Finding the right people for critical open roles can be difficult even for biopharma leaders. In this column, Kaye/Bassman’s Michael Pietrack discusses four pitfalls executives face during the hiring process, starting with confusing scientific brilliance with leadership ability.
Welcome to Leadership Lab, a column for biopharma executives navigating the real-world pressures of leadership. Every other month, Michael Pietrack draws on his work in executive search at Kaye/Bassman International and conversations from “The Pharmaverse Podcast” to examine the leadership decisions that most directly impact hiring, team performance and organizational outcomes.
There is no shortage of intelligent and impressively credentialed leaders who are making hiring decisions. Yet key openings continue to be vacant, and mishires remain common. In this column, we’ll discuss the four biggest mistakes that executives are making during the hiring process and how to avoid them.
1. Confusing scientific brilliance with leadership ability
Biopharma places a premium on intellectual achievement, and rightly so. Scientific rigor underpins everything from discovery to regulatory approval. However, an executive’s assumption that exceptional scientists or physicians will naturally make effective biopharma leaders is flawed. The capabilities required to align teams, make strategic business decisions and drive execution across functions are not taught at medical schools or in the lab. They come from on-the-job training and instincts developed over years of being in the biopharma industry.
Though a brilliant scientist or medical doctor can add expertise and credibility to the company, thrusting them into a departmental leadership role is typically not the best for them or the business. They are most suited for an advisory-type role, where the departmental leader can leverage their expertise.
To illustrate, imagine a shoe company that brings in a basketball player to promote and add credibility to its brand. Because this athlete has end-user experience, he may be used as a key adviser as to how the shoe is designed. But that company is not going to put the player in charge of running the marketing department.
When biopharma executives are making hiring decisions for critical leadership roles, it’s best to prioritize functional leaders with proven experience building and leading teams. Scientific and medical experts can then be layered in to deepen the organization’s overall subject-matter expertise.
2. Over-relying on internal networks and referrals
Hiring is inherently risky, and that uncertainty often pushes executives toward what feels safer: choosing someone they already know or who comes recommended by a trusted source. Many senior searches begin with familiar names because it feels efficient and cost effective, and because it lowers perceived risk. Over time, however, this approach quietly narrows the field, bringing in candidates who share similar assumptions, experiences and blind spots.
The consequences surface later. Teams become homogenized, innovation slows and problems are approached with recycled thinking. What initially felt like a lower-risk decision can ultimately limit the organization’s ability to adapt and grow.
Executives who consistently build strong teams take a more deliberate approach. They treat referrals as one input, not the pipeline, and intentionally source beyond their networks. They define the capabilities their team is missing and evaluate all candidates against the same criteria. The shift is simple but critical: Hiring based on familiarity is replaced with hiring based on what the organization actually needs.
3. Defaulting to consensus-building hiring decisions
Consensus is often associated with collaboration, and though it is good for executives to get buy-in among teams, consensus interviewing doesn’t typically lead to the most timely or best decisions. It reminds me of my family trying to decide on where to eat. Everyone wants something different, so we waste time settling on something everyone can live with, but no one loves. This dynamic can lead to selections that feel safe in the moment but fail to deliver impact over time.
In many cases, the issue is not the number of opinions, but the lack of alignment on what success actually looks like. Executives often enter a search without clearly defining the candidate profile, the outcomes that matter or the type of experiences needed. Each stakeholder then evaluates applicants through a different lens, and debriefs default to whether people “liked” the applicant rather than whether they meet defined criteria. A more effective approach is to align upfront on three must-have capabilities, three nice-to-have attributes and three cultural fit criteria, creating a shared standard for evaluation.
Though consensus interviewing shows collaboration, the most effective leaders weigh the evidence but make the final call when they’re the ones hiring or, when they’re not, empower hiring managers to select the candidate they see as the best fit.
4. Operating with an ill-defined hiring process
In many biopharma organizations, executives treat hiring as an ad hoc activity rather than a defined process. Each search unfolds differently depending on the role, urgency and individuals involved. Interview stages shift, evaluation criteria evolve midprocess and decision-making standards are applied inconsistently, creating confusion around what is actually being assessed.
Over time, this lack of structure creates compounding issues. Candidates experience a disjointed process, with additional interviews added late and expectations changing along the way. Timelines stretch, candidates disengage and competitors gain ground. What begins as flexibility often turns into inconsistency, slowing decisions and weakening the overall candidate experience.
In effective organizations, executives take the opposite approach. They establish a clear process upfront, identify key stakeholders and define how each stage of the interview will assess specific criteria. Just as importantly, they stick to that structure. A well-defined process does not remove judgment. It ensures that hiring decisions are made consistently, efficiently and with greater confidence.
Getting it right on hiring
Most hiring problems are not talent problems. They are leadership decisions playing out over time. The executives that consistently get hiring right are not luckier or better connected. They are more disciplined.
Avoiding the four pitfalls above can help executives get it right. The leaders who hire functional experts to lead departments, use an expanded network to find candidates, leverage an interview team but make the ultimate call (or empower hiring managers to make it) and design a clearly defined hiring process are the ones who have the best outcomes.
