C-Suite Conversation: Grace Niwa, Vertex

We recently were joined by Grace Niwa, Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition, Talent Intelligence, and Early Career at Vertex. We discussed how the biotech company manages its talent acquisition and adjusts to a changing workplace environment in its tireless pursuit of top talent. Grace touches on the need for a holistic approach to talent acquisition, and shared responsibility across the whole organization when it comes to attracting and hiring talent.

Introduction: 

At Vertex, I anchor my team in the belief that our patients can’t wait for the right candidates to find us! We have a sense of urgency to our work and are focused on hiring the best-qualified talent who will thrive in our distinct culture. We have built a culture where every employee is a talent ambassador of the company. 

Tell us about how Vertex manages talent acquisition
We aim to be a world-class strategic data-driven talent function to the business - moving away from a transactional approach to really understanding and knowing the talent we need from a short, and long-term lens

That means we need a deeper knowledge of the external talent landscape which is provided by the talent intelligence team, a TA COE within the team that enables our recruiters to consult with hiring leaders on all aspects of the role profile, providing an outside-in perspective and ensuring we can deliver according to the talent supply, and not just demand.  This has been pivotal in moving from being an order taker to a strategic advisor, especially as we are hiring roles that are niche and difficult to recruit. We also have a small team of talent scouts who are aligned with the business and are solely focused on sourcing for key priority roles and pipelining for future talent needs. 

The talent acquisition team is centralized and aligned by the business function which is focused on executive director and below roles. We also have a global executive search team that focuses on VP and above roles.  In addition, approx 10% of our hires come from the early & emerging talent team from the conversions of interns, coops, as well as early talent from 13 global programs that we have in the US and internationally. We embed talent branding and ID&E in all of our hiring efforts with a constant eye on talent operations and enablement to provide a seamless experience internally and externally. 

For us, Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (ID&E) is critical to hiring the best-qualified talent. 

We hire and promote the best-qualified candidates for our roles, --- irrespective of an individual's protected class. By using ID&E, we ensure we don’t limit ourselves and find the best talent by looking for candidates from a diverse range of sources. ID&E also helps ensure that we run an inclusive and fair process so we select the candidate that best meets our requirements vs. selecting the candidate that meets our personal preferences.

How are you working on up-skilling your talent acquisition function?

We believe in the “talent advisor excellence model”, where the recruiter must not only be a talent advisor but a data analyst, recruitment marketer, operational change agent, and also a hiring strategist.  To prepare ourselves for the future of talent acquisition, we’re focused on going back to basics by reviewing our job descriptions, TA tech stack, recruitment curriculums, recruiter scorecards, and hiring manager interview training and revamping them. We’re also working on embedding new skills and capabilities that are needed to set us up for success. We also signed up for socialtalent.com which is a great learning platform for TA.  It offers expert training for talent acquisition teams to learn the newest techniques on sourcing, hiring strategies, interviewing, and more. Another way of skilling up our recruiters is by teaching them how to source by having sessions we call “Crack the Req '' where we take a difficult role and break into groups using different tools to find unique talent pools. Lastly, we’ve also focused on training our recruiters to work in Beamery, our CRM to build talent pipelines and talent pools for roles that we know will be “always on” and we utilize their “Talent Match” tool to help us filter hundreds of applicants to find the best matches to the job description. 

How do you scale TA as you grow? 

We are in a business where change is constant and having a scalable talent strategy means we have to be ready for whatever comes next whether that’s a recent acquisition or a commercial launch.  The most important thing is to help manage the fluctuation of hiring needs, and making sure we don’t lose sight of the quality of the hire. 

We have a recruiting operating model where a core talent acquisition team is aligned by business function and our TA COEs as mentioned before.  As we scale, we leverage contract recruiters,  RPO, and external firms that specialize in niche roles and commercial and medical volume recruitment to help us as the demand ebbs and flows. 

We have to remain agile to adapt to changing circumstances in order for the business to have access to the right people at the right time.