What role can recruitment play in creating a gender-balanced workforce throughout the life sciences industry? Micaela Siegel, Principal Consultant at EPM Scientific, shares her thoughts for International Women's Day 2020.
The 2020 International Women’s Day theme is that an equal world is an enabled world. What does that mean to you in life sciences?
An equal and enabled world in the Life Sciences industry means more women holding positions of power in C-Suite and Company Boards. Other women seeing that women can hold these high level positions will ultimately further promote inclusivity and will encourage women to share their ideas, further benefiting innovation. Additionally, when it comes to us pitching businesses, it will help to further our recruitment of top talent when they know that they are joining a workforce where they can make an impact regardless of gender.
What sort of conversations around gender equality do you have with clients and candidates in your sector?
Yes, it does come up often from both a candidate and client perspective. Company culture is extremely important to candidates as the next organization they join will hopefully be one in which they can grow their career. A diverse company culture where colleagues are viewed as equals, can openly exchange ideas, and have opportunities for promotion are a huge factor when deciding upon a career move. From a company standpoint, clients understand that a diverse workforce will drive retention rates and act as a way to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
What role can recruiters play in creating an equal world?
It is our job as recruiters to educate our clients on market trends. There is a high volume of fresh PhD grads entering the market that are females and will one day hopefully be leaders within the life sciences industry. We should be communicating to clients the trends that we see in talent pools. We should also be advising them on what their competitors are doing to promote diversity within their organizations.
What advice would you give to a company trying to create a diverse hiring strategy?
I would advise a company to examine all of the individuals that have recently joined their company as well as look at employees with the longest tenures. Once having this information, it would be important to create a breakdown of gender and examine patterns among departments. They can also utilize us as a resource to provide a diversified talent pool but, also in communicating to our candidate networks that we are actively partnering with organizations to promote diversity.
Micaela Siegel is a Principal Recruitment Consultant for EPM Scientific. She graduated from Binghamton University with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Law, and have now been recruiting in the Biometrics space for almost 3 years. For advice on building a diverse hiring strategy, get in touch with the EPM Scientific team.
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About us
EPM Scientific is a leading specialist recruitment agency for the Life Sciences industry. We were founded in 2012 to give companies and candidates peace of mind that the recruitment process is in experts hands. Today, we provide permanent, contract and multi-hire recruitment from our global hubs all over the world.