Funding announcements can signal future hiring activity, giving biotech professionals a chance to build relationships before positions are posted. Industry experts share how to identify the funding events, milestones and company indicators most likely to lead to new jobs.
Biotech professionals looking to edge out the competition in the job market may want to focus less on posted openings and more on funding announcements. While new funding doesn’t guarantee that hiring is on the way, it’s a good signal that allows people to identify potential employers at an ideal time for outreach, industry experts told BioSpace.
“The advantage that a job seeker is trying to create really is getting on the company’s radar before the ideal position is posted,” said Alex Benjamin, vice president of talent acquisition and FSP delivery at OnPoint Clinical, a clinical trial staffing agency. “Otherwise, if you discover it the same time as everybody else, it just becomes a numbers game at that point.”
Ashwin Singhania, a principal in the EY-Parthenon life sciences practice at Ernst & Young, agreed that by the time a position is posted, many job seekers will have already contacted the company.
“Especially in a community like biotech where it’s so small and so well networked and people know each other,” he told BioSpace. “I think it is important to be more proactive.”
Funding as a piece of the hiring puzzle
Biotechs receive various types of funding that could signal hiring. They include preseed and seed funds at the startup stage, venture capital rounds to support early growth and equity investments from other companies to further growth or even create business partnerships. However, some types of funding may signal more hiring than others.
For example, Benjamin told BioSpace, his clinical trial staffing agency has found that while companies receiving series A rounds could later have job openings, they usually have small staffs and tend to outsource work. More likely to hire are businesses that receive series B or C funding tied to milestones such as starting new clinical trials, adding indications or moving programs from earlier to later phases, he said.
Joanna Ghayad, founder and CEO of Joanna Ghayad Coaching, which provides life sciences leadership and career coaching services, tries to help clients think through which roles match which stages of funding. Those stages, she told BioSpace, tie to different parts of the drug development process. For example, Ghayad has drug discovery scientists who work on target ideation through lead optimization focus more on biotechs in the preseed space. She recommends that regulatory professionals who can help with investigational new drug (IND) applications consider companies in the series A space.
When job seekers consider how funding might signal hiring, Benjamin recommended looking beyond the amount of money raised and doing five to 10 minutes of due diligence on the company.
“So, No. 1 is first and foremost, try to get the intended use of proceeds,” he said. “Most companies are going to say what they’re trying to accomplish with the financing. That will help point you in the right direction.”
So, No. 1 is first and foremost, try to get the intended use of proceeds. Most companies are going to say what they’re trying to accomplish with the financing. That will help point you in the right direction.
For example, Benjamin noted, a biotech could raise money to support initiating new clinical studies, but the money may be designated for extending its cash runway, not adding employees.
Along those lines, Ben Shirley, a principal and U.S. people consulting life sciences leader at Ernst & Young, told BioSpace that while funding rounds are a reliable leading indicator of hiring, they’re only a starting place. Milestones or value inflection points can better indicate the degree to which companies can hire, he said.
Singhania agreed. For example, he said, a company gearing up to go from a Phase 2 to Phase 3 trial will have to expand clinical and back-office operations, but that activity won’t always coincide with funding.
“I think it’s a piece of the puzzle,” Singhania said. “It’s not all of the puzzle.”
In addition to funding, Shirley recommended biotech job seekers also review a company’s cash runway, major milestones and where it is in its life cycle. Singhania noted that the company’s historic and projected burn rates can be useful.
Benjamin also highlighted a biotech’s cash runway as helpful information.
“If management says that they’re funded into 2027 versus 2030, it’s just a whole different story from a growth as well as a general employment risk perspective,” he said.
Tracking funding news and beyond
To follow funding news, Singhania suggested biotech job seekers set up Google alerts for companies that interest them and subscribe to industry newsletters. Benjamin recommended checking a funding tracker each week, an activity he said should take about 10 to 15 minutes.
Biotech job seekers can also review life sciences venture capital firm announcements about portfolio companies, Shirley noted. He explained that doing so provides a broader view than relying on an organization-by-organization set of announcements.
Another approach, which Ghayad recommended, is seeing which companies are releasing clinical trial data, as that can signal that funding and then hiring could follow. She said biotech job seekers can focus on conferences where companies release data and check preconference press releases and event abstracts.
Singhania agreed there is value in monitoring clinical trial data, noting that announcements about positive Phase 1 and 2 data and what companies intend to advance can indicate a fundraising round to come.
In addition to clinical trial data, Shirley recommended regulatory dates as a key input.
“To the extent that you can anticipate when funding may be happening, I think that is always going to be beneficial,” he said.
From observation to action
Once biotech job seekers identify companies they believe may hire soon, it’s best to reach out right away, agreed the experts BioSpace interviewed. One reason, according to Ghayad, is that it takes time to build trust, credibility and relationships. She said the outreach should focus on communicating experience and expertise, not asking if a position is going to open.
Benjamin recommended job seekers tell the company what interested them about the business, share what they can do and say they would love to talk when the timing is right.
“That can usually open up some doors,” he said.
Tracking funding activity or clinical trial results and contacting companies before positions are posted is not an approach routinely used in the past, but job seekers are starting to catch on, Ghayad said.
“I think people are having to be a little more creative in their job search, act a little bit more like business development individuals and do some research ahead of time so that they can uncover those things that are coming sooner,” she said.
