Navigating a Competitive Job Market: BioSpace Event Recap

Happy Friday everyone. This episode is just going to be a bit of a recap of a fun webinar I got to participate in this past Tuesday in collaboration with Biospace. So I will link to the full length webinar which was a full hour. We really did a deep dive into what is happening around the state of the job market, the problems and troubles and woes that job seekers are facing right now, and I helped to give some really actionable feedback. So I really hope you enjoy this. I'm just going to high level this for you and if you'd like to go deeper, you'll want to watch the whole webinar which I will link in the show Notes I'm Karina Klingman, scientist.

Turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees so I.

Know what works and what doesn't work.

When it comes to landing a job.

And then excelling in it.

I created the Biotech Career Coach Podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job, then move up the career ladder. If you are exploring career paths, looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted, you're.

In the right place. Okay, first of all, this webinar was on the heels of a jobs report that Biospace launches, I think quarterly. You can go to Biospace and download that full report and I will link that in the show notes as well. It's really informative. There's a lot of data in there. Chantal, who is the VP of Marketing, really went over kind of the state of the industry. So long term the outlook remains really positive. With over 20,000 drugs in active development, we're still though facing challenges with funding and fewer job postings and basically the sentiment with candidates remains low. However, there is movement on what types of roles are opening up and most companies seem to be hiring a little bit and have plans perhaps to hire later this year. So I highly recommend going and grabbing that full report. It's great, great information. It talks about salaries too, which is always fun to learn about. So a lot of good stuff in that report I cannot emphasize enough. You should go get it for your own knowledge so that you are armed as a job seeker with the state of the industry and what is kind of going on and coming down the pipe. Okay, I'm going to get into what I discussed along with Greg Klaus who is the BioSpace recruiting manager. We dove into a Q and A and we had sort of gathered some questions ahead of time, and then we did a little bit of an audience Q and A as well. The questions we gathered ahead of time were some of the frequently asked questions that I get a lot in the community that Greg gets in the course of his work. So in kind of broad buckets, we talked a lot about navigating the job market and we broke down the importance of networking. Greg absolutely backed me up on how important that is. I cannot overemphasize how important networking is these days. More than half of jobs are through networking. So if you are on the job market and you see a hundred jobs posted, over 50 of those are going to go to somebody who knows somebody. That really cuts down the number of jobs that are available for you if you're not working your network. Now, what does that look like? Greg and I gave some actionable tips about how to network. One of Greg's tips was to work your network after you've applied all the way through the process, because you never know who might put in a good word for you during your interview process. And my tip was to work your network as you're applying. So I know we're basically saying just network all the time. And yes, that's exactly what we're saying. You need to network your butt off. That is really part of your job as a job seeker. So here's a practical framework for you. If you can start your networking at the peer level as you're beginning to apply for jobs. So cast your net wide. If you're applying for scientific jobs, let's say you're a senior scientist and you want to apply for senior science jobs. Start to network with folks that you would actually rub elbows with in the lab. So that would be other scientists, that would be principal scientists, research associates, kind of go up a couple levels and down a couple levels. Those are your peers. Network with those people and don't be spammy about it. I've talked about this at length, so you already know my philosophy on this. If you don't, I will point you back to some networking podcasts that we've already done. Basically, you want to come from a place of giving. So when you introduce yourself on LinkedIn, you may get a handful of free little messages you can send with your LinkedIn introduction invitations. LinkedIn is limiting those right now, so they're trying to push people into buying the paid premium subscription. That is up to you if you want to do it. If you don't you get a handful. I don't know exactly how many that seems to change regularly, but you get a handful of those little notes that you can send along with your invitation. Every month I go in depth about this in a free LinkedIn course that you can get access to. I will link that below in the show notes too. These show notes are going to be gold. I'm just going to say that right now. So definitely check them out. If you are listening to this, go to the little Show Notes tab and make sure you look at the links in there. They are worthwhile. The general framework is you want to use their name. So hi name hi Karina. And then you want to compliment them. You want to give a reason for wanting to link in and you want to finish with an open ended question and it should not be spammy. The open ended question should not be are you looking to hire? That's not the question. You want to be friendly with your question and you know something like, you know, how do you like it at Biogen? Or how do you like working in San Diego? Just something really open ended. You want them to respond and get a little back and forth going. And then after you've had a couple of exchanges, nothing long, you don't need 50 exchanges or anything, but a couple of exchanges about the company and the culture you can finish up with. Thanks so much. This was really helpful and it solidifies my excitement about X Company. Based on your recommendation I'm going to go ahead and apply for X job. That's it. You don't ask for anything. You just leave that hanging because they may then help you because many companies have referral bonuses and they may, now that they know you're interested, want to help you to get the job. So that's how I network with peers now. Once you are in the process, your messages change a little bit. As you are chatting with people you will want to say things like oh I just interviewed with so and so. It was such a great conversation. Do you know them? Just very open ended. So you're going to be trying to get those people to think oh yeah I do know them or I know somebody in their group or I know somebody in that department, something like that. So that you are getting some referrals, some back channel referrals from your network as you're going through the process. Now this only works at larger companies if it's a super small company with not very many employees. This is more challenging certainly, but is worth doing. And next time, let's say five years from now when you need another job, if you have been consistently growing your network like I teach, it will be much easier for you. Okay, so we really harped on networking. That was important. We also talked a lot about how important it is to tailor your resume. I get this question all the time. Do I really need to tailor my resume? The answer, both Greg and I agree, is yes, it is so, so important. And here's why. We are really busy. We are getting hundreds of applications per role. So if you have not tailored your resume and we are smacked in the face with a giant wall of text and it's up to us, somehow, me and Greg and any other recruiter to go through and figure out why you're the right person for the role, we're just not going to do it. We don't have time for that. There are not enough hours in the day to do that. So don't make us. It's your job to create a resume that answers the question that the job description asks. So if they are looking for a senior cell biology scientist, you should have a clear, concise headline at the top of your resume. The first thing we read that says, essentially, hey there, I am a senior cell biology scientist. Now, you won't say it exactly like that, but that is the gist of it. I have some great YouTube videos on this. If you want to learn how to craft a resume headline, then the next piece of your resume should be 5 high impact bullet points that make up your highlight section. And these should be specifically tailored for the job description. Again, you are going to introduce yourself, your value proposition with that headline statement. And then you're going to go point by point down the job description list of the five most important things that they list in that job description. And you're going to tell me, the recruiter, Greg the recruiter, exactly why you fit fit that qualification with a high impact statement. So this is not just I have experience and Greg really, really echoed me on this, but you want to highlight your accomplishments, not just list out your job duties or responsibilities. So that's what you do in those bullet points. Again, I have some YouTube videos on this. I have another podcast episode on this. I have a Biospace column on this. I really want you to internalize how important it is to tailor your resume. It makes a huge difference, I promise you that. We also talked about preparing for interviews. And so this kind of goes hand in hand with tailoring your resume. Because if you've tailored your resume, you've already started the process part of tailoring this resume. And I'm going to point you back to an episode I did a couple of weeks ago called how to tailor your resume. I talk about how to dissect a job description to find the pain points and something. I loved that Greg said. He framed this in such an eloquent way. He said that anytime you are getting a question in an interview, the question is just the question. That's the surface level thing. What they're really asking is how can you solve my problem? For every single question, if you hear it as how can you solve my problem? And you answer that question in the context of the question, you are going to hit it out of the park with your interviews. I just gave a job seeker this very feedback. They didn't make it past the hiring manager interview and asked for feedback, which they should do. And I gave them very good feedback. It was honest and it was candid feedback, which was the hiring manager told me she listed her skills and she talked about the technical aspects of her data, but she didn't really tie that to the bigger picture and the why and how can she bring that to this job, to this company? And that's what the hiring manager wanted to know. She needs somebody who can think through problems and troubleshoot and things like that. So had this candidate framed the data in that light, that would have really gone a lot better for her and played a lot better in the interview. So every time you hear a question, please know that the underlying question is how can you solve my problem? Hey, I just want to cut in to say that if you are enjoying this podcast, you may enjoy the Building Biotechs podcast from our sister company, Recruitomics Consulting, which is a talent acquisition strategy firm that specializes in helping small biotechs hire exceptional talent. In that podcast, we interview amazing people who are building biotechs. They are industry leaders in all different verticals and it will allow you to explore career paths in biotech and to get to know companies that maybe you've never heard about. So if you are a biotech fan, you are exploring careers in biotech. I highly recommend the Building Biotechs podcast. We'll link that in the show notes or you can search for it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. All right, back to our show. We answered the frequently asked question how to address gaps in employment, and both Greg and I assured you that you are more worried about those gaps than we are as companies. As recruiters, we know that the market's hard right now. We know people have gone through layoffs sometimes multiple layoffs. I know one candidate who's been laid off three times in the last 18 months. That is devastating. It is not their fault. Layoffs are not your fault. And so how do you frame that in a way that makes you comfortable? First of all, just own it. It's part of your career story. But you can frame it in a really cool way. You can talk about the impact you had at the company, the mission of that company and what you learned, and then you can say, unfortunately, there was a layoff. I'm really bummed because I didn't get a chance to finish xyz. Show that you were really committed to the vision and the mission of that company and say, you know, as a result, I'm on the market and this role appeals to me because it will let me continue learning xyz, but also learn ab. So you can take that layoff and you can say the impact, what you learned, what this new job gives you, and you can kind of tie that together as a continuous thread for your story. So own it. It's your story. There is nothing shameful about a layoff. It was a business decision. It was not your decision. So we know that candidates put a lot of weight on that, as if they personally did something wrong, but we don't see it that way. So maybe just hearing me say that will help you to be less worried about it. If that is on your mind. If you're thinking I'm lesser because of this layo off, just know this, you are not. It is not your fault. And you can use this as an opportunity to find another exciting role that's going to give you the professional development opportunities that you would like next. We also discussed following up after interviews. So a shockingly low percentage of candidates send thank you notes. This is very important. So when you send a thank you note, which you should do within 24 hours, you want to include a little personal tidbit about what you discussed. And I like to take it even a little step further. So if you had a great discussion with a hiring manager or an interviewer and you send them a thank you note, and they should be individual thank you notes. If you say something along the lines of, I really enjoyed our conversation on X, Y, Z, it made me think after the fact of. And then put something interesting in there, something that you draw from your, your old experience or maybe a paper or a resource or something like that. Be really thoughtful with these thank you notes. People often just treat this as a check the box type of thing, but I know candidates who have landed jobs specifically because of thoughtful thank you notes. If it's neck and neck or pretty close between two candidates, the candidate that came forward with the more thoughtful, the more thought provoking or the more insightful thank you note is going to get the job. So it is part of this process. You are probably not in multiple, multiple late stage interviews to the point where you can't take an hour or two after an interview and craft a set of thoughtful thank you notes for the interview team. And this can be at every step of the way. So when you have your hiring manager interview, send them a thank you note, make sure that you cite something interesting or insightful that they said and compliment them. So coming from a place of gratitude, doling out compliments and then adding to the conversation, those are the components of a fantastic thank you note. It's a little bit hard to do, but if you are interested, join the Slack community and workshop your thank you note in the Ask a Recruiter room. We love to give feedback on those and sort of help you along the way because I know they can be challenging but they are so important. All right, so that in a nutshell is what we talked about. There were a lot of other topics and we went pretty deep on some of these things. So I highly encourage you to go and watch the full webinar. It was great. It was so fun working with Chantal and Greg to put this on. The feedback we've gotten is amazing. It was one of the best attended workshops that they've had, so it was really worthwhile. And if you have an hour go and watch that on YouTube, I will drop the links to that. I will drop the links to the resume course. I will drop all the links below. So please, please check that out and if you're not in their Slack community yet, join that. I'll have a link to that too. It's free, I'm in there. I answer questions. It's a great community and you get perspectives from other job seekers and it's a chance for you to grow your network. You should be linking in with everybody in there. If you're interacting with them, you should link in with them. So with that I will see you next week and I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Bye for now. Thanks so much for listening to the.

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