VMIC Case Study - Blackfield Associates - Life Science Talent Partner

We partnered with VMIC to support them through the establishment of their initial facility,
building complete teams from the ground up.

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ABOUT VMIC

VMIC – the 75,000 square foot Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre was the first of its kind in the UK. Founded and supported by the University of Oxford, Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, VMIC’s goal was to provide strategic development and manufacturing capability for vaccines.

OVERVIEW

As a not-for-profit organisation, heavily government funded and with its founding members’ combined expertise in novel vaccines, VMIC is set to lead the way in vaccine development, particularly in the face of COVID-19.

We partnered with VMIC to support them through the establishment of their initial facility at the Harwell Campus in Didcot, helping them to build complete teams from the ground up.

UNDERSTANDING THEIR NEEDS

The scope covered all the areas detailed below, while adding value to their recruitment process. Blackfield Associates was appointed as an exclusive partner for permanent recruitment for senior management and mid-level roles within:

Engineering
Process & Analytical Development
Quality Control & Assurance
Project Management
Manufacturing

IDENTIFYING THE CHALLENGES

It was important that the chosen partner could help with the following challenges:

Entire teams of specialists needed to be recruited

A brand new entity.

Time was critical

All milestones had been brought forward owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Benchmarking and Market insights

Essential to ensure VMIC presented an attractive opportunity to potential candidates.

VMIC'S AIM

We partnered with VMIC to support them through the establishment of their initial facility at the Harwell Campus in Didcot, helping them to build complete teams from the ground up. Their objectives were to:

Fill the role with a high-quality candidate

Source candidates with at least 8-10 years’ experience

Fill the role within a 3 month time frame

Position client as an employer of choice

OUR BESPOKE STAFFING SOLUTION

We completed a full consultation process to understand their project objectives and deadlines. This included reviewing their manpower schedule, supporting the design of the recruitment process and agreeing a marketing strategy to ensure a consistent message was presented to the market. We agreed timelines for the delivery of the first recruitment phases during late 2020 and the second phase in early 2021.

We carried out an extensive consultancy process with all parts of VMIC’s business to understand the structure of the teams they were building, the company culture that they were aiming for, critical timelines and the phases to be rolled out.

DELIVERING ADDITIONAL VALUE

In addition to the soft cost savings and benefits already outlined, we also delivered the following benefits to MakeUK:

Liaised with VMIC’s PR team to build a brand image to use in advertisements to ensure a consistent message and approach.

Developed job descriptions

Carried out extensive market mapping to identify where to locate the skills required

Delivered a candidate onboarding process to ensure that new starters are fully compliant covering right to work, referencing and DBS checks

Recruitment support continued in an ad hoc manner throughout the remainder of 2021/22 until the organisation was ready to be sold.

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