The Client's Hiring Challenges
Based in Paris, our client needed an experienced Business Intelligence Manager to help focus their business activity on a strategic level. Whilst this job title is fairly commonplace within the Pharmaceuticals market, this particular job had an unusual set-up which complicated the candidate requirements:
The company is small in comparison to their market share and has no formal talent acquisition team. The team is new, consequently the new hire would form an essential part of the overall business foundation.
There was no wider department for business intelligence; whereas a typical pharmaceutical set-up may segregate specific remits within the overarching area of business intelligence, the required candidate needed to demonstrate proficiency across the board from data analysis, to writing the report, to communicating the findings and suggesting ways in which the company can optimise their go to market strategy
It was a demanding role with high company visibility; the successful candidate needed the perfect blend of technical aptitude and evidential soft skills to handle the large workload and all key stakeholders accordingly, including the senior-most members of the business.
The small-medium sized company infrastructure meant that teamwork would be critical to project success and the new hire had to be a good cultural fit.
The reporting structure was unusual. The new hire would need to work largely autonomously on an operational level as their line manager was based in Belgium
As a fairly new team set-up the client openly stated that they were unsure about what “good” looked like to them – drawing from our experience we were able to act in a consultative capacity to help steer them in the most pragmatic direction and deliver the right mix of expertise into their small existing team.
Our Solution
NES Fircroft has supported the entire project life-cycle within the Pharmaceuticals market for over 15 years. Subsequently we have built established talent networks and a depth of understanding in the Commercial vertical.
- The complex candidate requirements and level of proficiency needed made it immediately apparent that the search would need to take place within the passive market.
- Our dedicated team launched a comprehensive head-hunting exercise which in total saw them engage over 250 people at a first stage, pitching the role specifics to 80, and then qualifying just 8 from this. Of the 8 we submitted to the client, 5 made it through to a second stage interview.
- As the role was offered on a permanent basis, we spent a considerable amount of time assessing the client’s culture to ascertain if prospective candidates would integrate with ease into their existing structure. We recognised that for many, the opportunity would require a leap of faith and so did our utmost to convey the breadth of the opportunity to candidates.
- An offer was made to a professional who had worked at their previous company for 12 years. The candidate has now become a firm part of the company’s foundation.