Saturday, March 8, 2008

The Biotech Interview--Great Way to Find Passive Candidates

I asked William Beattie how his recruiting firm finds the best passive candidates in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industries. Bill is the owner of ECI Biotech Recruiters.

The last thing I would ever do is offer referral fees. I don't want to encourage this, or some day it could become the norm. Imagine everybody you ask for a referral coming back and saying "how much will you pay me?" If you can build rapport quickly on the phone, getting referrals is fairly easy. I'm in the biotech industry, which has large trade shows in various parts of the USA every month of the year. Each year I pick 8 to go to.

Best place in the world to meet people from the industry. At a large show, such as Pittcon, this year in New Orleans, I will walk out after 3 days with 150 business cards in my pocket and 200-300 cards handed out. And I will meet a large number of Executives and hiring managers. When they see you 2 or 3 times per year at different shows across the country, they tend to take you more seriously and return your calls.

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