What Does It Take to Get Hired by GlaxoSmithKline and AbbVie

What Does It Take to Get Hired by GlaxoSmithKline and AbbVie July 6, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

It goes without saying, perhaps, that what a biopharma company wants in new employees is skill, reliability, and ambition, and a touch of genius wouldn’t hurt. But aside from that, individual companies may have specific things they’re looking for in during an interview or in a new staffer.

Here’s a look at two big biopharma companies and tips for getting in the door.

1. GlaxoSmithKline

Headquartered in Brentford, U.K., GlaxoSmithKline employs about 99,000 people in more than 150 countries. Of those, more than 11,500 work in R&D. The company develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceuticals, vaccines, oral healthcare, nutritional products, and over-the-counter medications. Its three product divisions are prescription medicines, vaccines and consumer healthcare products.

According to Glassdoor, the difficulty of the GSK interview process is about average, with 66 percent of those responding saying they had a positive experience.

One respondent, who did not get the job, indicated they were originally screened by a team member by telephone followed by a virtual interview with the director and team managers that included a 15-minute presentation. These were followed by an in-house interview that was almost a full day and included one-on-one interviews with team members and directors. The respondent indicated that the interview was difficult and that the interview questions included, “All the STAR format questions you could possibly think of.” STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result and is a form of behavioral interview technique.

In STAR interviews, the interviewer asks the subject to cite a recent challenge and/or situation, identify the task they were required to achieve, what they did (Action), and what the results were.

Graduate-jobs.com also has a number of reviews and profiles of GSK interviews. An applicant for GSK’s Chemical Engineering Graduate Program wrote, “This is one of the most difficult telephone interviews that I have had. However, this was my second time in three years having a telephone interview with them. The first was for an industrial placement, whilst this was for a graduate program. From this, I can confidently tell you that they do not change the questions.”

They appear to be very standard questions, such as “Tell me about your greatest challenge,” and “Tell me about a time you worked with someone difficult.”

They then followed up with a set of 10 true or false technical questions. After that, there were two additional technical questions, which included, “Describe the procedure for a risk assessment,” and “GSK has been manufacturing a tablet and it is showing signs that the dissolution rate may be decreasing. What are the possible reasons that this is occurring and what actions would you take to rectify the situation?”

In 2011, Claire Thomas, now Senior Vice President of Human Resources, was interviewed by The Telegraph and was asked what advice she would give to people hoping to join GSK. She said, “I like to see breadth in candidates’ CVs early in their careers. The more diverse their experience working in different functions or industries, the better.”

And she said the worst thing anyone can do at a job interview is “Give insincere answers to a question. It’s very obvious when someone tries to twist the answer to the question, ‘what are your weaknesses?’ into a perceived strength.”

2. AbbVie

AbbVie is headquartered in Lake Bluff, Ill. The company spun off from Abbott Laboratories in January 2013. The company currently employs about 29,000 people. Its therapeutic areas include immunology, oncology, neuroscience, virology and general medicine. In 2016, AbbVie reported $25.6 billion in annual revenue.

On Glassdoor, the AbbVie interview process is described as average, with about 69 percent of respondents saying they had a positive experience.

A respondent who applied for a Senior Scientist position, but did not receive a job offer, said the interview process was long, running three to four months. They applied in mid-February and two weeks later had a phone interview. Three weeks after that the applicant had an on-site interview that involved a “pre-interview dinner with a hiring manager and two scientists I would be on the same team with.” The day-long interview was typical and included a 45-minute seminar, and 30-minute sessions with other scientists, including principals and directors, and lunch with junior scientists.

The applicant said that one question asked was, “How do you proceed when someone disagrees with you?”

Another applicant for a Senior Scientist position who was offered and accepted the position, said the process took two days, but was otherwise quite similar to the previous applicant, including a 45-minute presentation and 30-minute individual interviews. The entire day process took five-and-a-half hours. One of the interview questions was, “What are your strongest skills?”

MockQuestions.com lists the top 25 AbbVie interview questions, which include:

• Why did you choose a career in the pharma/biotech industry?

• What keeps you interested in our line of work?

• How do you stay informed on changes in the pharma/biotech industry?

• In your opinion, what is the biggest development in biotechnology in the past three years?

• Tell me about a project you completed recently that was ahead of schedule.

InConversation interviewed Tim Richmond, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for AbbVie. He was asked about the company’s talent acquisition strategy. He responded, “Our approach to talent lies at the intersection of art and science. Our talent strategy is built on being agile so that we ensure we have talent in the right places at the right times, all with an eye to future pipeline needs. We are attuned to these needs by the close partnership our Business HR staff has with the business; they sit in the same area, are in the same meetings, know the talent and can anticipate future needs. Increasingly, we look to data and metrics to help us better understand where we are at and where we need to go as an organization to get ahead of the curve.”

Tweak your resumes, and good luck!

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