But where do you find those rare creatures who understand both business and science? That's not a question I can answer myself, so I asked a man who recruits people for a living: Jason Finkelstein of Glocap Tech in New York.
TH: It's tough enough recruiting scientists and engineers with the right skill set for nanotech companies, so how does one go about finding a recruiter who understands the field?
JF: The smart recruiter will already know the websites that engineers, scientists and researchers frequent (for example nanotechweb.org) and the publications that they read. The recruiter should be attracted to the same places.
If a job-seeker is interested in this particular area of technology, there are only so many sources of concentrated information. The intelligent recruiter will make sure that their name is distributed in all of these places so that an almost automatic association is made between jobs in MEMS/microsystems/nanotechnology and the recruiter. When a candidate is ready to look for a job, he or she will either already know who the recruiter involved in this technology is, or will know the information sources focused on that field.
When I speak to job-seekers, I think my passion for small tech and the future of the industry comes through. I make sure to communicate that I'm as excited about the science and technology as the job-seeker is (or should be). That way, they know they've found someone who not only knows and understands the field, but is an ardent supporter of it.
What kind of positions are out there right now, and how difficult is it to fill them?
I'm mostly seeing jobs that require senior engineers with proven experience building commercially successful, volume-manufactured advanced technology products. If the product was based on a disruptive technology, such as semiconductors on plastic or lab-on-a-chip, all the better. Venture capitalists and their portfolio companies are continuing to advocate hiring people that have track records of success.
For the more junior positions, I'm seeing minimum requirements of a Master's or PhD and some work experience, but few companies will pay a recruiter to find them a fresh PhD with little or no industry experience when they can find that person themselves by looking to universities.
I'm also seeing some demand for management with the same kind of successful product track record. For the most part, however, if a company has raised venture capital and is hiring, it already has a top-tier core management team in place. That's part of why the venture-capital firm was willing to invest.
The open positions are not easy to fill - that's why companies call me and give these searches to Glocap. Finding someone that has the product track record in the right industry considerably narrows the field of viable candidates. From this pool you need a candidate who is interested in changing jobs, who fits into an already existing team and who ideally has the multidisciplinary background required to develop a nanotechnology-enabled product.
Next week, we'll look at what sort of people are needed and how many are out there.