The scientific communication platform (SCP) forms the core for all communications about a product and serves as the repository of available evidence and statements to support Medical Affairs strategy. View this Webinar on Converting Challenges Into Opportunities While Building Your SCP to learn about the following:
COVID-19 has wildly accelerated our transition to remote interviews, onboarding, and virtual work. Your organization will quickly fall behind the 8 ball if you don’t adapt. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies can’t afford that risk. For the Medical Affairs industry, what’s the alternative to virtual hiring right now? Hazmat suit interviews? If employees can produce great work in an office, they can produce great work anywhere. There’s just one catch – how can you determine if a potential employee is capable of great work when you haven’t met them in person? How can our industry interview and hire reliable team members virtually rather than face-to-face?
As someone who has helped lead the recruitment charge since the outbreak of coronavirus, I have actionable advice for any Medical Affairs team attempting to hire through the pandemic.
In short – if you don’t trust someone enough to hire them remotely, you shouldn’t trust them to work for your organization in any capacity. Epidemiologists from every corner of the world are hiring right now (in dozens of different languages) to make new discoveries via remote technologies like Zoom. Your team can do the same. They just need to know how.
Most hiring managers believe that face-to-face interviews help manifest a certain personal connection. They’re absolutely correct. However, it’s downright reckless to base hiring decisions off of this alone. Such a connection is nothing more than a measure of likability rather than a consideration of legitimate factors like work history, education, and subject matter expertise. If anything, virtual interviews bring these important qualities front and center.
If your virtual hiring process is to succeed, your company must have specific processes in place. Most remote interview setups motivated by a global pandemic aren’t going to be wildly productive unless these are followed.
Video chats should be the preferred medium for your hiring process. Webex, Skype, Zoom, and Google Meet all do the same thing. Choose whatever tool you believe is easiest to navigate and understand. Whatever you select – consistency matters for new recruits and employers alike. Don’t alternate between platforms.
Most individuals have a natural (albeit, slightly narcissistic) tendency to spend half their Zoom call looking at themselves to make sure everything appears alright on their end. Stop doing that! Resist the urge! Start making digital eye contact, instead.
Lighting is important during video interviews. Whether it’s a home office with blinding amounts of natural light or a poorly lit room that looks like a cave, you need to find a happy medium for your interviews. Simple light fixtures behind the camera can easily solve any darkness problem. If your image is too bright, just ensure the screen isn’t facing a window.
In a typical face-to-face interview, informal ‘get to know you’ questions only occur in the first 3-5 minutes of a conversation. We suggest you ask three times as many of these informal questions when speaking with potential remote candidates. This can help build a certain foundation of understanding and trust that would otherwise be forfeited due to a lack of physical presence.
The personal qualities that companies seek in remote employees differ slightly from the qualities of a standard medical affairs hire. If you think they may need to start their first day from a home office, look for stories where they were calm under pressure or quick on their feet. Seek out personality traits such as dedication, resourcefulness, and adaptability.
Cornell University recently conducted workplace research on the topic of virtual hiring. They partnered with Fortune 500 companies like IBM, Citigroup, and Cisco – all organizations with significant remote work experience. These three enterprises listed self-motivation, self-discipline, effective communication, and tech-competency as the professional traits most correlated to remote success.
Good interview questions might involve asking how they intend to structure their first day of work. How do they intend to meet co-workers? How will they seek to better understand their work and the company culture? It’s equally important that your team has the answer to these questions, as well.
Burnout, isolation, work-related anxiety, lackluster cultures – they’re all very real risks for remote onboarding, but they’re avoidable. Companies new to these remote processes will prop up workflows that barely scrape by because they don’t yet know a better way.
Here is the better way:
Hiring teams should over-communicate every step of the way. Explain your anticipated schedule to potential hires so they know what to expect. Share all pertinent information with them.
Managers should make a list of roadblock issues. Adopt a ‘continuous improvement’ mindset to resolve these issues for future onboarding classes. You should always seek to learn more.
Teams can have high expectations for candidates while simultaneously recognizing that this is a stressful time for your entire team. Be professional – but understanding. If a dog barks or a kid screams during the interview, it’s not a negative sign. It’s life.
Remote hiring may seem intimidating if your company isn’t yet accustomed to such a practice, but thousands of teams make it work. Some just do it better than others. Now is the time for Medical Affairs professionals to get [remote]ivated!
Whitney Morris
Recruiting Specialist
Medical Affairs Recruiting wmorris@medicalaffairsrecruiting.com
+1 910-742-7620
Dr. Qasim Ahmad, Corporate Officer, Head of Medical Affairs, Japan, Novartis
Since joining the pharmaceutical industry (PI) 2 decades ago, I have been lucky to have lived through and experience the exponential growth of medical affairs function, not only in size and ever expanding responsibilities, but also the importance and value it brings to the industry. There are several internal and external factors, contributing in the evolution of medical affairs from a mere support function to becoming a core pillar, and an equal partner with drug development and commercial functions with the PI.
In recent years, we have seen significant and unprecedented advances in biotechnology, delivering novel treatments and data sets, faster than ever before. There is an information overload, which calls for smart and innovative ways to design, analyse, disseminate and communicate the value of evidence, to the right end user (the customers), at the right place and the right time.
Concurrently, health systems across the world are becoming over-burdened, facing considerable sustainability challenges, due financial constraints, ageing, increasing population, changing disease patterns, persisting as well as new communicable diseases (COVID-19) and cost burden of chronic non-communicable diseases, including cancers.
You must also develop command on evolving health care environment and be equipped to meet the challenges associated with growing drug approval complexities and health technology assessment criteria for access. Develop unique competencies and transformative operating models to address these requirements, build capabilities that are ideally suited for medical affairs organization to generate data beyond traditional registration trial safety and efficacy packages, to facilitate evidenced based decisions making based on patient centric, clinically meaningful, health outcomes, access and quality of life real world data (RWD) data sets.
As you think of building your career in medical affairs, keep the above opportunities and challenges in consideration, the following 5 core medical affairs competencies will help nurturing your talent as patient and customer centric medical champions, ready now for future.
1. Enterprise Perspective
Medical Affairs has evolved to be one of the most strategically important and valued functions in a pharmaceutical industry. As successful medical affairs professionals, you need to build the skills and scientific acumen like that of a clinical development expert, while demonstrating the strategic intellect and real life customer oriented mind-set of a commercial leader. You will have to champion cross functional navigation, show enterprise vision, logical and critical thinking, develop broad and long range strategic direction throughout product life cycle and build bridges between unlimited internal touch points as well as external stakeholder.
2. Functional Excellence
In order to demonstrate value, your medical affairs competencies should be geared to exceed internal and external expectations, meeting the demands of above mentioned expanding responsibilities, while acquiring new skills and capabilities. You will need an all-rounder approach, adapting new technologies, digital tools, precision medicine approaches, and introduce novel engagement models. Thus continuously striving for medical and operational excellence, not only in designing and delivering high quality clinical trials based on meaning actionable insights, but also excellence in executing deep scientific exchange with medical experts, incorporating the voice of patient, payer and all stakeholders at launch, and across life cycle strategies.
3. Health System Thinking
In medical affairs, you are perfectly placed to lead, plan and deliver health care solutions and to shape the environment, playing a key role in health systems sustainability. You should build capabilities and competencies to assess health system needs and developing solutions, supporting public health initiatives; disease awareness & educational training programs; research collaborations in area not only limited to company core business (orphan diseases, rare indications, special populations); managed patient access programs and many other patient focused projects, partnering with health system players. You will require special skills for this mind-set shift, and thinking beyond the pill to building trust with the society. This competency is distinctive and vital for future role of medical affairs.
4. External Facing Organization
As part of modern medical affairs organization, you should have involvement and ownership across life cycle of assets, from early development to late stage planning. Either you are in field medical teams, medical advisors or MSLs (medical science liaison) role, you are the eyes and ears of the organization to external world. With external customer base expanding beyond prescribers and policy makers, you well have to learn rule of engagement and proficiency to work with providers, payers, private non-state health actors, patients and patient advocacy groups, as they are all taking central stage in health care decision making. This will be the game changers in reversing the traditional internal fixated industry approach to a strategic patient and customer focused, outward facing organization. Building this core competency by incorporating patient journey, stakeholder need assessment and changing health care limitations in your strategies, will enhance collaborations, speed of innovation, resource waste reduction and improved patient outcomes.
5. Effective Leadership
Modern medical affairs is not a support function, it is about leading from the front as equal partner with commercial, departing from prior passive back seat mind-set and demonstrate value to the organization through proactive leadership, vision and measurable impact. You will have to steer this transformation from current medical advisory role to leadership status, breaking unnecessary internal silos and taking ownership as well as accountability of business deliverable. Creating this new room within the organization will requires your commitment, change agility, interpersonal skills and inspiring leadership to take on completely new responsibilities or replacing those previously championed by other functions.
Conclusion
Traditional sales and commercial models are becoming obsolete, success of future pharmaceutical frameworks relies on vision, foresight and appropriate investment in building medical affairs (MA) talent, ready now for future. With ever changing external landscape, regulations and compliance requirements, the role of medical affairs will continue to grow as the key pillar, vital to achieve organizational objectives. By building these core competencies, you can demonstrate to your leadership, the value medical affairs brings, and its strategic far reaching business impact.
By Alan McDougall, MD, VP, Head of Medical Affairs, Asia-Oceania Region, Astellas
Interviews are stressful but you can reduce your adrenaline levels through proper preparation. Medical Affairs has transformed in the last decade and there are a number of key competencies which are sought after and which you should attempt to demonstrate through each and every contact you have with both the recruiter and your prospective employers. Below is a not exhaustive list of the most desirable competencies and behaviours.
Communication
The ability to communicate clearly and effectively and through a variety of channels is essential for anyone working in medical affairs. Having a high level of knowledge but an inability to share it or teach it effectively is of little value. Communication also includes using appropriate body language, listening skills and the ability to provide feedback. Make sure every verbal or written contact you have with the company or the recruiter is carefully thought through and proof-read in the case of written contacts.
Passion and enthusiasm
Employers want to hire someone who demonstrates a passion to work at their company, sometimes described as being “hungry” for the role. Having the right attitude is often more important than knowledge, because attitude is very hard to train but knowledge can be learned. Carefully word your cover letter and individualise your CV for each job to stress key experiences or skills that are mentioned in the advertisement and job description (JD). Spend time browsing through the company’s corporate website and come armed with pre-prepared questions which are thoughtful and specific to the role and the company. If possible, ask about a recent company press release and the implications (if any) for the role for which you are applying.
Technical skills
Medical affairs positions require certain technical skills that are usually listed in the job advertisement or JD. You should already possess many of the skills the company is looking for, at least to some degree. You may not yet be an expert in all of them but there should be a solid foundation upon which you can build. Typically, at interview, these technical competencies will be assessed (presentation skills, therapeutic area knowledge etc.). Take note of the JD, advert and recruiter’s comments and use every contact opportunity to mention where your current technical skills fit the role being offered.
Work ethic
It should go without saying that employers expect you to be at work on time, do what you were hired to do, meet targets and deadlines and work to the best of your ability. Sadly, we have all worked with colleagues who do not always meet these basic requirements. Make sure you are early for interviews, meet all deadlines when replying to emails, phone messages etc. and do everything you can to give your prospective manager confidence in your own work ethic. You have only a few contact opportunities with your potential next company and so make sure each one says something positive about you and your personal standards.
Flexibility
More than ever before, employees need to react quickly to changing business conditions. Agile companies and agile teams are currently popular subjects in articles written by business thought leaders. Employers need employees who can quickly adapt to change. Come to interview with examples of how you demonstrated your own agility – perhaps covering another role on top of your own, taking on a project about which you had no little or no previous experience and delivering a successful outcome or dealing positively with an unpredictable environmental change.
Resilience
We all typically get challenging but (hopefully) achievable goals and deadlines. The key to successful delivery is often being able to work hard and to keep moving forward when you encounter the inevitable and frustrating obstacles that regularly happen in business. Come to interview with examples of how you overcame particularly difficult challenges and show that you did not give up but that you persevered and ultimately met your objectives.
Teamwork
Little in the pharmaceutical industry is achieved by a single individual. Roles in medical affairs are becoming more diverse and specialised and therefore there is an increasing need for reliance on your colleagues to get things done. The ability to get on and work collaboratively with others is therefore a key competency. Using real examples, show how you contributed to successful teamwork under challenging circumstances and how you “did not give up”.
Life-long learner
As product portfolios and market environments change, there is a need to seek out new information, challenge your beliefs and explore new ways of doing things. Long-held “facts” can change when new contradictory evidence emerges. People who are naturally curious with an interest in learning combined with a willingness to share this with others, make great co-workers. At interview, explain what new skills or knowledge you have learned, how you applied this at work and describe the impact that it made.
Problem-solving skills
Managers look for people who are motivated to take on business challenges, ideally with minimal direction. Most of us prefer our employees to “come to us with solutions not problems”. Employees should see when something needs to be done and react accordingly. Come to interview with examples of how you observed an issue at work, took ownership of it and solved it. This can be even more impactful if it wasn’t in your job description in the first place.
Loyalty
Employers want people to stay with them for many years due to their financial investment with the recruitment company and the time spent on interviews and on your on-boarding process. Multiple job moves in a relatively short time period with different companies is usually an alarm bell and indicates a risk that you will not stay long if you are even offered the job. If you unfortunately have had several short-term moves recently, make sure that you come to interview with a clear explanation as to why and what you learned. Try hard not to criticise your current or previous companies or managers as this can come across quite negatively, even if you feel you have every right to do so. Employers always prefer someone running towards the role on offer than someone running away from their current job as the former is a positive choice whereas the latter can be simply escaping to “any port in a storm”.
Conclusion
It is a truism to say that you only have one chance to make a good first impression and so at interview be well prepared and make sure you have done your homework well in advance. Tell the employer why you really want this job and make sure your passion and enthusiasm come to the forefront. Show your agility, resilience and ability to learn, which are all highly valued competencies by employers. Finally, do remember that all contacts with the employer and recruiter, no matter how trivial, are likely to be judged so make them count!
By Cezary Statuch, MD, VP, Medical, International Markets, Biogen
Like many things in life, when managing your career timing is everything, and being in the right place at the right time is important. Knowing whether it is the right time for you to move on is not always easy. The pharma and biotech industries are an attractive place to pursue your professional dreams, and some markets are in great demand for medical affairs talent–so the phone rings more often than ever with calls from headhunters. Unfortunately, at times of high demand for talent the recruiters are less likely concerned if you have completed your career cycle, and if your skill set fits what they are after you will have to deal with serious temptations. Here are a few tips on how to manage your career planning and how to get ready for your next job.
Ralph Rewers, Sr Director, Global Field Medical Excellence at AbbVie, shares how Field Medical professionals are in a position to impact thousands of patients. At the MAPS 2020 Global Annual Meeting, Dr. Rewers encourages Field Medical professionals to step into the shoes of the individuals they’re speaking with to better understand their beliefs and behaviors, so organizations can better tailor medical communications to how they receive scientific data.
If the video above does not play, or to view full screen, CLICK HERE to open in a new window.
Download the Presentation
Members may also download a PDF copy of the slides from the Field Medical program from the MAPS 2020 Global Annual Meeting as well as a recording of the session in the Community Portal. Not a member and wish to access the slides? Membership is only $250 USD per year ($425 for a 2-year subscription) and includes access to all new live Webinars, all on-demand Webinars (over 50 Webinars and growing each month), discussion forums to share best practices and questions with over 4,000 Medical Affairs professionals from across the globe, copies of past meeting presentations, white papers, standards & guidance tools and templates, and much, much more. Click here for membership details or to sign up: https://medicalaffairs.org/membership/
As experts with a deep knowledge of our medicines, medical technologies, and therapeutic area science, Medical Affairs is uniquely placed to help the industry and healthcare community navigate through these unusual times. While remaining flexible and agile to meet changing needs and requirements today, we can also begin to look forward to see how to flourish in the new normal.
Medical Affairs always puts patients first, and that will not change. But there are opportunities for improvement that can make the most of the current situation.
We are all getting accustomed to working virtually—here are some best practices to help you and your colleagues:
Be Medical Affairs at its best!
How Medical Affairs as a profession emerges from this crisis depends on us and our actions. We can anticipate some longer-term changes that will help us flourish in the new normal, allowing us to do even more good for patients, HCPs, and medicine.
Based on presentations given by Dr. Charlotte Kremer, Dr. Robin Winter-Sperry, Dr. Tamas Koncz, Dr. John Pracyk, Dr. Peter Piliero, and Dr. Joseph Eid during the MAPS Global Town Hall webinar on April 21, 2020.
Bill Strickland, AVP, US Field Medical at Allergan, speaks on “demystifying artificial intelligence” at the MAPS 2020 Global Annual Meeting in Miami, and how AI can enhance daily life in this new frontier for Medical Affairs professionals. Dr. Strickland also touches on patient centricity and his leadership philosophy.
If the video above does not play, or to view full screen, CLICK HERE to open in a new window.
Download the Presentation
Members may also download a PDF copy of the slides as well as a recording of the session in the Community Portal. Not a member and wish to access the slides? Membership is only $250 USD per year ($425 for a 2-year subscription) and includes access to all new live Webinars, all on-demand Webinars (over 50 Webinars and growing each month), discussion forums to share best practices and questions with over 4,000 Medical Affairs professionals from across the globe, copies of past meeting presentations, white papers, standards & guidance tools and templates, and much, much more. Click here for membership details or to sign up: https://medicalaffairs.org/membership/
In this session, you will hear “insider tips” from three senior-level Medical Affairs leaders from leading multinational biopharma companies. The discussion will be broken into three practical sections:
1. How to advance your career in Medical Affairs;
2. What employers look for when hiring;
3. Competencies required for a modern Medical Affairs organization.
At the conclusion of this session, participants should: