Getting Your MedTech Recruitment Brief Right Before You Start Hiring.

What You Will Learn in This Post

• Why a good recruitment process starts before the vacancy goes to market
• What you need to establish before asking a recruiter to begin a search
• How to separate genuine requirements from preferences
• Why getting internal agreement on the brief can prevent problems later

A vacancy opens and everybody wants recruitment to start quickly.

So the previous job description is found, a few details are changed and it's sent to the recruiter.

Two weeks later, the CVs aren't right.

The candidates don't have enough experience. Or they have too much. The salary isn't attracting the people you expected. One interviewer wants something different from another. Requirements start changing.

The problem may not be the candidates.

It may be that nobody properly defined the job before the search began.

A good recruitment brief isn't an administrative step before the real work starts. It's where you establish exactly who you're looking for, what you need them to do and why the right person should be interested.

Don't Automatically Recruit the Person Who Just Left

If you're replacing somebody, the obvious starting point is the job they were doing.

But that doesn't necessarily mean you need an identical replacement.

Perhaps they joined five years ago and the territory has changed significantly since then.

The product portfolio may be different. The customer base may have evolved. The team could have changed. The business may now need different skills or experience.

There may also be things the previous person brought to the role that were useful but never genuinely essential.

Before automatically recreating their profile, ask:

If the person who left had never existed, what would we recruit for this role today?

Sometimes the answer will be somebody very similar.

Sometimes it won't.

Start With What You Need the Person to Achieve

A long list of responsibilities doesn't necessarily tell you what you actually need from a new employee.

Start with a simpler question:

What do we need this person to achieve?

Two Territory Manager vacancies can have almost identical job descriptions but require very different people.

One person might be taking over an established, successful territory that needs protecting and growing.

Another may need to rebuild a geography that has been below target for some time.

One could be launching a new product into existing accounts.

Another may need to open completely new NHS customers.

Those differences should shape the person you recruit.

Think about what you want the successful candidate to have achieved after six or twelve months and work backwards from there.

Understand What They're Walking Into

Before briefing a recruiter, be clear about the starting point.

For a commercial MedTech role, that might include:

• How established the territory is
• Current performance against target
• Where the existing business sits
• Which accounts have the greatest potential
• Whether the focus is predominantly account management or new business
• Which products or therapy areas they'll cover
• Who the key customer groups are
• What competition they'll face
• Whether there are particular challenges they'll inherit

For other roles, the questions will be different.

The important thing is that the recruiter understands the job as it actually exists rather than simply receiving a list of responsibilities.

Separate the Must-Haves From the Preferences

This is one of the most important parts of the briefing conversation.

What does somebody genuinely need to have before they start?

And what would simply be useful?

Depending on the role, there may be good reasons why particular clinical, technical, commercial or management experience is essential.

But preferences can easily become requirements simply because nobody has challenged them.

Perhaps direct experience of your exact product would be ideal, but somebody from a neighbouring therapy area could learn it.

Maybe manufacturer experience is preferable, but a strong distributor candidate understands the same customers and buying process.

Perhaps you would like somebody with five years' experience, but what you really need is evidence that they've successfully handled a particular type of sale.

For each requirement, ask:

Why do they need this?

If there's a good answer, keep it.

If there isn't, consider whether it's really an essential.

Agree the Brief Internally Before You Go to Market

A clear recruitment brief isn't much use if everybody involved in the decision has a different one.

Before the search starts, the main stakeholders should broadly agree on:

• Why you're recruiting
• The responsibilities of the role
• What success looks like
• The level and seniority required
• Which experience is essential
• Where you're willing to be flexible
• The salary and package
• What candidates will be assessed against
• Who will be involved in the interview process
• Who ultimately makes the hiring decision

That doesn't mean the brief can never change.

You may learn something from the market that makes you reconsider part of it.

But changing the criteria halfway through because different decision-makers wanted different things from the beginning wastes time and makes it much harder to assess candidates consistently.

Get the Package Clear Early

Salary and package shouldn't be an afterthought.

Before starting the search, establish as much as you reasonably can about:

• Basic salary
• Bonus or commission structure
• Car or car allowance
• Pension and other significant benefits
• Territory or location
• Travel and overnight expectations
• Working arrangements

There may be some flexibility for an exceptional candidate, but the recruiter needs enough information to establish whether an opportunity is financially and practically viable for the people you're approaching.

If you're looking for a particular level of experience but the package isn't attracting candidates at that level, that's useful information to discover early.

You can then decide whether to change the package, reconsider the level of candidate required or continue knowing the search may be more difficult.

Brief the Difficult Bits Too

A recruitment brief shouldn't only contain the attractive parts of the opportunity.

If the territory has been below target, tell your recruiter.

If there's very little existing business and the successful candidate will need to build from scratch, say so.

If the role involves more overnight travel than somebody might expect from the title, make that clear.

If the manager expects a high level of autonomy, that's useful to know.

If there has been significant change within the team or business that a candidate will need to understand, give the appropriate context.

That information doesn't necessarily make the vacancy harder to recruit.

It helps the recruiter find somebody who's interested in the job that actually exists.

A candidate who enjoys developing an underperforming territory may be more attracted by the challenge than by an established patch where most of the work has already been done.

But they need to know which one they're considering.

Ask Why the Person You Want Would Take the Job

A recruitment brief naturally focuses on what you want from the candidate.

But there's another side to the conversation.

Why would the person you want leave their current job for this one?

This is particularly important when you're approaching experienced MedTech professionals who aren't actively job hunting.

If somebody is performing well, has a good relationship with their manager and is earning a similar package, there needs to be a reason for them to explore your opportunity.

That might be:

• Greater earning potential
• A stronger product or therapy opportunity
• A move from distributor to manufacturer
• More strategic responsibility
• A first opportunity to manage
• Greater autonomy
• Better career development
• The opportunity to build something
• A company at an interesting stage of growth

You don't need to manufacture a selling point.

But you do need to understand what makes the opportunity attractive to the kind of person you want to recruit.

Brief the Manager as Well as the Job

The hiring manager is part of the opportunity too.

Tell your recruiter what they're like to work for.

How much autonomy do they give their team?

How often do they communicate with them?

How experienced is the existing team?

What type of person tends to work particularly well with their approach?

What development have people within the team had?

This can be particularly important when a candidate's reason for considering a move relates to their current management environment.

Understanding the manager helps a recruiter assess compatibility rather than simply whether somebody has the right experience on paper.

A Good Briefing Should Be a Conversation

Sending a recruiter a job description is not the same as briefing them on a vacancy.

A specialist recruiter should ask questions and, where appropriate, challenge the brief.

Why is direct product experience essential?

What do you actually mean when you say you need somebody “commercial”?

You've asked for management experience, but the person won't initially manage anybody. What experience are you really trying to find?

Does the salary reflect the level of candidate you're looking for?

How realistic is the geography?

Are the people you're describing actually available in the market?

That isn't about a recruiter telling you who you should hire.

It's about making sure everybody understands the search before time is spent carrying it out.

The Brief Shapes Everything That Comes Next

A good brief doesn't guarantee you'll make the right hire.

But it gives the rest of the recruitment process a much better starting point.

It helps your recruiter know who to look for.

It helps candidates understand what they're considering.

It gives interviewers clearer criteria against which to assess people.

And it reduces the chances of discovering halfway through the process that everybody was looking for something different.

Before asking, “Where are the candidates?”, make sure you've answered the more important question first:

Who are we actually looking for, and why?