Hiring in life sciences is high-stakes. The right people drive innovation, ensure compliance, and shape long-term success. But too often, interviews focus on past experience instead of future impact.
In this insight, Aimee Brenner shares how life sciences hiring leaders can sharpen their interview approach, using the STAR method, evidence-based questions, and techniques to assess potential as well as experience. Small shifts that lead to stronger, more strategic hires.
Insight by: Aimee Brenner, Partner and Principal Key Account Manager | Permanent Division | Q&R Specialist
If you're leading hiring in life sciences, I’m sure you’ve sat through interviews that felt like a tick-box exercise, only to realise months later that the experience you assessed in the interview doesn’t guarantee the impact you were expecting.
Whether you're scaling an R&D team, expanding your QA function, or onboarding regulatory talent for a critical project, the people you hire directly shape your outcomes. And yet, too many interviews focus solely on past roles, not future impact. In our earlier piece on why interviewers matter in hiring, we explored the pivotal role interviewers play in that process. This follow-up dives into how to equip them with the right tools to make better hiring decisions.
In an industry where innovation moves faster than job descriptions can keep up, it’s no longer enough to hire based on what someone has done. You need to uncover what they’re capable of doing next and whether they can grow with your business.
And this is where smarter interviewing techniques come in. This blog explores three critical tools every hiring leader should be using. Because building high-performing teams doesn’t start with a job title. It starts with asking better questions. These are the areas that we are diving into this blog:
Every interview tells a story. But without structure, that story can be inconsistent, surface-level, or hard to compare with other candidates in process. That’s where the STAR method comes in.
Situation → Task → Action → Result
This behavioural framework helps interviewers dig beneath the surface and uncover how candidates think, act, and deliver.
Instead of “What are your strengths?”, you should be asking: “Tell me about a time you had to identify a deviation in a manufacturing batch. What happened? What did you do, and what was the outcome?”
In high-stakes life sciences roles, whether in R&D, QA, Regulatory or any other role, the STAR method helps you go from assumptions to evidence.
Why the STAR method works
Example of practical prompts to try
Here are some examples of STAR-based, evidence-backed questions tailored to common competencies in life sciences:
What great STAR answers sound like
Here is what a good answer should look like. And always score against a defined rubric so your decision is based on evidence, not impressions.
Situation/Task: Short, specific, and clearly scoped
Action: The candidate clearly explains the specific steps they took, not just what the team did. If they default to “we,” that’s your cue to dig deeper and uncover their individual contribution. Look for ownership, initiative, and clarity of role.
Result: Clear outcome, ideally with measurable impact (“reduced deviation rate by 30%,” “accelerated audit prep by 2 weeks”)
If any part is missing, prompt them:
Even the most experienced hiring managers are human. We’re wired to favour charisma, familiarity, or shared experience, and this often happens unconsciously. Evidence-based interviewing protects your hiring decisions from bias by making them structured, replicable, and grounded in real data.
Key features:
This is especially important in life sciences, where teams are often global, cross-functional, and made up of both specialists and generalists.
Try these evidence-based question types like:
Combined with work samples, case scenarios, or technical reviews, these questions build a multidimensional view of each candidate and allow your team to make smarter, fairer decisions.
Not every role requires 10 years of highly specific experience. And not every high-performer comes from the "ideal" background.
Sometimes, your next star hire is someone who hasn’t done the exact job before, but has the mindset, ability, and drive to grow into it fast. So the question becomes: when do you hire for experience, and when do you prioritise potential?
When to hire for experience:
When to hire for potential:
The best interview processes are designed to reveal both experience and potential, and help you decide where the trade-off is worth it.
Hiring for potential doesn’t mean guessing. It means testing for things that don’t show up on a CV, like resilience, curiosity, and self-awareness. Here’s how to structure it:
1. Add a case or work-sample task
Ask candidates to walk through how they’d approach a real-world challenge: “You’ve just joined a new QA team mid-project and noticed gaps in the documentation. What’s your first step?”
This reveals critical thinking, prioritisation, and communication, key traits for potential-based hires.
2. Ask about learning
“Tell me about a time you had to learn something completely new. How did you approach it?”. You’re looking for resourcefulness, initiative, and coachability.
3. Test reflection
“What’s a project or decision you would approach differently today?”. This shows self-awareness, maturity, and adaptability.
If candidates are vague or overly self-promoting, it may be a red flag. If they’re honest, specific, and thoughtful, they’re likely to grow quickly.
Five Practical Shifts for Life Sciences Hiring Managers
Final Thought:
Talent Can Be Taught. Traits Can’t. Hiring for experience will get you capability. Hiring for potential will get you impact.
At Panda, I work with clients across the Life Sciences industry to build interview strategies that balance both. I support teams in asking the right questions, identifying real potential, and avoiding the blind spots that lead to mis-hires. Because when you're building something that could change lives, the right talent isn’t optional. It’s foundational.
Not sure where to begin with improving your interview process? Let’s take 30 minutes to map it out. I’ll happily share some small adjustments that are helping our current partners to make better hiring decisions. Book a time here or reach out via email below.
