduce its time-to-hire for key roles. Working with an external recruiter allows you to leverage the recruiter’s well-vetted and established recruiting processes, candidate databases, technology, and techniques.
3. When You’re Looking Add Diversity to Your Team
Diversity and inclusion are critical components of a successful workforce, driving innovation and improving decision-making. External recruiters can help organizations enhance their diversity and inclusion efforts by implementing unbiased hiring practices and sourcing candidates from a wide range of backgrounds.
Cornerstone Search Group is excited to support corporate clients in their diversity hiring initiatives. At Cornerstone, we hold the belief that diverse thoughts, ideas, and leaders drive companies to perform at their highest achievable level. This belief yields positive results for our clients: over 50% of the candidates that we help our clients hire come from diverse backgrounds.
Cornerstone Search Group: Your Experienced External Recruiter
Looking for your next superstar in the biotechnology, life sciences, or pharmaceutical industry? Allow us to make the first of many game-changing introductions. Meet Cornerstone Search Group, your experienced external recruiter.
When you partner with Cornerstone Search Group, you’ll tap into a deep network of specialized and hard-to-find talent. Cornerstone’s experienced headhunters have spent decades building valuable connections within the sciences industries.
We’re excited to get to work finding the talent that will make your organization tick, and build a team that can take your firm into the future. Start a conversation with us today to learn more.
