When job requirements kill your talent pipeline

Throughout my experience in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and more recently assisting businesses with their recruitment needs at SQUIPP, I have frequently noticed a common issue emerging within HR departments regarding job descriptions. Companies dedicate significant time and resources to crafting job descriptions and outlining specific job requirements, aiming to draw in the top candidates. Despite its significance, these requirements often have the unintended consequence of shrinking the talent pool much more than anticipated.



This trend occurs especially in the chemical and life sciences sectors, where the intricacies of science, strict regulatory requirements, and fast-paced technological advancements drive companies to seek candidates with specialized expertise. To reduce uncertainty, hiring managers often include an extensive list of qualifications in job postings, detailing specific technical competencies, exact years of experience in similar positions, knowledge of specific regulatory agencies, or familiarity with specialized technologies that may be unique to only a few organizations.

Although the rationale behind this method is valid and often driven by the aim to find someone who can immediately add value in challenging settings, the increasing number of requirements can gradually turn a job description into a quest for an almost ideal candidate who is seldom found in reality. As the criteria list expands and becomes more complex, numerous competent professionals with solid scientific backgrounds, pertinent industry experience, and a capacity to quickly learn may choose not to apply because they believe they do not fulfill every requirement outlined in the advertisement.

Over time, this dynamic contributes to a paradox that many organizations in chemical and life sciences industries are currently facing. In other words, the challenge is not the absence of talent in the market, but the way opportunities are presented to that talent.

From my perspective, the professionals who ultimately succeed in these sectors are rarely those who match every line of a job description perfectly. They are professionals who combine scientific thinking, intellectual curiosity, adaptability and the capacity to collaborate across disciplines, qualities that cannot easily be identified through a broad checklist of technical requirements.

For this reason, defining effective job requirements should not be viewed simply as an administrative exercise in writing a job advertisement. It is a component that directly influences the size and quality of the talent pipeline a company will be able to access. When requirements are designed thoughtfully, they help organizations attract strong candidates while maintaining enough openness to identify professionals who can grow into the role and contribute meaningfully over time.

In the following sections, I will share practical perspectives on how companies working in chemical and life sciences industries can define job requirements in a way that supports recruitment instead of unintentionally limiting it, nevertheless maintaining the high standards that these industries legitimately require.

Focus on capabilities, not on credentials

There is a meaningful difference between what someone has done and what they are capable of doing. Traditional job descriptions in technical industries tend to lean hard on the former: years spent in a specific function, previous exposure to a particular product class, hands-on time with a named analytical platform. These things are easy to verify, which is probably why they have become default.

But experience alone is a poor predictor of performance, especially in industries evolving as fast as biologics, advanced materials, or regulatory strategy. Someone can have spent a decade in a role without developing problem-solving ability. Someone else can arrive from an adjacent field and master the specifics in months, because they know how to think.

The capabilities that consistently distinguish strong performers in chemical and life sciences tend to look like this:

• Scientific reasoning: the ability to interpret data, question assumptions, and draw sound conclusions regardless of the specific technique used
• Learning agility: not just willingness to learn, but a demonstrated track record of picking up new tools and methods quickly
• Systems thinking: understanding how a decision in one part of the process folds through quality, manufacturing, regulatory, or commercial outcomes
• Cross-functional collaboration: the ability to work across R&D, quality, supply chain, and regulatory without losing coherence
• Problem-solving under uncertainty: handling deviations, unexpected results, and ambiguous regulatory questions with composure and rigour

Few of these appear naturally in an experience checklist. But they can be covered through better job description language. Compare these two versions of the same requirement:

• “10 years of experience in biologics manufacturing with monoclonal antibodies.”
• “Demonstrated ability to lead complex biologics manufacturing processes and resolve technical challenges at scale.”

The second version is no less demanding. But it opens the door to a scientist from a related field who has led comparable complexity elsewhere, someone the first version would have filtered out before they even read the rest of the ad.



Capability-focused job descriptions also tend to attract more diverse candidates. Research consistently shows that many qualified professionals, particularly women and candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, are more likely to self-select out when they don’t meet every listed criterion. Shifting emphasis from credentials to competencies doesn’t just improve the pipeline, it broadens it.

Separate what is essential from what is simply nice to have

Every job description accumulates requirements through a kind of organisational inflexibiliy. The regulatory team adds a criterion, quality adds another, the hiring manager throws in three more, just in case. Each item feels reasonable in isolation, but together they turn the job ad into a wish list that no realistic candidate fully satisfies. The fix is straightforward, though it requires discipline: distinguish what a candidate must bring on day one from what they can reasonably develop once in the role.

Essential requirements are those directly tied to the core responsibilities, knowledge or experience without which the person could not perform safely or credibly from the start. In regulated environments, this bar does exist and should be respected. A regulatory affairs professional must understand the submission framework they will be working in. A GMP manufacturing lead needs solid compliance foundations. These are not preferences, they are prerequisites.



Everything else deserves more scrutiny. Familiarity with a specific digital platform, exposure to a particular molecule type, experience within a certain corporate structure, these may accelerate onboarding but rarely determine long-term success. Professionals in scientific fields are accustomed to continuous learning, so a strong candidate with the right foundations will acquire secondary knowledge quickly.

A useful test when reviewing each criterion: could a professional realistically learn this within a reasonable onboarding period? If yes, it belongs in the “would be advantageous” column. If no, if the gap would compromise the person’s ability to make sound decisions from the start, then it belongs in the must-have list.

When job descriptions make this distinction clearly, they become easier to read and more credible to candidates. Professionals who meet the core requirements but not every preferred criterion feel encouraged to apply rather than deterred. Recruiters can focus on what actually is important, and hiring managers end up comparing a wider range of strong profiles rather than a narrow shortlist of near-identical ones.

Lead with the mission, not the profilee.

Most job descriptions are written backwards, they open with a list of qualifications, then mention the responsibilities, and often bury the actual purpose of the role somewhere near the end, if they include it at all.

From a candidate’s perspective, this is exactly the wrong way around. Scientists, engineers, and regulatory professionals are not primarily motivated by a list of criteria they happen to match. They are motivated by problems worth solving, they want to understand what they will be working on, what impact it will have, and where the real challenges lie.

When a job description leads with the mission, the reason this position exists, the outcomes expected, the type of projects involved, it gives candidates something to connect with before they assess their own fit. That emotional engagement matters, it influences whether a qualified person keeps reading or moves on.

This is particularly relevant in chemical and life sciences, where many roles span multiple disciplines. A regulatory affairs manager might work closely with manufacturing, clinical, and commercial teams. An R&D scientist might split their time between internal development and external partnerships. A quality leader might be the linchpin between production, supply chain, and health authorities. When the full scope of a role is clearly described, candidates from adjacent fields can more easily recognise how their experience translates.



A practical approach: start the job description with two or three sentences that explain why the role exists and what success looks like after the first year. Then build the requirements around that mission rather than presenting them as a standalone checklist. The shift in framing is subtle, but the effect on candidate quality and volume is often significant.

Practical principles for writing better job descriptions

Translating these ideas into practice does not require a complete overhaul of your hiring process. A few deliberate adjustments to how job descriptions are drafted make a real difference.

1.      Start with the mission. Open by explaining why the role exists and what the person hired will be expected to achieve. Candidates should understand the impact of the position before they read a single requirement.

2.    Identify the capabilities that drive success. Rather than listing every possible qualification, focus on the competencies that determine whether someone will actually perform well: scientific reasoning, regulatory awareness, collaboration, and the ability to learn.

3.    Separate essential from desirable. Be explicit about which requirements are non-negotiable and which represent advantageous experience. This transparency reassures candidates and makes the evaluation process cleaner.

4.    Avoid overly narrow experience requirements. Requiring candidates to have performed the exact same role in an identical context often eliminates people with strong transferable expertise. Related experience from adjacent scientific or regulatory environments is frequently just as valuable.

5.    Keep it focused and readable. Long, dense job advertisements lose candidates before they reach the application button. A clear structure, mission, key responsibilities, essential qualifications, desirable experience helps candidates quickly assess whether the opportunity is relevant.

A job description is not a compliance exercise or a defensive document designed to screen out uncertainty. It is an invitation to the right person to consider working with you. In chemical and life sciences, where innovation increasingly happens at the boundaries between disciplines, the professionals who make the greatest impact are rarely those who match every line of a specification. They are the ones who combine deep scientific instinct with the ability to learn, adapt, and collaborate across boundaries, qualities that no checklist fully captures.

Writing a job description that reflects this reality does not compromise standards, it aligns them with what actually drives performance and in a market where skilled professionals have options, that kind of clarity about what matters is itself a competitive advantage.