[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Amy Adler's how I hire.
Hello my friends and welcome to another podcast episode for how I hire. My name is Amy Adler. You know me at five strengths, career transition experts, and I launched this podcast, as you all know, because I really want to know how people do in the hiring, do the things they do. And today I have the incredible honor of hosting Lauren Solano. She is a recruiter with propel careers in Boston and works in the biosciences life sciences area. And I cannot wait to hear her story and to learn from her and to get the inside scoop us as to how this sector finds talent, recruits talent, places talent and grows talent. So thank you, Lauren. Welcome. I'm so so glad you are here.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Thank you Amy. I'm excited to be here too. I really appreciate the opportunity to spend time with you and provide useful insights to the listeners.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: I'm going to be your willing student. That's always my plan is to hear what people have to say, the people who are in it, in the thick of it every single day. And I think our listeners are doing the same because they're struggling, as I think we all are, especially in this economy, to figure out what hiring teams are looking for and what recruiters seek and how can they position themselves to get the most exposure in the best possible way for the things they are desperate to have insight into and to apply for and hopefully get chosen for.
So I had the pleasure of reviewing some of your history from your website, from your LinkedIn profile, as I'm sure our listeners will be doing too.
And the thing that struck me is, of course I know you as a recruiter. But the thing that struck me is that you walked the walk, having done a stem degree in school and gone on to do the same thing in business school.
We can have the BC versus bu fight if you want. I'm totally down for that.
But apart from, I think it only counts in hockey and football, I'm not sure.
But as far as that goes, that you went from being in that world to growing through HR roles and launching your own recruitment firm for exactly that space.
So I would love to know a little bit about how you got where you are.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Sure.
And hopefully, as I share my story, hopefully it resonates with people in terms of if they're thinking about making changes, kind of a few ways to think about that. So I guess back in 2007, which now it feels like forever ago, but I was, I was working in preclinical research. I was helping to support different types of activities to help organizations get their drugs from efficacy into the clinic. I learned a ton about drug discovery, early clinical development activities, and I decided to go back for my business degree because I figured that would be helpful knowledge to understand more about business and finance and marketing and all of these things that I really didn't have much of a handle on because most of my training had been more technical in nature.
So it was in the course of the MBA program that I started to learn about different cultures of organizations. I started to get involved in some entrepreneurship classes and I actually realized that I enjoyed building things, but I also enjoyed thinking a lot about organizational culture, how different types of organizations can set people up for success or not success, depending upon how they think about these things and how thoughtful they are. So it got me thinking a lot about what I was doing and what I wanted to do next. And so when I initially thought about making a change, I was not planning to start a recruiting and coaching company. My plan was more to be involved in business development roles and small biotechs using some of my background or maybe program management roles. That's what I kind of thought might be a fit. But I started to make a list of what was important to me. I love helping people. I love being a part of life sciences. I feel really privileged to have a role where I get to impact the technology development that ultimately helps save lives or at least gives better quality of life. I've always loved meeting people and networking. Even if I think back to kindergarten, I was kind of the connector of people. So anyway, I had a list of kind of what I wanted. So I started to cast a wide net. I talked with a lot of people in different entrepreneurial settings, biotech settings, CEO's, venture capitalists, and I ended up meeting my co founder.
Initially I thought maybe it was to work in one of his portfolio companies. At the time he was a venture capitalist in Boston. But in our second discussion, first in person discussion, he was like, well, why don't we start a company to help all of these great talents like these postdocs and PhDs and early career folks find opportunities? And why don't we be able to also help the entrepreneurial ecosystem through these endeavors? And I thought, well wait a second, that's not what I was thinking.
Like doing this actually allowed me to help people, it allowed me to network, it allowed me to be a part of the life sciences ecosystem in a different way and contributing my knowledge. And so I thought, well, let's try it, right? This was back in 2009. Let's try it and see what happens. And here we are now, 2024. It's been about 15 years and I really enjoy what I do. I get to change people's lives. I get to empower them to be more confident in their career choices. I get to actively recruit with really exciting, innovative life sciences companies. So it's kind of this nice match. I feel like sometimes people are too, too fixated on certain titles or certain types of roles that they don't give themselves the opportunity to be able to think more openly about different roles.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Well, thank you. What a story.
I don't know. I think resume writers are maybe recruiters too. No one says when they're seven years old and someone says, what do you want to be when you grow up? That doesn't usually fit into the conception of a typical kid trying to figure out how they're going to spend the rest of their lives or so I appreciate the transformation that you undertook and the fact that you recognized what was important to you and that quite clearly you can share that impact with other people and help them feel as fulfilled as I think. Sounds like you are choosing things you like to do and doing the kinds of work that you enjoy.
And I do want to mention or reiterate that your business definitely has two, at least two arms, the recruiting side and the coaching side. So helping people with their career strategy, their resumes, their approaches to interviewing, and I'm going to make some guesses and how to function in a corporate environment versus an academic environment. And we talked about that, I think last time we spoke.
And I know that you also have your own podcast doing exactly this. So the idea that you're coming at this from multiple angles can only be to the benefit of your stakeholders and perhaps something they don't see enough of. I mean, maybe no industry does, but at least in my limited experience, academics tend to be academics.
And that's a different kind of a world from the corporate profit centered or investor pleasing centered views that I think for profit enterprises have to be, have to be taking. So I'm to hear more about that. So you're, I'm sorry today.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Well, I was just going to say, to add on to your comment, I feel like a lot of people just don't always know what's out there for them because, you know, like you and I now have interacted with probably thousands of people in terms. And so we've got a whole cross section of different things. We've seen different career paths, different progressions and so forth. But many people don't have the luxury that you and I have. And so they see certain career paths, but they don't always have the full view of what's out there. So it feels nice for me to be like a catalyst in a sense, to get people thinking about opportunities, aware of things maybe they haven't considered, and, you know, maybe they end up choosing what they initially thought. But at least if people are more informed, then they have more of an informed decision than just kind of taking something, because it's the only thing they might know of.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: I have heard more than once people say, my clients say, well, I've always done this, I know what the next thing is. I can't imagine doing it some other way. And literally my eyes are not open to any other pathway. Not because they don't want to see something else, but they've been so insular in their companies, could be same company for a long time or same career path, that other things just literally do not occur to them.
So yeah, we are pretty lucky that we get to see a whole bunch of stuff, but maybe many people who are just doing the daily thing don't get to have that access. So again, I'm sure your advice goes tremendously far with people who are looking for ways to think differently about anything or maybe vet the fact that they've chosen something and maybe it is the right thing. So the next step makes some sense, but at least they have something to compare it to, right?
So. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about your recruiting process, if I may. I'm not asking you to share things that you don't want to share or shouldn't, but broadly speaking, what are your favorite roles to recruit for?
[00:10:27] Speaker B: That's a good question. I mean, I have a lot of expertise in recruiting for roles that recent PhDs and recent postdocs get hired into. So scientists, senior scientist, medical writing, medical science liaison, medical affairs roles, venture capital roles. Like, I've placed a few people as like associates in venture capital firms, a few investment banks that hire PhDs and postdocs consulting opportunities, some of the boutique consulting firms. I mean, I've seen a lot. So it's been really. It's exciting, actually. The diversity of different roles and so forth has made it very interesting. But I've also placed people that are more senior. But it's like I have a personal sweet spot for like the rising stars, the emerging leader types that the future CEO's and CSO's. It's nice to help them get into the industry and help them get just confident in terms of their career. So I would say majority is probably more like scientific focused roles. And I know we're going to talk a little bit about, like, what skills people look for. I can dive a little bit deeper in a few minutes on that. But it's been helpful, I think, both coaching and recruiting, because I see both sides of people looking and organizations trying to find talent, and it's just been very helpful to be able to give advice to both sides to be able to make matches more effective.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
The question that comes to mind then, as you're making these matches, you know, doing the matchmaking, so to speak, is are you moving postdocs and PhDs away from academia, or are you helping them discover kind of what they already know about themselves?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say more the latter, like helping them discover what they know. I mean, the challenge, and there's been lots of articles written about this. There are not enough faculty roles for the people that want to be faculty. So, you know, I know we all talk about alternative career paths, being industry as an example, but I don't know, maybe it's 0.5% of postdocs end up becoming tenured professors at places like Stanford. I mean, you know, so sometimes the alternative actually is staying in the academic world, but that's a whole nother side note. But for a lot of people, it's. It's realizing that, yeah, their skills that they've developed through their PhD in postdoc can be applicable to clinical, regulatory, medical, writing, R and D roles, innovation opportunities, consulting, because sometimes people just never even considered this. And one other thing I like to point out too, is, and I'm sure you interact with these folks also, is that people coming from different countries sometimes have a different view on career opportunities, because at least in the US educational system, you have more opportunities for liberal arts educations. Mostly there's more exposure to different things in certain countries when you're, let's say, ten, I'm just making up an age, but, you know, if you're good at math, you're like, put in the science math track and that's what you do. And the thought of doing a PhD and then going into consulting is like so foreign because you've been trained at an early age that you do science and then you do professorship and then you get tenure and so on and so forth. So I also want to acknowledge a lot of what I do is help people from different backgrounds kind of realize opportunities that are out there, because sometimes they have even more limited views than people within the US.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: That's interesting. So you're managing sort of the conversation within themselves that they're not locked in to whatever they were, maybe acculturated or brought up to believe. I mean, I think that's probably true about people born in the US, too, that, you know, when you're a little kid and, you know, your mom and dad or grandma or says, oh, you did such a good job on that math test, maybe you're like, oh, maybe I'm a math kid. And then that's a whole other conversation for sure.
But the notion that somebody might think that their whole educational process up through graduate school might have locked them in, and it doesn't necessarily is kind of cool, the freedom that they now have to think more flexibly.
But I imagine there's also, I mean, in your coaching that I wonder if people also feel like they're letting a part of themselves go. Like, that's like a redefinition. I mean, it's a always hard for someone to say, like, oh, I thought I was this person, but now I'm, you know, and maybe the job is still going to be amazing and they're going to be fabulous at it and they're going to have this great career, but then they're like, oh, I thought I was defining myself this way.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
Oh, 100%. No, it totally is, because so much of people's identity is their educational background or the place they work. And it's important, I think, for all of us to get a little bit outside of that mindset. You're so much more than just your degree or your place of employment. So I like to, I like to get people thinking about, it's like chapters of their life, right? So the chapter of your PhD life, and now it's the chapter of your industry career. And you may have a few different chapters in your life depending upon what you do. And, and so it's not seen as like, you're leaving everything behind, but it's more that you kind of get to build upon what you've done and have perhaps an exciting next phase, however long that phase might be of your life, to think about applying different skills. But sometimes it does take people a little bit more time to kind of work through that, to get comfortable, you know, like, I think of a chemist I know who now works for, like, a healthcare it company because they're really good at seeing patterns and information. And sometimes you think, wait a second, a medicinal chemist is now working for a healthcare it company doing data modeling, and that sort of thing. But sure, like, some of these people have these transferable skills that you can totally apply to problems that aren't just synthesizing new molecules, that are small molecules. So it's just interesting. So I guess that's where you and I come in, where we can try to help people just think a little bit more about some of those possibilities. And then how do you highlight your experiences so people then see you? But it's just, it's so interesting because I talk with my friends in the recruiting space, and people definitely have certain opinions of, like, wow, I love hiring this type of background, and it's something you might not even think about, but it's because they have all these transferable skills that are very applicable to different career areas.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Okay, now you've definitely piqued my interest in the realm of transferable skills. So, as I'm sure you are, I have been following literally any recruiter I can find on LinkedIn who's posting regularly because the arena is always so vibrant. Let's say. If there's one question, there's 20 opinions, many of which center on the value of transferable skills.
And of course, so I guess the latest that I heard is that if it's a highly regulated industry, and maybe pharma or medical devices or drug development would be that under that category, and they have these minimum qualifications, and then they have to hire above that, or at least at that, or they've broken a process of some type. And you're saying, let's look beyond the, the superficial.
So I'm going to leave that there because this is a hot button, I think, on every front, but I'm curious to know what you might think. Well, I can, but I'm curious.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Totally. Well, so, okay, certainly there are certain roles within, like, life sciences that are very heavy regulated and so forth. A lot of the roles I work on are more drug discovery focused, more innovative focus. So sometimes organizations have a little more flexibility in terms of, like, who they're looking to hire and what that looks like.
And also, a lot of the organizations I work with because they're smaller, like startup organizations, a lot of the talent sets they're looking for are people that are currently in, like, postdocs or PhDs because they have the latest cutting edge knowledge of lipid nanoparticles or some sort of, like, gene editing technology or things like that. Certainly companies also need people that have experience and know how to do drug discovery in an industry setting to move things along. So it's kind of a mixture of areas.
But, you know, when we think about those, I guess, transferable skills. So I think about, I guess, a few things that are really important. You know, one is the collaboration piece, like being able to work successfully with people of different backgrounds, being able to communicate effectively to people. It's why sometimes organizations have people give presentations in the interview process. I mean, they care about what you're talking about, but that's not usually the main thing per se. It's usually more about, how do you communicate? Can you make your information approachable if you're a bioinformaticist to the person in the audience who's in clinical, you know, do they feel like they understand what you said? Because that gives them an insight of, could you be a good team member in the cross functional discussions that happen weekly and, you know, so on and so forth? And so it's interesting to kind of not just say you have communication skills, for example, but then be able to actually demonstrate it in the discussions, in the presentation, in the interactions with people as they go through the process. And so I've been finding more and more companies trying to find ways to really dive into are people collaborative? Are they communicative, are they leadership oriented? So they can have demonstration, which helps them in hiring decisions to be able to decide who to move forward with or not.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: So how are you coaching then? Your rising stars, who I guess eventually, I imagine you would want to place them somewhere if you can, but these people who are growing through their academic credentials, and maybe this is or is not a long suit for them.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: So one is helping them to have tangible examples to demonstrate these collaboration communication, because some people think, well, Lauren, everyone's collaborative. Why do I have to actually say that? I worked at a team with a bioinformatics chemist and pharmacologist to do this drug discovery specific area. It's like, well, because not everyone does that. And so part of it is helping people realize what experiences and skills they have that might be unique and not just to take for granted that you actually have those. The other thing I try to do a lot is give people perspective. So when it comes to interview coaching, in particular, trying to give people perspective as to why are they asking certain questions, because then that helps people think about the stories they may want to share, to be able to actually address whatever the things are that people are looking for. But I find sometimes talent doesn't always understand, like, why, what someone's looking for. So I can kind of provide that insight. Having been on the inside, doing recruiting, setting up interviews, being a part of debrief meetings and kind of seeing everything through that perspective is actually quite, quite useful.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: And it's honestly, it's a kindness for you to say, here, let me show you. Here's an example. Here's how we think about these things to you, the student or the postdoc, who maybe had never had to think about those things. I mean, you think that they'd be show up somewhere, but maybe they're so kind of in their own heads or in their own spaces, in their labs, it never occurred to them to say it. You know, that's the sort of prototypical show don't tell for resume writing anyway, but probably for everything.
Tell us about a time when, I mean, that's the classic behavioral interview question.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Totally. Well, something happened recently that I was actually kind of shocked by, but now I mention it when I give my interview talks and such to different audiences. We had one person interview. He was a graduate student, molecular biology background, and interviewed with a role for a preclinical research, molecular biology focused role in about a hundred person company. And so, of course, as part of interview teams, you have people meet with the actual team they're going to interview with, but you also have them meet with other groups who they're going to work with. And so this person did excellent with the molecular biology group. He had a super strong background, but for some reason, he just dismissed the other people that are part of the interview team. He just didn't. He was like, why am I meeting with the project manager person? Why am I meeting with the drug delivery person? And anyway, it kind of floored me, but because he was thinking, well, I ace the molecular biology, they're totally going to hire me. And anyway, turns out we didn't hire the person because the other folks were wondering, like, how am I going to interact with this individual? So sometimes you have these kind of unique situations that come up that even for me helps ground me to realize, like, not everyone really has perspectives in terms of how these things work.
I even see this sometimes in people that are a little more seasoned, depending upon where they've come from and where they've been. So it's just nice. It's one reason why I started the podcast at Propelling Careers podcast is to try to give some of this advice and insights in a more scalable way, so that way people can learn some of the inside, I guess. Scoop, when it comes to hiring and finding opportunities.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt. I think people generally are hungry for what they might think is a magic bullet. It's definitely not. But the information from the source, from the person who's doing this, like, hey, everybody, I'm not hiding this from you all. I'm telling you, these are the things we are looking for, and this is the way we are thinking.
And to give that straight up, is gold.
So, you know, you mentioned a second ago about, like, keywords or skills or whatever. It was like, people say to me all the time, what are the skills that I have to have in my resume? As if there's some magic list for all comers, and of course there's not.
But everybody comes with their own sort of magic and their own secret sauce that makes them who they are. And you're saying, I think.
Tell me if I'm interpreting right, that if you have your secret sauce, here's how to make sure someone understands it. Someone else can enjoy the benefit of your expertise and feel like they're part of the discussion and feel that you're honoring them by speaking to them where they need to be spoken to and how they need to be spoken or at all. Apparently, in the case of that situation, 100%.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. I was talking with someone recently who's more at the, like, vice president level, and it was interesting because I looked at his resume, actually, and it was very.
It wasn't enough of the strategy, the team leadership, the more, I guess, like, higher level, strategic types of activities that you would expect from a vice president. It was very deep in the weeds. Super. More like individual contributor type of focus. And so it's interesting because it's like, people want to make sure. You want to make sure you're communicating to your point, like, the secret sauce that you bring, and you want to make sure it's tailored to the level of role, to the type of role, to what the organization cares about. It's not just like, check the boxes and put something out. It takes a lot of thought to be able to help people realize these things.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: And I think people are so accustomed to growing up in the, I don't know, let's not call it a box checking environment again. It's not that. But, like, academics is. How well did you score on the exam? Did you write the paper? So it got published. Did you, like is yes or no? Did you succeed or did you not succeed? And I'm intrigued by the fact that this person was at the VP level because.
Or were they seeking to be at the VP level? They were already there. But because I think that director to VP jump is so hard. It's so hard to get past that sort of granular on the ground, doing everything myself kind of thinking to leading and being expansive and guiding the whole program.
It's interesting. I appreciate that you corroborated what I somehow guessed at or thought about all these years, and I've asked other people what they think. I think it's, I'm not, I didn't invent the concept. I certainly am not that smart. But to hear it from a recruiter, too, is invalidating and I think, useful for people out there listening. Where are you pitching yourself? Know your audience, understand their expectations, speak with their voice. It's the same kind of thing. And doesn't take away from who a person is and what they bring to the table and why they're good at what they do.
And I think, honestly, I think senior leaders have sometimes have trouble remembering what it's like to be the individual contributor as well. I think it goes both ways, because they're thinking, how come you don't understand my systems level approach? And, you know, the poor guy is like, but I do this one thing all day, every day. Like, I'm just doing the thing anyway. It's probably beyond the scope of what we're talking about here, but interesting nevertheless. So, okay, so your approach to, let's say, finding people and making good matches, are you using LinkedIn? Are you using LinkedIn recruiter? I'm sure you have a network, you know, 50 miles wide and 400 miles deep.
But what, what's your first, your first look when you engaged with an organization to find an amazing person who might be super rare talent?
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Totally, yeah. So LinkedIn for sure. LinkedIn recruiter for sure.
Referrals, definitely. I it's always nice if you have something in common with the person that you're potentially trying to recruit. So it's like, those are extremely helpful to be able to engage with. For myself, I am very picky. So, like, using LinkedIn recruiter, for example, I will be very methodical, searching for certain types of experiences, skill sets. I will look to make sure the person's at the right level, that I'll read their LinkedIn profiles to make sure that this type of role that I may be reaching out to them on is something they've indicated is of interest. Sometimes you can read certain profiles and you may realize, like, actually they have the skills, but, like, it looks like they want to do something else. I try to be really respectful of people's time, so I definitely don't just do a search and then kind of span everyone that comes up and this is whether I'm looking at the like a recent PhD postdoc higher at the sciences level or I'm looking for a VP level person. I'll take care in both of those cases to make sure that I'm not just reaching out to people that are not relevant but happen to hit the keywords and things like that that come up. I mean, I also leverage applicant tracking systems. I mean, for the roles that I work on, I tend to look at almost every resume that comes in. Sometimes it can be super painful to have to go through, you know, 1700 resumes for a program management job. But I want to make sure that I don't miss people because I know how hard it is for people to write resumes and not everyone writes them well. So I want to make sure that AI tools or other things aren't inadvertently missing people. So I'm a little bit more, I guess, hands on from that perspective. But it's, I think, paid off pretty well in terms of finding people, being super thoughtful to be able to find the right match, because that to me that's important. I'm not interested in just placing someone. I want to place the right person with the right organization. So that way it's a win win for both parties.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Okay, I'm going to narrow in on exactly. There's a whole host of amazing things you just said, but you said two things that are interesting to me. One is 1700 resumes. Is that an exaggeration? It's okay if it is. Or is that like a little.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: No, that actually occurred. It was, it was painful, but yes, recently, about two months ago, I had a role I was working on for a program manager for a biotech company. And it might have been like 1785 or something. It was an awful lot of resumes. So yeah, we ended up hiring someone. They're fantastic. But it took a lot of reviewing and a lot of evaluation to get to that point.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm going to say this loud for the people in the back.
Lauren, read every resume. I don't know how long you spent on every resume. You put a hand or an eye on every one of those 1700 and something resumes.
That plus the other thing that I want to ask about is AI tools in recruiting because this is the biggest. I mean, we could talk about skills and LinkedIn profiles and whatever all day long. AI and recruiting for, especially when there's this absolute massive amount of inquiries or applications.
I'm glad. I think AI is cool. I think tat, GPT does a lot of really cool things lately. My big use of it is to do the math I don't want to do, as in I know how I don't have the time, not for writing, that's another story.
But to have AI make decisions that humans should make seems like a very scary proposition on literally every front, especially in recruiting. I'll stop there and I can see you nodding vigorously.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, I know at some, at some point there's such volume for certain organizations. They have to find, they have to find ways to filter it down. Otherwise it is just unmanageable. If you just do the numbers of how much time it takes to look at resumes, even if it's 5 seconds a piece, you know, at some point it's not possible.
But yeah, I mean, a lot of times they're looking for certain keywords.
But the thing that I just struggle with a little bit in this context is a lot of, it's the nuance that AI might not be able to pick up. So I was talking with someone earlier today that has a lot of leadership in their respective areas. When they were a PhD in postdoc, they were heavily involved in their postdoc association. They were involved in some diversity initiatives. They co founded an organization on campus to be able to help others solve a certain challenge that was encountered when they ended up joining their industry career. They continued to be involved and they were involved in the local chapter of their professional association. They've also done a lot of mentoring to women in science. And I feel like it's sometimes these other things that you see in the resumes that demonstrate like, wow, this person could be amazing to work with. They have leadership, they help people, they give back, they're going to be a good team member. And I just feel like some of the straight AI tools might not pick up on some of those things. And so that, so that's why I'm a little bit partial to kind of looking at at least most of the resumes because I want to be able to get a better picture of someone, to be able to see things that might stand out.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: I cannot appreciate that more. I couldn't love your response more. I recently had a discussion with somebody who said, I'm not getting interviews because AI is just kicking my resume out and I'm being subject to some kind of thing. And so of course we went through things like knockout questions. You know, do you live in Chicago or do you live in Arizona? Or, you know, there's all kinds of tax regulations and stuff, or do you have five years of this or ten years of that, and those are easy. But that's not AI. That's a yes or no question.
But they were insistent that they were somehow being excluded based on. I don't know, I couldn't tell you what. And I said, well, let's. Let's imagine this for a second. A recruiter has x number of resumes on their desk, and they arbitrarily decide to not look at half of them. How are they going to, you know, how are they going to earn their keep if they keep doing that? And that's, you know, how are they going to own that? It seems like a risky thing to do if they care about their client and they care about making the match. Thank you.
I know this is audio, but I can see you again, nodding and smiling, and I'm very grateful for that. And I was just trying to say in a sort of hypothetical way, recruiters care about getting this right and they want to find you if you are the right person. So let's help get you found. Which, of course, changed the whole tenor of the conversation. But people come in with a lot of misconceptions. I think resume writers, too. We're all trying to figure it out. I'm trying to sort of figure out what tools, what applicant tracking software systems are going to be using. AI. There's some that are, you know, have AI in their name, so that kind of gives it away. But who knows what's happening on the backend anyway. But it seems like the people that I follow, like I said, I do a lot of that on LinkedIn. It seems like they're saying the same things you are, which is how am I going to know unless I read and 5 seconds, as you say, or it might be long enough for me to figure out that this person has the thing I'm looking for, the magic components or, you know, the right recipe of stuff.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, skilled recruiters can, can look at it. I mean, I could look at probably almost any resume within ten to 15 seconds and have a quick view of like, yes or no. I mean, a few times I have to look more, but sometimes you can really get a quick view, shockingly. But, you know, if you do it every day and if you look at thousands of resumes a week, you suddenly get, like, really good at focusing on key things that you're looking for and such. So, yeah, I mean, I know for you probably when you're interacting with your clients, it's like trying to help them make sure that they highlight those key things they want to indicate so it stands out. You don't want to bury some, like, really important thing at the bottom of the resume. But sometimes it's just, it's fascinating sometimes to me how people, how they list things sometimes because it. I wish people could be in our shoes for even just a couple days. They'd have a whole different perspective on making it clear and concise, telling a story about your activities, just making it approachable for people. It's just fascinating.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Oh, approachable is such a great word. I sometimes use the word digestible, but I also say that I want to spoon feed the audience, so maybe I'm coming in with a bit of a bias, but approachable is it's the know your audience.
So in our world, we want to have sort of strong first section at the top of the page. Like, make it easy for them. Same thing, same idea. Don't, don't bury the lead. If you're this kind of person and this kind of a leader with this expertise, tell them, don't make them guess.
That kind of a thing. And then I figure the rest of it is kind of gravy and it's not entirely true. You know, obviously their particular experience matters, but they should know a lot. Or we, you, me, a hiring team should know a lot about a person just by reading that top part and making the rest of it user friendly.
Using kind of conventions. I mean, even if you don't hire a resume writer or you don't get coaching or whatever, just use the conventions of Microsoft Word or even Google Docs. Use bold, appropriately. Highlight what you think is important.
Make your sentences or your bullets parallel so they're easier to read.
That's my perspective. I'll maybe stop there and ask you to weigh in on what you like to see and what drives you crazy.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: So I saw, I don't know, I saw a resume recently that had 27 bullet points in their summary of qualifications. I'm like, what? That's like your whole life story. You don't like. To your point, you don't want people to guess if you actually have skills or experiences or not, so you want to make it easy for the person. So, you know, I don't like that. When it's 27 bullet points, that's your summary, and then you have like an eight page resume. It's too much work to decipher. Like, what are you doing another person recently he decided to list, like, everything that he's done. Research, patent writing. I mean, I hope it was like, too much. And because he wanted to just, like, have everything so people could see and pick out what they want to see. I'm like, that's too much. Like, it's. That's too intense. You want to have maybe a few versions of your resume depending upon where you're applying. If it's a big company or a small company or something else, there could be pieces of info you want to highlight to resonate more with their certain audience. But don't try to cram everything into one.
It makes it too hard then to pull out, like, what are you actually doing? And then for people that are too technical. So I was talking with people just before this discussion, and you got to give context, right? People live their life. They know what they do, right? So when they describe. I work on pathway 629, they know exactly what that means to someone else. You're like, what is that? Is that cancer? Is that cardiovascular disease? Like, what are you doing? So it's just funny, but I like starting off more high level. Like, work on three projects to build mouse models to study diabetes. Okay, great. And then you can dive into specifics, but I feel like too many times people just dive right into the technical or to the nuance and they forget to give the bigger picture so that it's hard to understand. In what context were you doing this? I also like numbers when possible. Like, worked on six collaborations with 30 people, as opposed to just collaborated with people, you know, like, I don't know what that means. And you and I have probably seen too many resumes where I've seen people that have had 20 collaborations or two. So I don't know what collaborations mean unless you give me more context in terms of numbers and scope and stuff like that.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Right. And then my next. My brain immediately goes to, okay, so what happened when you worked with x number of people on y teams? Because presumably you were there for a purpose. So how did the fact that you were collaborating impact? I don't know, some kind of outcome or maybe it's still in process, and that's okay, too. Not everything is quantifiable. Sometimes things are yes or no. Like, maybe getting the people together to all march to the beat of the same drummer was the big win. And that. That's fine, at least in my world. I'd leave you to decide how you feel about that. But, wow, that, honestly, this is. It's so welcome.
I'm so grateful to hear what you are saying, because, again, resume writers, I mean, we try and to try to please everyone, make the candidate sound good. Figure out what the recruiter is hoping to see, so they get picked and then appealing to the company on the far end.
But once again, asking somebody who does it is inevitably the best way to go, and guessing is a terrible idea. We know kind of what we think are best practices, but sometimes resume writers are in echo chambers, too, and I think it's a good idea for us to look over the wall a little bit. You know what? Open a door in the wall and walk over and shake hands and offer somebody a soda and sit down and chat and become friends with them, because the walls aren't doing anybody, and we're all trying to do the same thing and, you know, to serve our stakeholders. I won't even say clients, because we all have different, you know, different clients, different types of clients, but everybody's trying to get the same thing done. Everybody wants the same outcomes, not the least of which are the hiring teams who want good people and the good people who want to be found by hiring teams. So, yeah, use the word catalyst at some point. I'm not a stem person, but I did show up to chemistry class in high school, and I recall that catalyst is the. If I took my. The scientist goes through the reaction and comes out unchanged. So I use that, but I'm like, how can I be? I feel like a catalyst. I use the same phrase, but I'm not unchanged. I don't think any of us in this industry could do this work if we were unchanged.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's true. Well, I mean, like, if you think about it, you get to change people's lives through the work that you do. If you get someone to end up having a better job, one that's more fulfilling, one that satisfies them more, one where they can impact things better, that not only impacts them, that impacts their family and friends and overall just happiness and success of person. So, I mean, it really is important what you do, what I do, like, you have the opportunity to really impact people in a very meaningful way. It's a privilege, I think, to have.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: That opportunity, it's such a privilege.
And I hope that you remember what you just said when you think about your own work.
At some point, somebody reminded me in a very similar way, I was having a day. And to know foundationally that we're doing everything we can to do good in the world. I mean, I guess everybody is, but our job is to do the thing and then step back and let them live their lives and let the companies succeed.
I'm glad when people succeed, that's my measuring stick.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's cool. It's good to be a positive influence in the world because not everyone is. Let's be honest. There are some people that just, I think, find enjoyment in making things stressful. But at least you and I can carve our niche out and be that good influence upon others.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: Well, and with a lot of heart, you know, there are some jobs, I think, that are doable.
I won't say by phoning it in, but I don't think recruiting, I don't think hr recruiting, hopefully not resume writing is one of them. I think it's a very people centric endeavor.
Helping people find one another is incredibly fulfilling. And that's that. To me, that's the win.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: Okay, that was a digression.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: I was just going to say, like, recruiting is so important. If you don't have the right people, your organization won't be successful. Like, it's such an important, critical part of any organization. Some organizations really devote a lot of energy and effort and others don't. It's just so interesting to see how different organizations are structured. So it's just something to think about, I guess. This is a side note, but I'm thinking of one of my friends who works at a biotech in Kendall Square. We had dinner recently and she's a senior scientist. She's been in industry now probably about eight years. She's in charge of hiring people. Her company is like 50 people. They don't have a recruiter. They don't have anyone that helps screen resumes, filters, post jobs. She has to do it all herself in addition to her day job. And I'm just thinking, okay, so I know you probably saw a couple hundred resumes. How does someone go through that that isn't trained in terms of recruiting activities to then be able to find people, filter people? And so what she told me was, I'm just going through referrals because I don't have time to actually look. So all these people are applying, they may never get called back because there just isn't time to be able to do that. It's just interesting. You can think a lot about how companies can be more successful by devoting enough resources to the hiring of really good talent to help make everyone more effective in their roles.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: And I'll throw something else. You and I both having gone through neighboring MBA programs, there should be something in the training. I mean, maybe MBA is a good place, but maybe it's other programs too. Like, this is how you look at building talent in your organization.
I don't know if I had a ton of that. Even in organizational development stuff, it wasn't really like, here's how you think about fitting people in so they do well, but maybe that would make the process somewhat more palatable for people like your friend, who are like, I'm overwhelmed with paper. I don't know what to do with all this stuff.
Relying on the channels that make the most sense to me.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: No, 100%. I know. I wish there was better training, because it does make sense. Everyone should be trained better. The hiring managers interview team members, everyone across the organization. But, yeah, so I guess, like, for the people that are seeking job opportunities, sometimes you're not called back for reasons that we just discussed of, like, hiring managers, overwhelmed, looking at referrals.
One thing I want to clarify, though, because this comes up a lot. People are like, but, Lauren, I'm only going to apply to places that I have referrals. I can guarantee you I have totally hired people that have known no one in the organization, and they're fantastic. So please don't just only apply to places that you know people at, because definitively, if you have a good resume, if you have a good background, we're excited to be able to speak with you, you know? So I think people sometimes fall in that trap of getting worried about not knowing enough people.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: So the 1785 resumes, one of those people got hired, and you said they were fantastic. So that actually resulted in a hire. And I don't know what the actual numbers are in terms of applicants, but sort of generically speaking, 1700 people are going to apply, and easily half of them or some number are going to not be qualified for whatever reason. So that also speaks to the notion that be thoughtful about where you're applying, and even if you don't have a referral, look at what they're asking for and see if that is in your wheelhouse and how you can demonstrate those things. I'm not obviously speaking to you, I know you know this, but for people out there listening, the proof is that one person out of all of those got hired, and however the slicing and dicing worked, you know, maybe half of those only got three to 5 seconds, kind of the industry standard for what we say. How long, you know, in terms of how long recruiters look, but make it easy for them to look longer. Be thoughtful about what you say, and you could be that one. Very clearly. You could be that one.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Yep, 100%. If I think about for the companies I've recruited, with maybe 70% of people have gotten hired without a referral into the organization because they've had a nice resume, they've had a nice background, they're engaging. When I have a discussion with them about why they're interested in the role. And for a lot of these roles that I'm talking about, these are roles that I've been more of an internal person in the biotech company, helping hire. So I can see firsthand kind of that apply to company, get picked, have discussion, go through, interview process and that sort of thing too.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: So if people I know we're coming to the end of the hour, I think I could probably happily have this conversation for the next two, three, 5 hours. This is amazing.
But in the spirit of respectfulness for your day, I want to thank you again for sharing so many insights and for kind of breaking new ground for me and I think for the listeners and for corroborating some of the things that resume writers think we know and sharing your wisdom. I am truly, truly grateful. So glad to know you and glad we had a chance to hash it out here. If companies, or perhaps really amazing people out there looking for their next role are interested in finding you, where should they look?
Sure.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: So our website so propelcareers.com p r o dash l l careers.com my email is lauren.
[email protected] so I try to keep it simple there and then the podcast is propelling careers. You can check that out too in terms of additional info.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Marvelous. Well, I'm hoping that the right people find your your email and your website and you make many more happy connections for amazing talent and amazing companies.
Again, thank you so much for joining me here on how I hire. So this is clearly how you hire.
So thank you. Well, make the hires anyway. Facilitate the hires and folks out there.
Lauren Solano propel careers doing amazing things to match up people in the biosciences spaces with companies doing incredible work. So hope you can find some as much value or more as I have today. And we look for you to tune into the next episode on how ihire.
Excellent.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: Thank you, Amy, and thanks everyone for listening.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you.
