What MedTech Candidates Are Evaluating When They Assess Your Company

What You Will Learn in This Post

• What MedTech candidates are trying to establish about a role and company before they accept an offer
• Why different candidates can evaluate exactly the same opportunity very differently
• How your manager, recruitment process and the information you provide influence a candidate's decision
• Why being open about the reality of the opportunity helps the right candidates make better decisions

By the time a candidate sits down for their first interview with you, they have probably already started deciding whether they would accept the job.

They've seen the advert. Looked at your website. Searched the company. Perhaps checked LinkedIn, read reviews or spoken to somebody who knows the business.

And while you're deciding whether they're right for you, they're deciding whether you're right for them.

For somebody you've approached directly, the question can be even more fundamental.

They may not have been looking for another job at all.

They're deciding whether this opportunity gives them enough reason to disrupt a career they were perfectly happy with before you contacted them.

Understanding what candidates are evaluating can help you give them the information they need to make that decision properly.

First: Do They Actually Want the Job?

Before candidates assess your employer brand, benefits or company culture, they're assessing the job itself.

For a MedTech commercial role, that could mean wanting to understand:

• What products or therapy area they'll be working with
• Who the customers and key stakeholders are
• Whether the territory is established or needs developing
• How the territory is currently performing
• What the targets look like
• How much autonomy they'll have
• How much travel is involved
• Whether overnight stays are common
• How much clinical or theatre support is required
• Why the position is available
• What success will look like in the first six to twelve months

A job title alone tells them very little.

Two Territory Manager roles can involve completely different challenges, customers, travel, products and levels of responsibility.

The clearer you are about the job that actually exists, the easier it is for somebody to decide whether they genuinely want it.

Does the Package Make the Move Realistic?

Salary isn't necessarily the most important consideration for every candidate.

But it is a consideration.

If somebody doesn't know what the role pays, you've left them with another question they need answered before they can decide whether the opportunity is realistic.

Where possible, be clear about:

• Basic salary or salary range
• Bonus or commission
• Company car or car allowance
• Pension
• Healthcare
• Holiday entitlement
• Other significant benefits

And make sure the headline numbers mean something.

If you're quoting OTE, candidates may want to understand how the bonus or commission works, what the target is and what level of performance is required to achieve it.

A strong opportunity doesn't have to be the highest-paying one somebody is considering.

But the package still needs to make sense for the experience you want to attract and for the move you're asking somebody to make.

Different Candidates Want Different Things

Employers often ask recruiters what candidates want as though there is one answer.

There isn't.

One candidate may be primarily motivated by earning potential.

Another wants to work with a particular product or therapy area.

Somebody else may want less travel, greater autonomy, a stronger manager, more strategic accounts or their first opportunity to move towards leadership.

Candidates may be weighing:

• Salary and earning potential
• Products and therapy area
• Territory
• Travel
• Autonomy
• Manager and team
• Development
• Progression
• Company stability and direction
• Working arrangements
• Clinical involvement
• Broader commercial responsibility

The same job can therefore look extremely attractive to one candidate and completely wrong for another.

Rather than asking, “What do candidates want?”, the more useful question is:

What does this candidate need from their next move?

That is why understanding somebody's motivation matters before you start selling them the opportunity.

Who Will They Be Working For?

Candidates aren't only assessing the company.

They're assessing the person they'll be working for.

An experienced candidate may want to understand:

• What the manager's style is like
• How much autonomy they'll have
• How frequently the manager works with the team
• How one-to-ones work
• How much field support they can expect
• How the manager handles somebody who needs additional support
• How experienced the existing team is
• How people within the team have developed

Simply saying “I'm not a micromanager” doesn't tell somebody very much.

Give candidates practical examples of how the manager and team actually work together.

If the manager is one of the strongest reasons somebody should join the business, let the candidate experience that during the recruitment process rather than expecting them to take your word for it.

Where Could the Role Take Them?

Progression doesn't have to mean a guaranteed promotion in two years.

In many MedTech businesses, particularly smaller ones, there may not be a perfectly defined career ladder.

Candidates can still assess whether the role will help them develop.

Could they:

• Take responsibility for larger or more strategic accounts?
• Develop deeper product or therapy expertise?
• Become involved in a product launch?
• Gain broader commercial exposure?
• Mentor newer members of the team?
• Become involved in projects outside their core role?
• Build experience towards management?
• Gain exposure to marketing or product management?

Don't promise “excellent career progression” if you can't explain what that could realistically look like.

Real examples of how people have developed within the business are much more useful.

What Do They Need to Know About the Business?

The amount of information a candidate wants about the company will vary.

Somebody considering leaving a large, established manufacturer for a smaller MedTech business may understandably ask more questions about stability, growth and direction.

They may want to understand:

• Why the company is recruiting
• Whether the role is new or a replacement
• How the business is performing
• What is happening with the product portfolio
• Whether the company is growing
• What investment or expansion plans mean for the role
• How established the business or products are in the market
• What support functions are available

You don't need to disclose commercially sensitive information.

But if you're asking somebody to leave a secure role for an opportunity with a business they know relatively little about, expect them to want enough information to understand what they're joining.

Your Recruitment Process Becomes Part of the Evidence

A recruitment process gives candidates information about how your company communicates and makes decisions.

That doesn't mean a long recruitment process is automatically bad or that every hire needs to be made in a week.

Three well-organised interview stages can create a much better impression than two chaotic ones.

Problems arise when candidates experience things such as:

• Repeatedly rearranged interviews
• Long periods without communication
• Unexplained additional interview stages
• Different interviewers giving contradictory information
• The role or requirements repeatedly changing
• Salary information changing late in the process
• No clear indication of what happens next

Delays sometimes happen.

People are unavailable. Business priorities change. Decisions take longer than expected.

The difference is communication.

If something changes, tell the candidate.

A well-run process doesn't need to be rushed. It needs to feel deliberate.

What You Say During Recruitment Creates Expectations

This is where attracting somebody and retaining them begin to overlap.

What you tell a candidate during recruitment becomes part of what they expect when they start.

If you describe an established territory and they discover they're rebuilding it almost from scratch, they'll notice.

If you describe overnight travel as occasional and it turns out to be a normal part of most weeks, they'll notice.

If you promise significant autonomy but every decision requires approval, they'll notice.

If you talk extensively about development but can't explain what development could actually look like, they'll notice that too.

Don't sell a version of the job that the successful candidate won't recognise when they start.

The difficult parts of a role don't necessarily make it unattractive.

A candidate may actively want the challenge of rebuilding a territory or launching a product.

But they need to know that's the opportunity they're accepting.

Candidates Will Check Your Story Elsewhere

You won't be the only source of information a candidate uses.

Depending on the company and the candidate, they may look at:

• Your website
• LinkedIn
• Company news
• Employee reviews
• Current employees
• Former employees
• People within their own MedTech network

You can't control everything they find.

Nor should one negative review or one former employee's opinion automatically be treated as the definitive truth about your business.

Candidates are more likely to build a picture from several sources.

What matters is whether the story they hear elsewhere broadly resembles the one you're telling during recruitment.

If there is a significant difference, expect questions.

Don't Leave Important Gaps for Candidates to Fill Themselves

You can't control exactly what every candidate concludes about your company.

And you won't be the right employer for everybody.

That's fine.

The aim isn't to persuade every candidate that your company is brilliant.

It's to give the people who might genuinely be right for your business enough accurate information to make a proper decision.

Be clear about the role.

Be realistic about the package.

Understand what matters to the individual.

Let them understand the manager and team.

Explain what the opportunity could lead to.

Answer reasonable questions about the business.

Run a recruitment process that communicates properly.

And make sure the job they eventually start broadly resembles the one you described during recruitment.

You cannot control what a candidate concludes about your MedTech business. You can control how much of that conclusion rests on guesswork.

The fewer important gaps you leave candidates to fill with assumptions, the better chance you have of keeping the right people interested.