Hiring in Life Sciences? 5 Mistakes Even Experienced Tech Recruiters Make

Are you hiring in life sciences? 

Five mistakes that even experienced tech recruiters make

It’s hard to find good tech talent. Looking for tech talent in the life sciences? Harder still.

It might seem like finding a competent backend developer or certified Salesforce architect is all you need. But in the life sciences, this is what separates good from great: 

Compliance. Domain Knowledge. Expertise

Even experienced recruiters often miss important details that are unique to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. These mistakes can lead to hiring the wrong person, needing to redo work, and even failing audits.

Let’s look at the five most common mistakes that tech recruiters make when hiring for life sciences and learn how to avoid them.

Mistake 1: Putting technical skills ahead of regulatory experience

A developer may have worked for some of the best tech companies, but if they haven’t worked in a validated system, they will have a hard time adapting.

In the life sciences field, having experience with compliance is just as important as having technical skills. Your candidate should:

• Be able to write clean compliant code. 
• Know how to deal with audit trails
• Know about factors like 21 CFR Part 11, data integrity, and the ALCOA+ principles.

Advice: Search for people who have worked on systems for clinical, safety, or PV workflows or who have supported FDA-auditable applications.

Mistake 2: Mixing up Cloud Certifications with Domain Knowledge

Cloud certifications (like AWS, Salesforce, and Azure) show that the person is technically skilled, but they don’t show that they understand life science workflows and compliance. 

A Salesforce-certified professional who has never set up Health Cloud in a GxP setting may unintentionally leave gaps in compliance.

Mistake 3: Not paying attention to validation and documentation skills

In industries that are regulated, keeping records is not a choice; it’s the law.

A lot of the time, recruiters don’t check to see if a developer or tester knows how to:

• Write user stories that can be linked to validation scripts
• Write change controls
• Write down deployments in a way that passes an audit.

Hiring someone who doesn’t document means someone else will have to clean up later. That’s time and risk you can’t afford.

Mistake 4: Not realising how important it is to communicate with people who know your field

You need more than just coding skills. Your tech workers need to be able to speak the language of:

• Researchers in the field of medicine
• Leads for regulations
• QA and MLR teams

Recruiters often miss domain fit because they only look at cultural fit. Can the candidate explain how their feature affects a patient or HCP user? Do they know what an adverse event is? Can they mark data that needs to be hidden?

Mistake 5: Hiring people who are available instead of ready to be audited

When recruiters are under a lot of pressure to fill positions quickly, they may choose candidates who are available right away, even if they have never worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

What happens?

Under pressure to fill roles fast, recruiters may prioritize candidates who are available quickly, even if they’ve never worked in pharma.

The result? A steep learning curve, rework, or worse: non-compliant releases that could derail go-lives or raise audit red flags.

Fast isn’t better if it’s wrong.

Instead, maintain a pre-vetted bench of domain-ready professionals who can start fast and deliver safely.

How Newpage Solutions’ X-tend talent services fixes this

We pioneered X-tend at Newpage with the goal of helping life sciences companies hire people. 

We don’t make these mistakes because:

• Checking for compliance ahead of time DNA: All talent has worked with GxP before
• Testing documentation skills: We create fake environments that have been tested.
• Checking communication not just for clarity, but also for alignment with the domain

Putting audit readiness first. Our onboarding includes SOPs, data privacy, and validation flows

Hiring for Life Sciences Needs a Different Viewpoint

There are a lot of great tech people out there, but not many who are great at life sciences. You need people who can write code and follow rules. Who can put together different platforms and pass audits? Who can send things quickly and write them down correctly?

If you don’t make these five mistakes, you won’t just fill seats; you’ll also build teams that are safe, scalable, and compliant.

At Newpage Xtend, we prioritise identifying pharma-ready professionals who can efficiently complete tasks without compromising on quality. Errors are unacceptable in the life sciences.