End of Year Biotech Job Hunting Strategies for Success

All right, we have a short and sweet episode today to sort of end out the year. We have been getting a lot of questions from candidates about what even happens at this time of year. What is the best thing to be doing, how can you prep for January and what's going to happen in January? So we're going to go through all of that stuff so you are ready for your break.

One important thing to note is that everyone always talks about like, oh, it's the best time of the year. It's restful, it's great. We know that if you're a job seeker, this is also stressful because it feels like nothing's getting done, nothing's happening behind the scenes. There's no interviews. There's a lot of actionable things you can be doing during this time and there are things happening behind the scenes. So we're going to jump in, break it down and hopefully leave you feeling a little bit better that the next couple days, weeks depending on scheduled, aren't kind of all for nothing. So here we go. All right, so Karina, let's talk about the behind the scenes. Let's just set the stage. What's going on in biotechs right now in regards to kind of end of year wrap up with hiring? Are they doing it? Is everything on hold? What's going on? What are you seeing?

Yeah, so it's an interesting time of year because the end of year board meetings have typically just happened and those end of year board meetings tend to be where they approve the hiring budget for next year. So at this point in the year, hopefully all of the critical headcount has been hired for that is talent acquisition. And HR's ultimate plan is to not get to this time. We're recording.

What is this?

19 December. They don't want to be at 19 December and have not made a critical higher for the for the year. So we typically early in the fall try and get all of those remaining critical hire roles opened up. If we're doing our job correctly, we try and get those open in September at the latest. Sometimes that's a little bit hard, but that is the ideal because we know once the holidays start to hit, once we get to Thanksgiving and beyond, it's actually really difficult to even convene interview teams and all that. So that is why it's a little bit slower maybe on the candidate side right now you may not be hearing back from things. You may not see as many openings. That's kind of the rationale there is that hopefully We've filled most of the roles for the year. That said, there are always going to be roles that are open, kind of evergreen style that we're always hiring for or backfills. You will see roles open up, just not quite as many in the budget process. We are looking forward now actively with our HR teams to 2024. So that means that we are getting all of our ducks in a row for what are we opening January 1st? What do we hit in the new year hard with? And so right now my team on the back end is thinking about that with our HR teams on our client sides thinking about, okay, we know that these five hires out of your hiring plan are the most critical. We're going to get the job orders ready to go. We're going to start pre pipelining so that on January 1st we launch those roles and we're really ready to go. And so you will see a lot of roles launch that first week in.

January with that groundwork lead. If you are a job seeker, what's your plan of action? Like you said, we're on December 19th, so you've got, you've got some good wiggle room. I mean there's some time between the first. So if it was you, where would you be spending your time and effort?

If it was me, I would be networking on LinkedIn. This is a really good time to get in, make any changes to your LinkedIn. Think about how you're branding yourself, what's the image you're putting there and then using the holidays, the slower time to start to link in with some folks, send them well wishes, maybe some folks at companies that you are interested in that you are already connected to. You can send them just a quick happy holidays note, just kind of rekindle some connections and also enjoy a little bit of brain time off. It's not a bad thing for all of us to recharge. Even though I realize some of you may be very stressed right now. If you're on the job hunt, this is not the time to go out and do an application spree. It's unlikely you're going to hear back because many companies have at least partial shutdowns from Christmas to New year time period, if not full shutdown. So this isn't the time you want to go out and just blast your application everywhere. Think about refining your application right now so that in January you are ready to blast it far and wide.

You know, people sometimes can a little bit, right? And they just jump for anything. But at the same time you now have a Little bit of a grace period where, like we said, you've got some time to prep your application material and really think about your next steps.

So this can be a really good.

Time to kind of do some career planning, do some career mapping. What are you interested in? Really good time to be looking on job boards. If you see a job that you're like, oh, that'd be so cool. But I don't really know, like, how I'd structure my resume. Look at what they're saying in the job description and start seeing, you know, what skills do you have? Is it something where you could, like, take a course, take a certification, start doing some career planning if you've got the downtime, because that'll really help you strategize about your next steps and make sure that your next step isn't something that you're kind of like, ugh. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't done that because it's not really in line with my goals.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. I. I think there's a lot of panic right now, but you want to find something that's going to be meaningful to you, and it's. It's unlikely that if you go into the job search in a panic, you're going to come out with a job that is your absolute dream job. Um, that said, you know, we realize tough times are tough times and you may need to take a job, but it is not a bad thing to start to think. Use this next, what, 10 days or so just to do some soul searching. A really interesting podcast that we recently recorded and launched with our other podcast. So if you don't, if you're not aware of that, it's called Building Biotechs. We spoke with a woman named Lynn Walder, and she is really. Her. Everything she says is just fascinating. She has such a great way with words and her turns of phrases are amazing. What I will say is that she had really good advice, which is to take stock of what you hated doing at various stages in your journey, whether it was, you know, early, early stage, maybe it was even back to high school. You're like, well, I hated that class. Like, I hated that experience. That is not something I want to do with my life. And start to collate the things you really didn't like doing. That may give you more clarity, especially early stage career, than thinking about what you do want to do. Because you can steer away from the things where like, well, that's a hard no. But I am somewhat interested in all these other areas and that might just help you narrow down the field.

Another thing that I think is a really good use of time, I myself will be doing this. I like to sit down and really make a list of all the networking events that are coming up in the next quarter or so. Sometimes, you know, things pop up at the last minute, so you gotta be flexible. But any major conferences, anything that's a huge event that's already out, like, they're already actively pushing that. So it's hard to stay on top of that stuff. Right? We all get inundated with emails and news and this and that. But I find that if I sit down and I kind of make a list about like, okay, these are my top five that I really want to get to. These are worthwhile. Then they're on the calendar. And it's not something where like two days out I'm like, oh, I completely forgot. And like, how am I going to work my schedule? So I think looking ahead to the networking and for me personally, because I'm an extrovert and I like that, it also energizes me for the new year. Like, I'm kind of like having those.

Things to look forward to. So I don't know if you're like me and you're sort of like, I.

Want to get out there a little bit. Go, go in with a networking plan and be like, yeah, in January I'm going to these two things. I'm doing this.

I wonder too, if we can put some of that into the community. Maybe we can build out our network and we already have a sort of running list of networking events. But looking further into 2024, what are you attending? What are we thinking might be really good for the job seekers in our community. If you're not a member yet of that Slack community, it is totally free and it is really worthwhile because we do like to talk about networking events that are happening, whether they're last minute or we can put them on a sheet so that you can plan for them. And if you find a networking event, you can also help us by adding to our list of networking events so that everyone else can benefit. The last thing I want to think about in what you could be doing right now, you're probably going to have some friends and family. Maybe they come and stay with you, maybe you go stay with them. This is a time when you typically are seeing folks maybe you don't see on a regular basis. That is a golden opportunity to rope people into helping you with your interview skills. So I Cannot stress this enough when you are going in for an interview. If you have only practiced, let's say, your elevator pitch in your head, when you open up your mouth often, it's going to come out totally garbled. It is so important to say it out loud, say it often, say it to different audiences. And your friends and family who maybe are not scientists are a great place to practice because you're going to have to communicate your value proposition to non scientists during the process. So think about it, write it down, map out your value proposition into an elevator pitch and then practice it on grandma. Because that is really going to be a great test of are you able to communicate your value proposition to a non scientist? Because you're going to need to do that whether they're recruiters, hr, other folks in the biotechs, or as you move into, as you move through your career and you're asked to talk about what your company does, you're going to have to break that down for the general public. Who are the consumers, the future patients.

And ultimately, I do think, you know, we're circling back to one of the things you brought up at the beginning.

Give yourself a break, binge some Netflix.

Like, do whatever you need to do. If you're watching this, then you're already thinking jobs all the time. And you're already, you know, either thinking of a job change on the market, it's okay to take some time and decompress. And if you're able to, like, get outside, enjoy the downtime, do whatever you can that makes you feel good. Because, Karina, you're 100% right. Come January, everything starts up again and it's going to be busy.

Oh yeah, the gloves are off in January. Well, that is all this was just a short, sweet episode. We just wanted to put on your radar what we're thinking, what we're hearing. We hear these questions about the behind the scenes. I know it seems mysterious what even companies are doing and thinking right now. Companies are really busy trying to shut down right now. So right now we've got a couple of offers out to candidates for different client companies with the aim of getting everything wrapped up by like 3 Thursday night at 5pm EST, because that's when people want to be off. So just know that you're probably not hearing back right now and it's not your fault. So take the time.

And also, thank you so much for being a part of the community. This is a new venture for us. We love doing it. We love building the collaboratory. We're excited to see where it goes in 2024, and we're really glad you're.

Here and appreciate all your support.

Yeah.

And if you know somebody on the job market who's struggling, share this podcast with them. Share these resources with them, because that comes back to you in the future. I promise. We all want to help each other out.

All right. Happy holidays.

Happy holidays.