At a Glance
Our client, a small clinical-stage biotechnology company based in Seattle, sought our services to support its rapid expansion in response to a critical milestone in their Phase II trials. The company needed to bring more functions in-house, transitioning from a virtual, primarily outsourced organization to hiring full-time employees across various departments. We successfully partnered with our client, providing a comprehensive suite of services, including recruitment process design, executive search and assessment, and interview training. Our collaboration resulted in 15 new hires across multiple disciplines, a Chief Medical Officer hire, and a time-to-fill of just 60 days.
Our Support
Our client’s main focus is to bring adjuvanted subunit vaccines to market. The company is currently working on a shingles vaccine for individuals who cannot tolerate existing options due to immunocompromised health or allergies. With a small team based in Seattle and outsourcing partnerships, our partner reached a pivotal milestone in their Phase II trials, requiring rapid in-house expansion to advance to Phase III and eventual commercialization.
Step-by-Step Solutions
Our team provided a comprehensive set of services, including:
- Recruitment process design and optimization
- Job description development and formatting
- ATS & landing page creation
- Sourcing strategy development and execution – We focused on targeted, comprehensive outreach, ensuring the recruiting was not done until the candidate started in their role. Our recruiters continued to build robust talent pipelines throughout the duration of the project.
- Recruitment marketing efforts – Our recruitment marketing team created organic and sponsored campaigns utilizing graphics, post copy, thorough targeting strategies, and industry best practices to engage top talent in the industry.
- Compensation benchmarking using Radford data and competitive market analysis.
- Salary transparency planning and compliance.
- Executive search and assessment (tspASSESS) led to the successful hiring of a CMO. We provided executive assessments for finalist candidates, including personality tests and in-depth interviews, to support decision-making and ensure a smooth transition for the chosen candidate.
- Interview Training (tspINTERVIEW) – We delivered a comprehensive interview training workshop for leadership, focusing on understanding their role, creating positive candidate experiences, valuing behavioral interviews, and evaluating candidates confidently while incorporating a strong legal and compliance perspective. Additionally,
- Reporting and analytics delivered on a weekly and monthly basis.
Challenges & How We Overcame Them
We faced several unique challenges throughout our partnership. Our client is a small start-up with little name recognition based in Seattle, where vaccine expertise is scarce. The company sought to maintain an on-site culture and required a team with vaccine experience. Additionally, their compensation packages were not always competitive, making it more challenging to attract top talent.
We overcame the challenges in our partnership by emphasizing the company’s potential, pre-IPO status, and strong leadership team. Our comprehensive approach included delivering an interview training workshop, executive assessments, and building the entire talent acquisition function. Our recruiters built relationships and networked vigorously, finding and attracting candidates despite the challenges of the company’s size, location, and salary limitations. By focusing on the upside and maintaining strong relationships with hiring managers, we achieved our hiring goals.
The Outcome
- Our partnership with Curevo led to the following successes:
- Fifteen hires across Research, Clinical, Regulatory, Quality, Biostatistics, and G&A, including 12 Manager/Director level positions and three individual contributors.
- Our team of specialized recruiters directly sourced 73% of hires.
- Time-to-fill was just 60 days.
- Hired a Chief Medical Officer
Our successful collaboration with our client demonstrates the effectiveness of our comprehensive approach, tailored to the client’s unique needs. By partnering with us, this organization was able to transition from a virtual organization to building an in-house team capable of advancing its critical vaccine program. Our support enabled the company to overcome challenges, attract top talent, and ultimately expand rapidly to meet their team’s goals.
