Terminated after 2 months- does it need to be on your resume?

[D.X.]

Hi Dave,


On the gap you see on LinkedIn, at what point do Gaps in CV per LinkedIn raise a red flag for you during the "screening" process (i.e. you're taking a judgement on whether to call or not).

In other words, you're not interested in talking to the candidate to find out the reasons.

Specifically duration and frequency over a career?

What gives you an yuck response?

Thanks,

DX

[D.X.]

Hi Nate,

No matter how much you network the majority of hiring includes HR as part of the process.

I’ll take your word that maybe small start up companies don’t have HR or maybe on the VC side - but outside of that companies will have HR! Irrespective of out sourced or not the fact that certain activities such as recruitment is managed by an outsourced firm is NOT a sign of lack of importance. There are still HR stakeholders on the inside - also doing others activities beyond recruiting. Don’t take this as an attack I don’t see your experience including a stop INSIDE an established corporate Enterprise with oraganizstional complexity that can include operations across geographical sites that requires management of its Human Resources as much as it’s Financial Resources!

Nor do I see you leading a team with organizational complexity. If you had that I doubt you would be calling for a carte Blanche wipe out of HR or understand where they can be, and are, a partner to hiring managers and these days teams, in recruiting!

No matter how networked you are, on my side of the industry (multinational enterprises) you will not get hired without going through a process driven and coordinated by HR. At my level there is process and I’ve been super networked! And even if a network wanted to hire me I still had to go through the formalities of the process. So yes you need to network but that will never ever get you past HR validations and team validation especially in larger companies!

So tooling up and readying for a conversation with HR is always advised!!

And yeah your HR pundits on LinkedIn may say this, that and the other but be very careful where those advises are applied- maybe that makes sense for a start up biotech but for an established pharma ...no not quite !!! Ok I acknowledge maybe in your VC world you view could be the reality but I wouldn’t snap that world to everyone else or would I snap my world to everyone else. So I don’t have super small spin off or patent or VC experience but I don’t give my advise as absolute for all.

On my side, it is getting rare that a hiring manager takes a decision in isolation! And I’m not just talking HR / today you interview with many of the team
Members you will be working with, not only within function but also cross-function!!! So your goal in networking is NOT TO BYPASS a process but to GET INTO a process.

This advise of bypassing others or a process is really not in my sector.

Plus I think HR staff can do a good job on recommending candidates if briefed well by thehiring manager - they are well trained in behavioral interviewing , assessing fit both personality wise and behavioral wise in the context of team and company culture and I do think they can pick up on some relevant technical detail if briefed well. And overtime they actually get to understand some of that technical stuff / so don’t discount thier experience with doing an effective screen ! And of course a good recruiter helps.

So just caveat your advises / sure that’s how your VC world is ok but in my sector - multinational pharma with R&D, etc etc - count on an HR process irrespective of network (not to mention legal aspects of that).

Best DX

[Dave Jensen]

Hi Dave,


On the gap you see on LinkedIn, at what point do Gaps in CV per LinkedIn raise a red flag for you during the "screening" process (i.e. you're taking a judgement on whether to call or not).

In other words, you're not interested in talking to the candidate to find out the reasons.

Specifically duration and frequency over a career?

What gives you an yuck response?

Thanks,

DX

I will include everyone, but ask about anything that's over a couple of months between jobs. Thats probably how most people handle it,

Dave

[Nate W.]

Dear DX,

The HR guru and the forum's behavioral therapist. I would think you work in HR by the language you use rather than medical affairs. Your comments provoke a few thoughts:

It would be interesting to know what % of companies in the biotech and pharma sectors are multinational companies with that level of hierarchical complexity. Further, it would interesting to know what types of companies (based on size) do the most hiring of young scientists out of academia. It would be my hypothesis that the pharma sector has the most multinational hierarchical campanies with a well structured HR department (e.g. Merck or GSK) and the biotech sector has mostly small start-ups or midsize companies (<200 employees) with no HR structure at all. My next thought would be which type of company would be more inclined to hire scientists. Based on my experiences working with a large CRO (~1000 employees) and understanding of drug development, the large Pharma companies are now more invested in the marketing, testing (i.e. trials), and manfacturing of therapeutics than R&D; large Pharma mostly acquires the technology from smaller start-ups via acquistions. So, I would say that scientists are more inclined to get a job with a smaller start-up doing the actual research because their experience is more relevant. It is my contention that at these smaller to midsize research companies HR is not going to have much of a say in the hiring decisions of scientists and scientists seeking a job will find it easier to land a job by networking with the right level managers, avoiding HR altogether. Once they (job seeker) have convinced the manager at the right level most everything else will fall in place and become a mere formality (yes, even a trip to the HR department). Remember the managers have the expertise to pass judgment on a candidate's qualifications (HR doesn't; from a technical prospective) and they have to work with this individual on a daily basis (HR doesn't); the manager has more skin in the game and a greater stake than HR in the hiring decision.

Further you have to consider there are many other institutions where life scientists can be employed other than a large multinational Pharma; those might include a large public medical center, a private research institution, a VC firm, a patent law firm, a government agency (e.g. FDA or USPTO), or a large consulting firm with a biotechnology division. Even some of these options have large HR departments and some have no HR presence at all. However, the key question is what role do they play in recruiting and how much say do they have in hiring decisions (and whether their input is objective or not)? Let me temporarily leave with this question based on your experiences at a large multinational Pharma (s):


How often does a HR department overrule a hiring decision made by a director or VP manager (i.e. whereby the decision was made by himself or collectively among his group)? Unless there was a serious compliance issue; a criminal record or nepotism.

PS: Yes, we can assume that managers can by themselves make hiring decisions or invite networking candidates for an extemporize (i.e. nothing formal sent out by HR after reviewing applicants) group interview. This does happen at multinational companies like GSK, Alcon, or PPD. I have seen it happen and I got a job this way with a large CRO by stargetically networking with a VP of Research; no group or HR interview!

[D.X.]

Dear DX,

The HR guru and the forum's behavioral therapist. I would think you work in HR by the language you use rather than medical affairs. Your comments provoke a few thoughts:

Let me temporarily leave with this question based on your experiences at a large multinational Pharma (s):


How often does a HR department overrule a hiring decision made by a director or VP manager (i.e. whereby the decision was made by himself or collectively among his group)? Unless there was a serious compliance issue; a criminal record or nepotism.

PS: Yes, we can assume that managers can by themselves make hiring decisions or invite networking candidates for an extemporize (i.e. nothing formal sent out by HR after reviewing applicants) group interview. This does happen at multinational companies like GSK, Alcon, or PPD. I have seen it happen and I got a job this way with a large CRO by stargetically networking with a VP of Research; no group or HR interview!

Hi Nate,

Answering your question, HR is not there to "overrule" any hiring decision by a hiring manager. They are there as a Partner to make recomomendations when needed. You gave good examples of hard no goes.

However those recommendations are taken as part of an overall assessment in decision making. It also depends on the level of recruitment job title wise. At low level positions consitent with the ones this audience would be targeting, the process would generally include an HR assessment, more and more in the big companies, personality tests are beging done to get more insights into a candidates works style - bench scientist or not how you are engaging with other people is really looked at to ensure no arrogants or disruptive people are brought in.

As i mentioned the people who can have EVEN MORE influence than HR in the interview process are the Team members be in within function or cross-function. I can tell you that if you'r interviewing for a Medical role and say one of your cross functional stake-holders, say a REgulatory Affairs person picks up a red-flag - you can be assured the Hiring Manager in Medical will have thier ears wide open! Hiring someone who is not a team fit, despite their technical godliness can be detrimential to the hiring manager's credibility.

And I've seen this, its not a pretty picture and the outcomes were not good for those hiring managers who didn't listen or act. Put it this way, they're no longer in those positions and company.

Now cross functional they can't over-rule the highing managers decision but if say someone in Reg or Clinical pick up something that's a red-flag, that's like a near de-factor override - the Hiring Manager will have thinking to do. And this is in fact generally the case. Hiring Managers recruit for a team - they want the team to work.

Now you did mention hirings done with out large HR involvement, but that does happen with more senior levels, it starts to happen at my level (Director level) and expecially at much higher levels because at that level well network, reputation, among many other things are contributing and NOT RELEVANT to the audience here.

As far as my language more linked to that of HR than Medical Affairs, well that's a complement. At my level of career or say part of career development is about learning how to work and communicate with many people to get business objectives accomplished. Yes my subject matter expertise is Medical (and Marketing) however as one grows in career, success is determined by how you're getting others to follow your lead, wth thier willingness to allocate their time and resources to you without you being their boss. That's what gets you to the next level, complementary to developed technical skills if not secondary - i can screw up say a small tactic that i'm only responsible for no one will really care too much, but screw up a project where I'm the project team lead due to not get getting others to align and react in a timely manner and with "their" resources...I'm dead in the water. So that's why I find that a complement. And certainly HR is playing a role in accessing how you work with people.

I don't know the split between who hires scientist from academia, i.e. small vs. big but I still say networking is not about bypassing a process, its about getting into a process...HR or no HR.

I guess in small companies for bench scientist maybe you don't need much team work (i don't know) but if team work is not a part of work then my question is then do those people advance? at some point if they want to grow they will have to lead a project team and get those who are not thier reports to work for them? Do they get that in a small company? What are thier growth prospects like? ..I don't know - I wonder if Dave can comment.

Best,

DX

[Dave Jensen]

I like your comment DX, about networking being about getting INTO a process, and not specifically about AVOIDING a process. Good point. Too often I word it as avoiding and really that's not it at all -- it's about getting into the stream of whatever hiring process a company uses.

And for Nate, who asks how often an HR head can tank an offer going out -- perhaps one team member can't do much if they disagree with a director or VP who is dead set on making a hire. That is, whether you're a colleague in science or an HR person. If a senior person has decided to make a hire you don't agree with, you just put in your ten cents and that's it. In some companies, HR is a respected partner and that would be "worth" a whole lot. It may indeed tank the hire. In other organizations, the hiring manager will ramrod it in no matter what is said by HR. I've seen both. But HR is usually fairly analytical -- they don't just decide a hire is a bad one on emotion, they have something they've caught which is a problem, they've investigated it and they make a recommendation. No one in HR is going around willy-nilly making foolish recommendations.

Dave