Over one-third of BioSpace LinkedIn poll respondents have done free work while interviewing for jobs. A recruiting expert and career coach discuss why employers make work requests and how biopharma professionals should evaluate and respond to them.
In an employer’s market where competition for jobs is high, it’s not unusual for biopharmas to go beyond skills-based assessments when evaluating candidates for open positions. Companies now have more power to ask applicants to do free work, according to Porschia Parker-Griffin, founder and CEO of Fly High Coaching. While candidates don’t have to agree to those requests, she noted the cost of turning them down.
“The reality is that if you say no, there is someone else who’s willing to say yes,” Parker-Griffin told BioSpace. “And if you say no, it could signal to the employer that you’re not a serious candidate. There are some recruiters out there who I’ve networked with that believe that if someone isn’t willing to go through their entire interview process, which might include doing a presentation or some other activity, then they think that person is not the type of person to go above and beyond in the role.”
Bryan Blair, vice president of biotech and pharma recruiting at GQR Global Markets, also stressed the importance of work requests to BioSpace and noted how they’ve become part of the interview process. He said he’s seen employers put a ton of stock in them, so they’re worth taking seriously.
“This is, generally, a make-or-break opportunity, so know that it’s a high-leverage situation, and use it to your advantage,” Blair said.
As to the work candidates are asked to complete, Blair and Parker-Griffin noted it includes creating presentations and sales pitches, analyzing case studies and, for executives, participating in strategy sessions with employees.
Respondents to a BioSpace survey this month shared additional examples. Work they’ve done for free includes creating full project artifacts, such as a multiyear study schedule and Gantt chart; completing a data use request form; analyzing published data; presenting a pipeline strategy; and developing a 30-minute presentation on strategy.
Work requests grow in market favoring employers
There have been increased work requests in the past few years as the job market has shifted to an employer’s market, according to Blair. A BioSpace LinkedIn poll this month underscored the reality biopharma professionals face, finding that over one-third of respondents have done free work during the interview process.
In addition to the employer’s market, Blair and Parker-Griffin connected work requests to companies wanting to avoid hiring the wrong person.
“You rarely will post a job now and not have several really, really top resumes come in relatively quick,” Blair said. “So, you have to find a way to honestly, fairly parse through who is the right person for this role.”
Parker-Griffin agreed.
“From the company’s perspective, they do want to make sure that the person that they’re hiring ultimately has the capability to do the essential aspects of the role,” she said.
Not all requests are about evaluating candidates
However, not every work request is intended to assess prospective employees’ capabilities. Some are meant to extract information that will benefit the business, according to Parker-Griffin.
“There are companies that do that where, specifically, a lot of times, they have an internal candidate that they know they want to hire, but they place an external job posting because they want to fish and get all of these insights from people who’ve worked for other companies so that they can then use it in their company,” she said.
To avoid that scenario, Parker-Griffin recommended that early in the interview process, external candidates try to find out how many internal and external applicants are up for the job. If all but one already work at the company, she said, the prospective employer likely already has its mind made up and is on a fishing expedition.
Free work, no guarantees
Biopharma professionals who end up doing free work can have negative experiences that leave lasting impressions, based on the BioSpace survey. For example, one respondent was asked to propose a new drug target with a slide deck that included an executive summary, a scientific rationale, a modality, time to progression, a workplan, a timeline, inflection points, team design, clinical trial design and the competitive landscape. They did not get the job and felt the employer took advantage of them.
“This company jerked me around for months, and I don’t think they ever filled the role,” the respondent wrote. “They told me to fit all of this information into five slides, and that it should take no more than a couple of hours. Ridiculous. They also said that the slide deck should be an overview and that the details can be provided verbally. After submitting my deck, they said it was ‘light on science.’ Totally demoralizing.”
Still, the respondent noted they would do free work again if asked.
“In this market, it would be hard to say no to such a request,” they wrote.
Deciding whether to say yes or no
When evaluating whether to accept work requests, Blair said nobody should truly work for free and recommended that biopharma professionals consider how long it will take to finish the assignment. Completing the work in two to four hours is more reasonable than a request that takes longer and will extract information with real business implications, Blair said. He gave a hypothetical example of a company that’s taking a drug to market in the next year asking a candidate to put together a go-to-market strategy.
“You’ve done this before, and it’s probably clear you’re quite good at it, and they’re asking for 20 hours’ worth of work,” Blair said. “I would give some pushback in that situation, because that seems like a situation where your work is going to be taken advantage of potentially and would be in the realm of unreasonable and a company you might not want to work for.”
For candidates worried about employers using their work without hiring them, a concern some BioSpace survey respondents had and one that Parker-Griffin has heard from clients, Blair and Parker-Griffin offered some advice. Blair said applicants should feel comfortable asking questions like “Is this going to be used by the company for future business endeavors, or is this just an exercise that you’re having me and other candidates you’re interviewing run through?”
“And if they can’t give you an answer to that question,” he said, “I would probably walk away in most situations, or at least consult with people in your life that you trust.”
Parker-Griffin recommended taking a measured approach to the work itself.
“What I generally say is you can create your presentation, your pitch, with enough insights so that they know that you know what you’re talking about but not necessarily give away all of your secret sauce,” she said.
Along those lines, one survey respondent wrote that they’re guarded in solving problems during an interview when it’s clear that the hiring manager needs help with a real-world issue. When they did that a few years ago while interviewing for a temporary role, they shared, the manager’s facial expression reflected an “aha moment,” and the job, meant to solve for the problem they’d discussed, was never filled.
Deciding how to respond to work requests may be easiest for one particular group of job candidates. Parker-Griffin noted that if biopharma professionals don’t like or aren’t sold on the hiring company and feel like they could take or leave the job, they could say something along the lines of “I don’t feel comfortable completing this type of project because it would take X amount of time, and it’s typically a high-value deliverable that is compensated for. Is there another way that I can demonstrate my capability for this role?”
“That question puts it back on them to possibly suggest an alternative for you,” she said.
