Talent acquisition is critical for every organization but for an early growth company, it can make or break them. To achieve business goals and continue development of their team, this life sciences company could not settle for anything less than top candidates. While it is an arduous task to hire just one position in today’s environment, hiring for multiple positions requires an expert business partner like DoubleStar.

Client Challenge

DoubleStar was contacted in early 2022 by a life sciences company developing a cutting edge, first-to-market therapy. The company did not have a formal talent acquisition function and given its small staff, most were working in labs daily. This left little time to find and assess potential hires. They needed a partner to research, source, engage, and screen prospective candidates with the end goal of delivering a qualified and interested pool of individuals to the hiring managers. Given that this company’s product is like no other currently in market, it required very specific science-based talent. Although our recruiters have extensive life sciences experience, the advanced nature of the client’s needs required them to quickly educate themselves on very technical profiles to be able to identify the right candidates.

Our Solution

Throughout the discovery process, we learned that the client had previously utilized recruitment firms that were unable to consistently meet their hiring needs. Our team of experts identified the hardships this client had faced and educated them about how DoubleStar’s approach would deliver on their needs, and how, together, their goals could be achieved. DoubleStar staffed the project with a team of researchers, recruiters, and a project leader. This team immediately faced headwinds as they began the candidate search. The positions:

• Required very niche scientific backgrounds.
• Entailed working on site (on the heels of the pandemic).
• Had little exposure. Positions had previously been posted only on the company’s website where there was low awareness of the roles and the organization.
• Had skill requirements that changed frequently to meet the demands of a young company where business needs were evolving.

To overcome these challenges, the team focused on a heavy research campaign to penetrate the limited talent pool. We knew it would take time to identify and engage the right candidates, so as we do with every project, we emphasized transparent communication with our client and provided education on delivering a quality candidate experience. As the client began to see results from our efforts, we were able to gain their trust in our methods; and they felt confident we would deliver the right talent. Through this approach, the initial positions were filled and DoubleStar was tasked with hiring for more roles.

Business Impacts

Over the course of the project, the team had many successful hires. This has been viewed as a tremendous accomplishment by both DoubleStar and the client, especially given the very specific nature of these positions. Our team’s commitment to delivering only the highest quality of candidates led to them sourcing thousands of individuals for these roles. In addition to providing the client with valuable knowledge, which they can use for future recruitment efforts, our service-based pricing method yielded significant cost savings. Our service-based cost structure continually delivers 40%-60% savings compared to firms with traditional transaction-based pricing methods. In this specific example, we were able to deliver savings of 50%.