As the clinical trial industry continues to expand in this post-COVID environment, Contract Research Organizations (CROs) need to hire more clinical trial managers to ensure the success of their studies. An experienced clinical trial manager can differentiate between a successful and unsuccessful trial. As such, they are integral to the success of a CRO’s operations. In this post, we’re sharing five ways that CROs can improve their clinical trial manager recruitment efforts.
Let’s get started.
5 Tips CROs Can Use To Attract More Clinical Trial Managers
1. Grow and Nurture Your Network
Industry events, conferences, and organizational socials allow CROs to expand their networks and meet potential candidates. Often recruiters may attend these events only if they have an urgent need, or they may attend but not make an effort to follow up with potential candidates only because they don’t have an immediate opening.
2. Offer Competitive Compensation and Benefits
If your CRO is searching for top-tier talent, it needs to ensure that it is providing a competitive compensation package. This includes offering both an attractive salary and additional benefits such as insurance, performance-based incentives, and signing bonuses.
Depending on your competitive market, you may need to offer additional perks, including flexible work options and other employee perks, retirement plans, and specialized training opportunities.
3. Enhance and Showcase Your CRO Brand
A positive work culture is also critical to attracting new talent. It’s not enough to have clear expectations and values. Your organization needs to embody these values across each team member - including new hires.
Start by creating a culture of respect for each other and a commitment to continued excellence and dedication to high-quality work. It’s also important to ensure that you provide an environment where employees feel valued for their contributions and are encouraged to express their ideas.
Need more convincing? A strong workplace culture of appreciation can also increase employee retention over the long term.
4. Optimize Your Hiring Process
Your hiring process is often the first interaction a potential recruit has with your organization. As such, it’s an opportunity to prove that you value and respect your employees while building trust with potential prospects.
Here are three steps you can take to optimize the clinical trial manager recruiting process:
Streamline the Application Process
Make sure that your application process is as straightforward as possible. This includes having a user-friendly online form for applicants to fill out and a clear description of the job requirements and duties.
Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.
Never abandon a candidate. Following up with candidates after their interview is a great way to show them that you are serious about the position and the hiring process. Make sure to thank each applicant for their time and tell them when they can expect an update on your decision.
Audit and Eliminate Unnecessary Steps
Every CRO wants to hire top-tier talent, and top-tier talent knows this. They know they have just as much power in the hiring process as the CRO. If you find yourself losing quality candidates during the interview process, it may be because your hiring system is more complicated or convoluted than your competitors.
Take an audit of your current application process and identify any bottlenecks or consistent drop-off points. Then weigh the benefit of this step (the information gathered, test of skill, etc.) with this drop-off point. Is it more important that your organization includes this step in the hiring process? Or should this step be dropped to improve your hiring rate?
5. Leverage New Technology
You should take advantage of the latest recruitment technology - utilizing online job boards, social media, and recruiting software to increase your reach and attract top talent. But, this isn’t the only space where technology investments can improve your clinical trial manager hiring efforts.
Providing your team with a strong technology platform can help improve efficiency, output, and employee quality of life. All of these, when known by a potential candidate, can help improve the likelihood of that candidate choosing to manage your clinical trial.
Clinical trial managers play a crucial role in the success of a trial, and it is important for CROs to ensure that they hire and retain the best talent available. By utilizing these five strategies, CROs can improve their CTM recruitment efforts and increase their chances of finding the best candidates for their organization.
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