Whether a company is just starting out or a well-established enterprise, a team lacking a crucial member struggle to maintain momentum. Losing employees and the need for more employees in a growing company is part of every employer’s ongoing challenge to maintain productivity. Employers in Scientific fields face a unique set of challenges because their employees require specific skills in order for their company to maintain industry standards and legal compliance. Navigating the choppy waters of recruiting new employees often places added strain on an already lacking team and productivity can suffer.
Scistaff is a specialised recruitment agency, tailor-made for companies in a wide range of Scientific sectors.
We provide our clients with potential candidates at levels ranging from National Diplomas to PhDs in fields ranging from Food Science to Chemistry, Biotechnology to Medical Technology and every Scientific discipline in between.
If you have ever wondered how your company can benefit from retaining the services of specialised scientific recruiters, consider these 4 factors before your next hire:
1. Less is more
We know why you reached out for recruiting services in the first place.
Your business is growing. Your team requires a specific set of skills to perform better. But everyone’s roles are defined and you don’t have time to find someone to fulfil those needs.
We get that.
We maintain a database of ~13 000 potential candidates, most of which has been appropriately screened through telephonic interviews and reference checks. This database is continuously updated and we can effectively categorise candidates according to their qualifications, skills and experience. In doing so, we can often provide our clients with high-quality CVs to review within hours, even before job advertisements have been posted.
According to the online company review giant, Glassdoor, each corporate job posting will receive an average of 250 applications. According to our own anecdotal statistics, we often receive that many applications over a weekend, especially for entry-level or less specialised positions.
You need us to filter through the hundreds of nonsensical applications and online chancers to provide you with a lean, trimmed-down list of truly suitable candidates. You need to be able to trust that these candidates will be able to get the job done, so that you can focus on more subtle nuances when considering candidates. These may include your current team dynamic, long-term sustainability and the future of your business.
The last thing you need is an inbox full of luke-warm CVs that require your screening efforts to find that diamond in the rough. You don’t need the rough. That is what we do at Scistaff.
We will provide you with concise, clearly formatted CVs of appropriate candidates that are currently in the job market and eager to work for your company, specifically. In certain situations, we will communicate any challenges in finding appropriate candidates, whether it is your available salary package or unrealistic skills expectations, based on industry standards. Our expert recruiters will make recommendations and discuss new recruiting strategies to move forward with. We will not flood your inbox with noise.
We are here to save you time to get back to what you do best.
2. Expert recruiting begins with expert recruiters
We have the booksmarts!
Not only are all our recruiters APSO certified, we require our recruiters to have at least a Master’s degree in a Scientific field. Our collective expertise ranges from Microbiology and Food Science to Immunology and everything in between.
Why will your business benefit from such highly qualified recruiters?
At post-graduate research level, scientists are exposed to a variety of laboratory techniques, consumables and instrumentation. They become intimately acquainted with the inner workings of a laboratory setting. They encounter entry-level interns to senior researchers and Scientific Sales Representatives at work.
They also develop advanced writing and presentation skills that come in handy when communicating with clients and candidates alike.
Most importantly, they hone the ability to research complex and novel topics. When new positions arise, even without prior understanding of the role, specialist scientific recruiters will not miss a beat. Our recruiters will research the inner workings of complicated positions and develop a set of role-specific questions that can more accurately identify potential candidates.
We have the street smarts too!
We don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
When a client requires candidates for a new position, our recruitment manager allocates the task to a recruiter, based on their most recent experience.
For example, if a recruiter has recent experience with finding candidates for Scientific Sales positions in Gauteng, they will have the most valuable input when a new, similar position becomes available. This recruiter then has valuable knowledge about sought-after candidates that are currently in the job market, appropriate salaries, competing positions and even restraint of trade agreements included in candidate contracts.
The benefit in this strategy is not only that we can shave off valuable time when recruiting, but it further supports the “less is more” strategy, while respecting ethical boundaries between industry competitors.
3. Unshakeable Ethics
If you are a Scistaff client, we will not headhunt your employees. Period.
There are unrelenting recruiters out there (we know who they are) that will shamelessly poach candidates from their own clients to hit commission targets. This unethical practice comes at a high cost to employers. Not only do they have to pay recruiting fees multiple times in order to fill the same role, but they also experience a lack of productivity when being forced to train new personnel for the same position multiple times. It can also result in your company gaining a reputation for having a high staff turn-over that further exacerbates challenges in recruiting ideal candidates.
Another unethical recruiting practice that sadly rears its ugly head too often, is when recruiters send candidate CVs to their clients either before disclosing the company name or without the candidate’s consent altogether. In a competitive market, recruiters take these actions in order to beat each other to the finish line. Often, this shifts the power dynamic between employer and employee. By skipping these screening steps, a candidate can be under the impression that they were headhunted, instead of applying through a recruiter.
At Scistaff, the recruiters are salaried, permanent employees with a potential to earn commission. This payment structure encourages a balance that incentivises a high level of placement success, while also limiting the need to make desperate, unethical decisions in order to make ends meet.
Scistaff recruiters will only consider candidates from client companies that applied of their own free will in response to our public, anonymous job advertisements.
4. 100% POPIA compliant
As of the 1st of July, 2021, South Africa has implemented the Protection of Personal Information Act. Among many other factors, this Act aims to protect an individual’s right to privacy by regulating general access to personal information.
At Scistaff recruitment, candidates are required to provide POPIA consent at each step of the recruitment process, from allowing us to save their CV and personal information, to allowing their CVs to be sent to our clients once their company identity has been disclosed.
We also share with our clients what actions they are required to take once they have viewed a candidate’s personal information in order for them to remain POPIA compliant. This takes some of the guesswork out of the hiring process while we all adjust to our “new normal”.
Conclusion
The highly skilled team at Scistaff can help you navigate the choppy waters of recruitment in any Scientific field. We have a stream-lined system in place that helps seek, identify, screen and introduce potential candidates to you, 100% compliant with the POPI-Act. We save you time whilst providing you with the personal commitment you require to make informed decisions about how to support your team long-term.
Are you ready to add someone new to your team?
Contact us at info@scistaff.co.za or give us a call to talk to one of our recruiters: +27 21 887 7433.
Written by:
