The medical communications industry becomes bigger and bigger every year because of the ever-expanding landscape of healthcare. There is a high demand for professionals to support medcomms projects, but finding the people with the right combination of medical knowledge and communications and marketing skills is easier said than done. There are four key pillars to recruitment that the team at CTC keeps in mind when searching for new healthcare or medcomms professionals: specialized talent, ability to adapt, enhancing collaboration, and market demands.
1. Access to specialized talent
When it comes to medical communications, you cannot simply grab a resume from the stack of applications and hire that candidate – there is a right person for the job, with specialized knowledge and healthcare experience. At CTC, we use a variety of recruitment tools to find that individual for every one of our positions. The process starts with putting together a list of soft skills needed, as well as what specialized knowledge and education is required for this role - for example, a PhD in medical science and being an excellent communicator. From there, we look for this talent through reaching out to connections at universities that have the education programs we’re looking for, and we peruse relevant resumes and CVs (LinkedIn is an excellent spot to scout talent) to see if that person has the expertise to succeed in the role. We also advertise the roles in digital spaces that people with specialized talent have access to - not only LinkedIn, but also university job boards and hospital and clinic professional development or CME portals. This proactive approach garners the best results, as we know exactly what we are looking for.
2. Adapting to rapid changes
Working in medcomms can be exciting and engaging thanks to the constant change, growth, and advancement of technology, treatments, and regulations. It is by no means easy to keep up with the variability of the healthcare industry, and because of that, CTC and all medcomms companies need individuals who are highly adaptable. This should be a key skill to recruit for, for any medcomms role. Look for individuals who are excellent at multitasking, who participate in many projects, or who have volunteer roles outside of work. By doing so, you’ll find people who not only deal with this type of fast-paced work, but thrive in it.
3. Enhancing collaboration across disciplines
Our team at CTC is a single, cohesive unit. Yes, we have various departments within our company that have different focuses from one another, but they all share the same end goal of creating compelling medical content to effectively communicate with busy healthcare professionals. With proper recruitment methods in place, we are able to find professionals who slot into our team seamlessly and are excited to collaborate with their new colleagues and clients - but who come from different backgrounds.
Recruiting and hiring from different disciplines and backgrounds is important to the medcomms industries - the more perspectives that are gathered, the more accurate and nuanced your medcomms project will become. By bringing together professionals from diverse backgrounds with various areas of expertise, organizations can create a culture of innovation and ensure that all perspectives are considered in the communication process. So, don’t pigeonhole your recruitment process by only looking for someone with a specific resume; instead, keep your search focused but flexible and find people who will fit in well with your team or project while bringing something new to it.
4. Responding to market demands
Personalized medicine and patient-centred care have led to unprecedented demand for effective communication in the healthcare sector. When recruiting for a role, make sure you build the job description or opportunity overview with a forward-looking approach. Think about what this role will need to do immediately, but also in three, six, twelve months from now. What will the healthcare industry need, what legislation will be passed, and how can this role support that? This way, you won’t need to go back into the market for more support to fill a gap that you didn’t account for.
If you are interested in pursuing a career or continuing your journey in medical communications and you think you would fit in well with our CTC team, check out the careers page on our website to learn more!
