This is the second of two blogs focussing on some of the basics of interviewing - this one is aimed at employers on the search for their next star hire.

Creating a positive, inclusive and effective interview is a lesson in balance.

Any employer who’s ever hosted an interview understands this and tries to work with the unique dynamics of an interview to the benefit of both the candidate and the employer.

But the modern hiring market is far from balanced. Within the wider Pharma and Healthcare market, candidates are in short supply employers are clamouring for the same talent from small talent pools, and despite the best efforts of specialists across the HR landscape, the industry remains firmly in candidate-led territory.

A lot of companies are compromising on long-held rules to get talent in the door. Traditional salary bandings are being crushed under the weight of recruitment necessity; counter-offers and counter-counter-offers are completely normalised; candidates for maybe the only time in history truly know their worth, and want to maximise return on placement in a new job.

The power is, seemingly, all in the hands of the candidate. However, the interview is a place for equal power dynamics, and good interviewers use this to their advantage - not by leveraging their brand, power, pay or reward, but by engaging the candidate on what they really want from a job.

When company purpose and company mission are more important than ever to an employee, it's theoretically easier than ever to host a successful interview.

Here’s how!

Do.

Prioritise achievements.

• In specialist industries like MedTech or life science QC it’s not enough to find a candidate with the right skills - you need to know whether a candidate can apply those skills to the immediate benefit of your firm, customer base and business network.
• So, make sure you build an interview strategy around getting the most information possible from a candidate on what they've achieved in the scope of their employment, and how they can apply those material achievements to your enterprise. Try not to focus too much on skills (good candidates will have a lot of them!) but try and find out how they use those skills in work, and which skills are most appropriate for your company.

Offer, and contextualise, flexible work where appropriate.

• Remote work is one of, if not the, most important work “perk” that, post-COVID, has become a make-or-break deal for many candidates.
• While we understand not every job in the medical, technical or wider life sciences field can be remote, this is where contextualising the role comes into play. You need to be able to communicate how, and why, certain roles are based where they are, and how your expectations of employee workflows have changed as a result.
• This provides clarity of role for your potential staffing base and sets the right expectation for the candidate.

Personalise, and contextualise a relevant benefits package.

• As a continuation of the point on contextualised remote work, full remuneration packages need to be relevant and personalised to every candidate where possible.
• Long gone are the days of centralised work perks focused on office-based benefits. Consider the context of work and where work is.
• Would your teams benefit more from perks such as localised childcare benefits to help staff handle the rising cost of childcare or a free gym membership in a location they commute to only twice a week?

Meet the Great Resignation head-on.

• Don’t hide behind the great resignation as the cause of your hiring struggles, or your inability to retain staff. The best employers in the medical faculty have pivoted to meet the effects of the great resignation head-on. Those same employers realise that an interview represents the perfect time to communicate and contextualise everything - the entire brand, recruitment and workforce journey - with candour.
• Your candidates will appreciate an employer who is honest about their purpose in a disrupted working world, and who is clear about their solutions to it.

Don’t.

Forget the basics or the power of empathy.

• Be polite. Be timely. Be welcoming. The basics of hosting a good interview still matter and in our post-pandemic new normal, showing empathy for a candidate's position and journey is vital if you want to secure the trust and respect of the talent in front of you.

Take too long to communicate.

• The most common complaint of employers who fail to hire or lose advocacy from their candidate network is that their recruitment process takes far too long. Don’t wait a month to decide on a candidate. Don’t even wait a week. Pull the trigger within at least 2 to 3 days.

Hold multi-stage interviews beyond two or three stages.

• On the topic of interview time scales, if you are set on putting a candidate through a multi-stage interview, make it very obvious from the first step of your candidate journey (the job advert!) how many stages there are, and reduce the time between each stage.
• Good candidates will not wait for good employment - they are in too much demand and will get a better offer from someone else.

Ignore feedback.

• Lastly, seeking feedback from your candidate is vital in improving your overall interview technique and strategy. This is especially important if you’re consistently bringing candidates to interview and not hiring.

The bottom line.

The candidate journey from referral or job advert should be fast, done with candour, and with empathy.

The companies that forget the basics of good interviewing - timekeeping, good preparation, working quickly to snare the best of the best - will always suffer from poor hiring numbers and, over the long term, poor retention of staff.