Finding a niche in Biotech Recruiting

Staffing and Recruiting is a $150 billion-dollar industry in the USA that has nearly doubled since 2009. There are thousands of recruiting and staffing firms across the country that range in size from small mom and pop shops to multi-billion dollar international conglomerates. New recruiting companies are opening up on a daily basis and some older companies are shutting down or being acquired by larger companies. The top 20 recruiting companies in the USA represent under 40% marketshare which means there is a lot of room for niche agencies to succeed.

Paragon Search Group is closing in on its 15-year anniversary and is known as one of the best biotech recruiting companies in the country. Working with biotech clients ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 50, Paragon Search Group has carved out a niche as the best biotech recruiters focused on Process Development, Quality, Manufacturing, Regulatory Affairs, and EHS positions.

We owe our success to 6 key factors that distinguish ourselves from our competitors. Our business plan is pretty vanilla but we are good at what we do and we are able to adapt with the times.

  1. Networking: We continue to build our network on a daily basis. We do so not by mass resume collection but through phone and in-person conversations. We have logged thousands of air miles meeting with both clients and candidates. We believe that personalized interactions play a big part in our successes.
  2. Search Methods: We try not to take on search assignments we don’t think we can fill. It is safe to say that a lot of hiring managers want the best talent available but might not have the resources to land such talent. We right-size expectations between HR and the hiring manager and only submit candidates that meet the agreed upon requisites.
  3. Process Management: Each of our clients have different recruiting needs and HR protocol. We are as involved  in the process as you want us to be but our goal is to make sure that when the best candidate is identified for a position, we work together to land that person. We have been around long enough that we feel confident dealing with any possible curveball. We’ve literally been there and done that.
  4. Offer Presentation: Throughout the recruiting process, we develop a very special relationship with our candidates. We work hard to understand what makes them tick, what their career aspirations are and how they hope to accomplish those goals. We believe, and our internal data supports this, that we have a much better chance of having a candidate accept an offer when we are the ones that present the offer to the candidate. Our acceptance rate hovers around 95% when we control this stage in the process.
  5. Onboarding: We offer additional resources and coaching to our candidates between the time they put their notice in, to packing the moving trucks, to showing up for work on their first day. We hope to complement your onboarding process by being a helping hand during this life changing moment. We believe the support we offer in this stage of the recruiting process is what our candidates remember the most about our services.
  6. Repeat Business: We are at a stage in our lifecycle where 85% of the people we place are with repeat clients. Over 50% of the candidates we place are referrals from people in our network. Our personal connections with both clients and candidates, allow us to grow our business in a purely organic way.

Now that you know what we do to succeed, let us tell you what we don’t do:

  1. Use outsourced recruiters: Paragon Search Group uses internal biotech recruiters to fill the positions we recruit on.
  2. Participate in “Crowdsourced” Recruiting platforms: We don’t specialize in nor do we participate in any sort of “crowdsourced” recruiting portals. We also shy away from getting involved with MSP and VMS on the direct hire side. We will work with MSP and VMS for contract positions.
  3. Spam your ATS with unqualified or overly active candidates: We believe in submitting the best candidate for your position, not the first candidate, or the unqualified candidate (in hopes of getting ownership for them if they are a good fit for a different position).
  4. Treat our candidates poorly: We wouldn’t be in business today if we didn’t take care of our candidates. We focus on quality over quantity and this allows us to develop personal relationships with most of the people we interact with. We offer specialized recruiting services in a highly technical niche market. We place a tremendous amount of value on the relationships that we have cultivated over the past 14 years.

Now that you know a little more about us, we hope we can get together to learn more about you. Schedule a conversation with us today.

Paragon Search Group is an American biotech recruiting firm specializing in permanent positions in Process Development, CMC/Reg Affairs, Manufacturing, Project Management, and Quality for companies ranging in size from startup to Fortune 50.