Introduction: The Hidden Hiring Problem in Life Science Startups
Hiring is one of the most critical challenges for life science startups, yet many technical founders approach it the wrong way. They rely on outdated methods—CVs, cover letters, and unstructured interviews — believing they can “just know” when someone is the right fit.
But the truth is, gut-feeling hiring leads to costly mistakes, high turnover, and wasted time.
As a life science startup founder, you’re likely an expert in your field—but hiring is a different skillset entirely and doesn’t always translate to great hiring managers.
This blog will unpack the most common hiring mistakes and show you how to build a hiring process that actually predicts job performance — without eating up all your time.
1. Why Relying Too Much On CVs Leads to Bad Hires
Most startups still screen candidates based on CVs and cover letters. But a CV only tells you where someone has been—not how they will perform in your startup. Here’s why this approach fails:
✅ It Overlooks Potential: Many high-potential candidates don’t have perfect CVs but can excel in the right environment. By relying too much on CV's you risk filtering out great talent based on the wrong signals.
✅ It Doesn’t Predict Success: Research shows that structured, competency-based hiring is twice as effective as traditional CV screening in predicting job performance.
✅ It Reinforces Bias: When hiring from CVs, you subconsciously favor candidates with backgrounds that feel familiar — whether it’s a prestigious university or a past employer. But those factors don’t necessarily mean they can thrive in your fast-moving startup environment.
🚀 What to Do Instead:
Shift your hiring focus from past experience to predicting future success. Use mini job-simulations, structured interviews, and cognitive/preference assessments to evaluate real-world job performance (=the process needs to be tailored to the specific role as different roles has different success criteria).
2. Unstructured Interviews = Hiring on Gut Feeling (A Recipe for Disaster)
If your interview process consists of casual conversations where you ask, “Tell me about yourself” or “What’s your biggest weakness?”, you’re not actually gathering reliable data to make a good hiring decision.
🔴 The Problem With Unstructured Interviews:
- They’re poor predictors of actual job performance
- They reinforce bias (you end up hiring people you personally like, not the best fit for the role)
- They create inconsistent hiring decisions across different interviewers and candidates.
🚀 What to Do Instead:
- Use a structured interview process with the same set of questions for every candidate
- Align questions with key competencies needed for success in the role.
- Implement mini job simulations (e.g., ask a scientist to analyze real data, a BD hire to pitch a product, or a regulatory expert to summarize a new guideline)
🔹 Bonus: If communication is critical to the role, use one-way video interviews to assess how candidates articulate ideas before investing time in live calls.
Again, success looks different in different roles, and this calls for a tailored screening process for each role that strives to predict success for each specific role.
3. The DIY Hiring Trap: Why Founders Shouldn’t Do Everything Themselves
Many founders handle every step of hiring — from CV screening to interviews—without external support. This makes sense in the earliest days, but as your startup scales, this approach becomes a massive opportunity cost.
The Hidden Costs of DIY Hiring:
🔸 Time Drain: Every hour spent screening CVs is an hour not spent on fundraising, Strategy, R&D, or partnerships.
🔸 Hiring Mistakes: Inexperienced hiring and unstructured processes lead to wrong hires, high turnover, and wasted salaries
🔸 Delayed Growth: A slow hiring process means delayed progress on key milestones
🚀 What to Do Instead:
- Automate to save time: Use an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) instead of managing applications via email - this helps you track candidates, and send personalized bulk rejections, and some ATS systems can help you in the initial CV screening if volume is high (but be cautious with this to avoid missing tigh potential talents!!!)
- Outsource: Partner with a recruiter who understands life science hiring (like me!)
- Streamline: Reduce time-to-hire with structured processes and screening tools
Final Takeaway: Build a Hiring Process That Works for Your Startup
If your hiring process is still based on CVs, gut feeling, and unstructured interviews, you’re setting your startup up for costly mis-hires. Instead, build a repeatable, structured process that actually predicts job performance.
Here’s a quick roadmap to get started:
✅ Define the Success Profile: What technical AND soft skills does the role require? (Use strength-based/personality/preference data from your team to identify gaps or what works best)
✅ Design a Predictive Hiring Process: Use structured interviews, job simulations, and targeted assessments.
✅ Implement an ATS: Stop tracking candidates via email—automation saves time and improves candidate experience
✅ Get Support: If hiring isn’t your expertise, don’t go at it alone—external help can speed up and de-risk the process
Learn more about my Pricing and Services here. And if you have specific needs or is only interested in outsourcing parts of your recruitment process - or if you are just looking for advice. Feel free to schedule a meeting with me or ping me via LinkedIn.