Does this situation sound familiar? Recently, at a pharmaceutical company, one of the bench chemists failed to be diligent in filling out required documentation. She was given a counseling session where the tasks were reviewed and stress was placed on how critical it was to document the work she was performing. It didn’t take. She was brought in again, a week or so later, and the same issues were discussed.  Still, no improvement. At the third — and final — session, she expressed her dismay at being counseled. Her angry reaction was more baffling to the supervisor than the poor documentation.

It was apparent she did not possess the natural behaviors to do the job. She was in the wrong role. And, of course, she was putting the company at risk by not adhering to the standards required of her job. A lot of time, effort, and resources had been put into her hiring and training — only to have the company begin the hiring process all over again.

Chief executives at CROs and CMOs might be surprised to find that a mis-hire like this one can cost organizations at least three times that employee’s annual salary. Retaining the person for too long can double that cost.

A common complaint we hear from managers and supervisors in pharma and biotech firms is the lack of improvements of some of their subordinates. As a result, these managers may spend 80 percent of their time trying to change the behavior of the lowest 20 percent of their team.

You can avoid the extraordinary expenses associated with a mis-hire by committing to behavioral interviewing. You can have your in-house team undergo training and/or hire outside recruiters who are already skilled in focusing on identifying the necessary behaviors. They can work with you to determine what behaviors are necessary for the position and then determine if potential new hires possesses those traits.  

While exact matches cannot be guaranteed, if companies and their recruiters realized that behaviors, (and recent successful performance), are a better predictor of future success than experience, education, and personality, they could find, hire, and retain the right people. Matching the innate behaviors of the candidates to those required for the job increases the odds of getting a better fit and eliminates the expensive costs brought about by a mis-hire. Those responsible for hiring will seek people who are naturally good at what is required of the job, using their gifts to achieve success for themselves and the company.

Benchmarking employees in manufacturing and research organizations — taking peak performers and doing an analysis of what behaviors they have that make them successful — provides a template for future hiring and a means to analyze the employees and rank them an A, B, or C. Using these rather quick assessments, you would then know how many A players you have on your team, how many B players (who could become A players with some coaching and training), and how many C players you have (those who are mis-cast in their roles and should be encouraged to find better-suited positions).

When companies begin using behavioral interviewing techniques, they are much more likely to hire someone who will have the naturally occurring behaviors to ensure later probability of success (also known as “getting the right people on the bus”). This holds true across the gamut of positions in the pharma and biotech industries. These “naturally occurring behaviors” are critical to making the match that benefits both the company’s bottom line and the employee’s career.

If your firm is seeking to fill a position, for example, for a team leader with a regulatory, pharmaceutical, or research background, act smart: Whatever the position, look beyond the required basics of education, skills, and job experience. Instead, consider the outcomes you need this person to achieve and the traits necessary to accomplish these outcomes. Your recruiters should be devoting time, talent, and resources to determine what is needed for this open position.  Assess the needs, identify the necessary behaviors for the job, and rank them in priority order. Then, the focus shifts to the search for the candidates who match that set of behaviors.

This type of interviewing, not often utilized by many companies and recruiters, requires a willingness to take a little more time than usual at the beginning to determine what comprises the “right” set of behaviors needed. Identify and then prioritize the behaviors after reviewing the expected outcomes of the person to hold this role.

Although many firms, including Fortune 500 companies, have embraced the concept of behavioral interviewing, they may not be doing it especially well. It’s relatively new and, while a lot of managers may have heard of it, they are not fully familiar with it. Whatever the size of the company, it can be used to make smarter hiring choices.

Behavioral interviewing is not a one-size-fits-all solution, since each job and each company is different, even within the same industry. It involves the art of digging into candidates’ past experiences to seek clear examples of how they have demonstrated success or competency using the behaviors necessary for the new position. What strengths do they possess that allow them to utilize that specific behavior? Interview questions should be designed to solicit this and other information to determine how well the candidates have exhibited the required behaviors.

Using these techniques, the firm eliminates non-conforming candidates even before the interview process, and then interviews two or three candidates (whose past successes have been identified) instead of six to 10, saving time and money. This increases the odds of hiring those who will be more productive and need less hand-holding. They may need coaching, but they have the gifts to do the job.

Progressive companies find behavioral interviewing an important part of the hiring process. In fact, it is the process. Skilled interviewers take every interaction into account:  interviews by phone and in person with individuals, casual conversation, lunches, emails, and additional phone calls, as well as contacts with references — they all add something to the understanding of what this person is all about.

The results are time-efficient instead of time-consuming, substantive instead of subjective, and cost-efficient instead of costly. And if the open position is a leadership one, whether in a regulatory or quality department, or anywhere else in the company, the interviewing techniques are even more critical.

Even potential employees’ own questions help form a profile of their behaviors and either strengthen or weaken their chances. In addition, how they act and interact give the team the opportunity to scrutinize the candidates and observe the behaviors in action. What is their motivation?  How do they gather and process information? What is the method of answering?   

In such a competitive industry, the pressure is on for you to hire and retain top-quality personnel. If these efforts falter, your firm will shoot itself in the pocketbook, but that doesn’t have to happen.