Bayer

Bayer AG is a German global pharmaceuticals and life sciences company with a more than 150-year history in the areas of health care and agriculture.

Due to increased business pressure, it was looking to grow its team in the UK by recruiting a senior clinical statistician. Although the role was UK based, a key aspect of the role would be in engaging with their global team across different countries.

Bayer had difficulty in finding skills, especially for statisticians and were finding suitable candidates hard to reach, as there is only a limited pool of these individuals that exist. The recruiting process in the industry is renowned for taking as long as 12 months or more and there was increased pressure on the existing business to deliver.

The solution.

A ‘deep dive’ via a Discovery call with the hiring manager allowed us to understand what Bayer could offer to these candidates that joined to help them develop their own careers. What could Bayer offer to make people make an upward move rather than a lateral one? What does a real "day in the life" look like for statisticians working at Bayer?

A ‘case study approach was adopted focusing on how real-life people in the team had enjoyed training and development that had allowed them to move onto different career paths within the organisation and the global opportunities available. This time spent with the business in understanding the requirements and culture was time well spent in understanding the type of individual required to best fit the role. 

The first move was to map out the market of candidates in the UK, which in itself is a significant amount of work. This entailed mapping out all the candidates at an individual level, that would potentially be able to fulfil these roles for senior and principal statisticians. This was analysed by the company, job title, length of service and salary expectation.

Once those who were more likely to be open to an upward move were identified, we got to work reaching out to them through every communication channel possible. In addition, traditional headhunting techniques were employed to target ‘passive’ candidates, ie those not actively looking for a change. In this possess it is common for many individuals not to reply, which is where understanding and articulating the value Bayer can offer the candidate was key to success. 

The result

The process took 12 weeks from brief to the placement and a senior statistician was brought in who is already making a significant contribution at both a business and team level. 

The business has reported back that it is particularly pleased with the cultural fit that we had managed to match and the way the individual has fitted in with the team so swiftly and seamlessly.

The candidate’s feedback was extremely positive, with him now realising the value that an external partner could add in managing the interview and offer process and in ensuring the onboarding went smoothly to start in his new role.