The current recruiting and hiring environment is tough for companies in the healthcare technology management space. But Joe Mullings, chairman and CEO of The Mullings Group, doesn’t want you to despair. He just wants you to change how you go about recruiting and hiring.
During Mullings’ presentation at True Quality 2022, he packed an incredible amount of hiring wisdom into 45 minutes. Below are three of his best tips for hiring as a med-tech company.
1. Recruit 24/7
You don’t start recruiting when a key team member leaves or the company goes through a growth spurt. At that point, you’re already behind the eight ball. The best time to network and build your company’s reputation, according to Mullings, is when you don’t need to fill a role.
If you work on giving back—by building, teaching, and inspiring—before you need to hire, you’ll be in a much better position to land talented, high-performing individuals when you need them.
This may sound a bit abstract, but Mullings offered a simple framework for making sure you’re always “on” in some fashion when it comes to recruiting: Hum, sing, and shout.
- Humming. This is your normal level of visibility. If it’s on LinkedIn, humming involves consistently educating, informing, and inspiring your company’s followers. This is what keeps your company visible even when nothing big is going on.
- Singing. The cadence and amplitude of your expression change when you sing because there’s something important you want to get in front of your audience. This might be sharing new job openings, press mentions, exciting clinical data, or even the addition of a key team member. You’re singing instead of humming because you want to make sure more people hear it.
- Shouting. Something huge has just happened, like a product clearance or a new round of funding. You’re ready to shout it from the rooftops, so you devote more resources into making sure people hear your message. Putting on a show or event, for example, would constitute a shout.
2. Write job descriptions that tell people who they’ll become if they join your team.
Most job descriptions revolve around an ask. They use old copied and pasted formats, and they’re all about the company and what the candidate should bring to the table.
As Mullings puts it, “Everybody writes, ‘This is what I want from you.’ Not many people write, ‘Here’s what you’ll become if you join our team.’”
So how do you break out of the old format and write something that will genuinely attract interest and recruit the right applicants? Mullings’ advice is to focus on the four pillars of your business:
- The market. Start by describing the opportunity. Tell them why this market will be relevant for the next five years. Why does this opportunity have legs?
- The product. You should certainly make space to talk about your product. But remember to relate it back to the market. How does your product or service fit into the demand or growth of that market?
- The team. People go to work for people. Period. Your parents were right when they said that we become who we hang around. So why would someone want to hang around with your team? Who would they be in five years if they did?
- The mission. The kind of person who really moves the needle at a company doesn’t show up every day to make something or provide a service. They show up because of who they’ll become at that job. For the final pillar, you need to explain why and how working toward your company’s mission for the next five years will change their life.
Just keep in mind that where you place those job descriptions matters. If you’re looking to get the word out about a new opening, check out Greenlight Guru’s Global Medical Device Job Board for a direct link to med-tech professionals.
3. Ask candidates what’s important to them—then pull those levers.
Let’s say you have a candidate you’ve interviewed and want to hire. Now you’re at the tricky part—actually landing this amazing, talented person who likely has plenty of other options.
You need to understand that even if you can’t give them every perk and maximize their compensation in every way, that’s okay. All you need to do is ask them what’s most important to them.
