The Challenge

A global biopharmaceutical leader UCB, bringing life-changing drugs to market is highly dependent on having the right employees in place, noted Jonathan Berlan, UCB’s Global Head of Talent Acquisition.

When the company planned to launch six new drugs over a five-year period, Berlan faced the challenge of transforming the talent experience for a global hiring effort that would fulfill launch excellence capabilities — including recruiting a new sales force, production line, medical expertise, and all other support functions.

One of the biggest barriers to hiring? The initial application process stood at 20 minutes and resulted in a 50% dropoff rate. Plus, with no Talent CRM to collect and store candidate data, the group lacked insight into their talent pipeline and couldn’t execute targeted campaigns for outreach and continuous engagement towards leads or warm candidates.

“Previously, we were highly dependent on ‘post and pray’ tactics, as well as outside recruiting agencies to fill roles,” Berlan said. That came at a significant cost to the organization — one of the driving factors that justified finding a solution that could unify their people, their processes, and their data.

The Solution

UCB chose to implement Phenom’s Intelligent Talent Experience platform to re-imagine important TA functions like candidate sourcing, attraction, and engagement. The following capabilities stood out:

• Career site that powers an effortless candidate experience

• Seamless apply flow, with the ability to duplicate across multiple languages

• Integration with existing SAP SuccessFactors ATS

• Talent CRM with AI and automations

• Data analytics with insights into talent pipeline and sourcing

Of merit is passive lead detection, which enables the team to capture the information of silver medalists and other best-fit candidates — even if they don’t apply. Because their Phenom Career Site also gives job seekers the option to join UCB’s Talent Community, recruiters can immediately and strategically nurture leads who have engaged with UCB and opted in to receive communications.

From hyper-personalized emails run through the Phenom Talent CRM and Phenom Campaigns to automated job alerts and helpful tips on interviewing and upcoming events, “This helpful, real-time outreach has generated a lot of interest,” Berlan said.

The Results

That original six-drug launch that prompted UCB’s journey with Phenom is on track for a successful conclusion sooner than expected, thanks to more accessible talent and efficient hiring practices. “Using Phenom gives us better control over talent pipeline, source mix, time to hire and cost per hire,” Berlan said. “Increasing the volume of candidates in the pipeline is also increasing the quality of our talent pools.”

A Better Experience for Candidates and Recruiters

After using Phenom to overhaul their apply flow and add key automations, UCB cut their time to apply from 20 minutes to four minutes. “We have higher conversion, and for people who don’t complete the application, we can keep them as leads to go back and re-engage with. Before, we would have lost them completely,” Berlan said.

With the deep personalization offered on the Career Site, candidates get the benefit of tailored job recommendations, as well as customized content that matches their interests and stage in the job search.

For recruiters, the platform offers different regions the flexibility to focus more time on activities they love, instead of the more mundane tasks automation can handle, Berlan shared.

Business Impacts and ROI

UCB’s overhauled talent experience is enabling the company to advance a major business objective and company purpose: to launch life-changing drugs globally, getting them to the people who need them.

Now, the team also has better visibility into candidate sourcing, including cost-effective sources like internal candidates and referrals. “It gives you the power to tweak cost per hire. If you’re bringing down your agency spend, that frees up resources to invest in other parts of the business, including in recruitment,” Berlan noted. In just one quarter, the team saw 15,128 new candidate profiles created in their Talent CRM — 14,216 came exclusively from Phenom-generated sources.

What UCB Is Achieving With Phenom:

*Based on Q2 2023 Phenom data

• 80%

  Reduction in time to apply, from 20 minutes to 4 minutes

• 78%

  Conversion rate of leads to applicants*

• 93%

  New candidate profiles originated exclusively from Phenom-generated sources*

The Future

Berlan and his team are staying focused on advancing UCB’s mission to help people live the highest quality life possible through innovative solutions.

“Our pace and depth of change is almost unthinkable for a company on the outside, but we’re going to do it because we have the right people in place,” Berlan said.

Moving forward, internal mobility will be a key initiative.“We’re aiming to create a connected experience for all our talent stakeholders,” he said. “Phenom can power that in the background.”