Our partner needed to increase their headcount of experienced professionals by more than 25% in the fields of drug substance manufacturing and MSAT, drug product manufacturing and MSAT, analytics, engineering and quality. Their facility is regionally placed, with a small population of local talent, which meant that the entire headcount needed to be sourced from overseas. 

The company had been actively recruiting for some time but due to the volume of hires that they needed to make, they no longer had the capacity to manage this from within their internal talent acquisition function. They already had existing relationships with several international recruitment companies but managing these resources became too time-consuming. 

The challenges presented by the location of our partner’s facility meant they had experienced a high rate of rejected offers. This increased the pressure on their internal talent acquisition team, who had been struggling to successfully complete several recruitment processes for some time. Furthermore, at the time of starting, their RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) supplier did not have functioning HR management software.

We rolled out a bespoke RPO model for our partner, which included a dedicated team of 10 talent acquisition specialists to source talent exclusively for them. This was managed by an account director, who developed an onsite presence by travelling to the facility once every two weeks to manage internal stakeholders and processes. The existing preferred supplier list of recruitment companies was refined, and service fees were harmonised. 

We took on the management of the second-tier suppliers, alleviating the burden of supplier management from their internal team. Due to the remote location, we designed a custom-made website, which explained everything prospective candidates needed to know about relocation, taxes, and culture. 

Candidates were rigorously qualified on commitment to relocation prior to submittal by our dedicated talent acquisition team. We also assisted with the roll-out of the company’s chosen HR management software package. 

We successfully worked to the agreed deadlines and scale-up was completed as planned within 6 months. This included 40 experienced hires in total with a ratio of 90% of offers accepted. 

We provided a competitive pricing structure and harmonised their supply chain, which resulted in a significant cost saving to our partner. 

We devised a platform which has been adopted by the business to enable them to deal with future scale-up projects at short notice. 

We continue to partner with the company across multiple verticals and numerous international locations, and we have received excellent feedback from them on the management of this project.