Premium
The importance of interviewing in building a successful biotech (or other) company
Author(s) -
Simmerman Shelley B.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
drug development research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1098-2299
pISSN - 0272-4391
DOI - 10.1002/ddr.10114
Subject(s) - interview , face (sociological concept) , set (abstract data type) , marketing , business , competitive advantage , public relations , sociology , political science , computer science , social science , anthropology , programming language
Abstract In a market where no company—regardless of size (Enron) or industry (yes, even biotech)—can afford to lose face, time, or its competitive edge, both leaders and followers at all levels of the organizational structure are being called upon to not only give more, but to believe in more, to stand for more, and to be certain of less while doing so. Building and maintaining the momentum needed to keep up in this kind of environment is a tough job, requiring multiple skill sets, and it cannot be tackled by those at the top alone. Hiring people up and down the chain who can provide not simply a strong set of technical skills, but also emotional strength and relationship savvy, can make the difference between success and failure. One of the areas in which technical skills play such a critical role and are so highly sought, often at the expense of the more social skills, is the biotech/pharmaceutical industry, and yet even science is no longer immune to the pitfalls of hiring an unbalanced staff. I believe, and hope to show you how, conducting interviews that are designed to assess more than a candidate's technical skills will yield a richer employee base that is capable of making not only the intellectual contribution, but the emotional contribution today's companies cannot survive without. Drug Dev. Res. 57:103–105, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.