Preclinical and startup companies often face tremendous hurdles in the early stages of their endeavors. Limited resources, tight budgets, and the need for specialized talent are often major roadblocks to project success. Compass, a life sciences staffing firm, encountered many of these challenges faced by its partners in recent preclinical and startup partnerships.
Overcoming Challenges, Delivering Impact
Challenge 1: Establishing a U.S. Footprint for a Chinese Biotech Company
The company: A China-based biotechnology company needed U.S. clinical trial and lab support for a four-person scientific team in the San Francisco Bay Area. The challenge? Building a team from scratch with a limited budget and navigating the competitive San Francisco talent market.
The solution: Compass provided comprehensive support, educating the company’s leaders on competitive compensation packages, streamlining interview processes, and leveraging their network to identify quality candidates. Additionally, Compass drummed up excitement around the company’s mission and promising oncology asset, attracting talent to this unique opportunity.
The result: Compass successfully placed a full-time scientist and clinical coordinator, enabling the company to establish a strong U.S. presence while staying within their financial constraints.
Challenge 2: Talent Acquisition in a Cutting-Edge Field
The company: A pre-clinical gene therapy company pioneering a proprietary CRISPR editing platform needed to find skilled researchers familiar with this emerging technology. However, their stealth mode operation made attracting talent challenging.
The solution: Compass meticulously navigated the candidate market, identifying niche scientific talent while protecting the client’s propriety research and name from the public eye. Compass also collaborated with the company to create efficient hiring processes, facilitating interviews and offers despite the company’s lack of an internal talent team.
The result: Compass successfully placed two full-time senior research associates specializing in CRISPR screening and functional genomics, bolstering the company’s scientific expertise.
Challenge 3: Scalable Staffing for Rare Disease Research
The company: A pre-clinical biotechnology company sought to expand their twelve-person rare disease research and discovery team. Finding, training, and onboarding industry professionals was simply too time consuming and difficult for the company. That’s where Compass comes in. The company needed talent sourcing support and the flexibility to adapt hiring levels based on project needs.
The solution: Recognizing the company’s unique needs, Compass offered a customized staffing solution, combining contract-to-hire and direct placements. This provided the company with the flexibility to adjust their team size while ensuring seamless integration of new members. Compass further assisted with vetting candidates, setting up interview processes, checking references, and managing offers.
The result: Compass successfully placed two lab assistants, a lab technician and a process engineer. Initially hired as consultants, these successful candidates were later converted to full-time employees and promoted, demonstrating the exceptional quality of Compass’s placements. The company continues to rely on Compass to backfill open positions.
Challenge 4: Rebuilding a Critical Department
The company: A cardiovascular medical device start-up was understaffed in their quality department due to high turnover and organizational restructuring. With crucial clinical trials looming, they needed to fill multiple direct-hire positions with specialized electromechanical medical device experience urgently.
The solution: Compass proactively engaged with the company, diligently communicating with their human resources team and hiring managers to deliver high-caliber technical candidates. Compass’s national reach allowed them to find qualified candidates regardless of location, even facilitating relocation and visa assistance to ensure the company accessed the best talent in the field.
The result: Compass successfully revitalized the company’s quality department, and they even assisted other departments with urgent openings. Compass placed a manager of quality systems, senior quality assurance specialist, quality systems specialist, quality control inspector II, electrical engineer, clinical site field manager, and customer service representative.
The Compass Advantage
Compass can successfully navigate a wide variety of unique hiring challenges and deliver exceptional talent solutions across the life sciences landscape. Their expertise, personalized approach, and unwavering commitment to their clients’ success make them a valuable asset for companies of all sizes in this dynamic industry.