Current Market in the Medical Devices Recruitment Sector
I’ve recently been asked a couple of common questions by a number people looking for a Medical Devices jobs and companies looking to hire Medical Devices professionals. I thought, as a specialist in Medical Devices Recruitment, I’d cover a couple of them.
Are there many roles available at the moment?
Answer – Quite simply, yes. I have quite a few medical devices clients in Birmingham, Cambridge, London, Boston (US) and other locations who are keen to add to their teams.
They are finding it difficult to find people with the right level of experience. Due to a slowdown in recruitment a couple of years ago, Medical Devices Recruitment has become difficult for companies who are looking for someone with ‘a couple of years’ industry experience.
My suggestion to these companies are to consider people with slightly less or slightly more industry experience or maybe from another complex area (when possible, certain roles cannot allow this). So, if you are looking for a new Medical Devices job but worry that you do not have the correct number of years experience, I’d suggest making an application anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, if a company are looking for an R&D Director, I don’t suggest graduates make applications. But if there is a junior looking role and you have three or four years experience, it is worth making an application. If it is directly to a company, there should be relevance in your application (having a Medical Devices background) so they may consider you for other areas. If via an agency, hopefully you will use a Medical Devices recruitment specialist like Newton Colmore Consulting, who may have other suitable roles for you.
Are there many people looking for a new role?
Answer – A few, currently the Medical Devices recruitment sector is quite short on candidates. This is obviously in line with the unemployment levels being lower than it has been for a very long time – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40947087 . Also, the slowdown in EU migration has slowed down Medical Devices experts moving to the UK.
This means when a Medical Devices company is recruiting, they may need to be a little flexible. I mentioned earlier that companies should consider candidates with a little less or little more experience. Quite often, a person with the right attitude will be a better hire than someone with the wrong attitude and a couple more years experience.
Medical Devices recruitment stays busy due to the unique roles, meaning when a company if looking for a Regulatory Affairs specialist they may also be looking for someone who has submitted FDA 510k submissions. This reduces the chances of finding someone. So, you (as a company) need to either be a little bit flexible or be willing to wait for the right person.
What do you expect from the Medical Devices sector in the next few months?
Answer – Historically, the next two to three months become very busy in Medical Devices recruitment. Medical Devices companies start signing off a lot of new roles and industry specialists start looking for new Medical Devices jobs.
With this, if you are looking for a new member of staff or you are looking for a new role and would like to find out more about Newton Colmore Consulting’s Medical Devices recruitment service please feel free to call me on 0121 268 2240 or email me on andrew.welsh@newtoncolmore.com
Or if you would like to read more about Newton Colmore Consulting’s presence in the Medical Devices Recruitment Sector, please have a look on our dedicated Medical Devices page – https://www.newtoncolmore.com/medical-devices-recruitment/
Last November, when Newton Colmore Consulting attended the Imperial College London’s Bio-engineering Careers Fair, we met Miroslav Gasparek.
Mirosalv described an interesting Medical Devices related project he was going to be working on that required funding. One of the key things Matthew Lowdon and Andrew Welsh wanted Newton Colmore Consulting to do was give back to the Medical Devices sector when we could, so we agreed to help fund the project.
Almost a year on, Miroslav has written the following article on the project that we wanted to share with you;
How students help patients with movement impairments through wearables
“With the rising popularity of devices such as the Apple Watch or Fitbit, wearables are often perceived as extensions of mobile phone function, fashion accessories or as motivational tools for those who want to increase their daily walking distance.
This perception can deceive us into neglecting an important aspect of wearable technologies, which is their medical or therapeutic use, including hearing aids and devices for remote treatment of speech and voice disorders (such as in patients with Parkinson’s disease).
Therefore, our group, nine second year Biomedical Engineering students at Imperial College London, decided to combine the entertaining potential of wearables with their ability to ameliorate consequences of medical disorders. Specifically, we decided to provide an innovative way to interact with physical and digital systems for children with severe movement impairments, such as partial or total paralysis.
Children with severe movement or cognitive disabilities face numerous challenges, including a lack of meaningful and accessible recreational activities. This often brings the feeling of exclusion from the society of their peers. These young people also face the lack of user-friendly educational tools that would enable them to further their academic pursuits.
We decided to tackle this problem by constructing a universal controller that enables users to wirelessly control devices. Our proof of concept example was the control of Scalextric racing cars. Because we were ‘thinking about control’ we called ourselves ThinkControl Group.
A NeuroSky MindWave EEG headset provides the value of a user’s attention as output through processing the electrical signals generated by their brain activity. We used this measured value of attention as the input driving the racing cars at the track.
It means that even if a child suffers from neck-down paralysis, he or she is able to play with racing track with his or her healthy peers and feel included in this funny and leisurely activity.
However, there is additional benefit to this device – because the device requires user’s focus to drive the car, the user’s ability to remain focused can be improved over time, opening the possibility of therapeutic benefits to the user.
We tried the device by ourselves and also cooperated with a school for children with disabilities to test the device; our young patients were truly amazed about the fact that they could take part in the car racing, the activity previously reserved for their peers.
On the other hand, their teachers praised the fact that the retail price of the controller could be kept low – the whole system without the Scalextric would cost up to 300 GBP.
Every year, approximately 1800 children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy, while one in three of these children is unable to walk. Furthermore, there are 1000 people who suffer from spinal cord injury – and there are certainly many children among them.
Therefore, we hope that our project will be a simple, effective and inexpensive tool for people with severe cases of physical and mental disabilities, enabling access to a larger range of recreational activities and providing therapeutic benefits from increased attention span resulting from the use of device. I think that this goes in line with the main goal of bioengineering, which is to improve lives and health of people through modern technologies.
Miroslav Gasparek | Adel Haddad | Ling Li | Lucas Low | Artem Makarov | Kathy Tang
The project was completed with generous philanthropic support of Newton Colmore.
Miroslav Gasparek
Project Manager, Think Control Group
Department of Bioengineering
Imperial College London”
Newton Colmore Consulting are happy to post articles from other students and companies, so if you have something to share in the Medical Devices, Scientific Engineering, Robotics, Science or Data Science fields please get in contact with us at enquires@newtoncolmore.com
It is that time of year where the recruitment sector gets busy, a lot of companies start signing off new roles while also replacing people who decide to move on.
Medical devices recruitment is effected in the same way, but I feel it is a little different at the same time. Candidates in the medical devices sector tend to look for new and exciting technologies or a more diverse use of their skills rather than disliking their current role. I ask people why they are looking for a new role and the normal response is “I’m not actively looking but would like to hear about anything interesting”. This is the type of reply I get from candidates who apply for roles or have their CV registered with us.
When working in other sectors, in the past, I used to hear people say they had problems with the company or they wanted more money and similar reasons. I enjoy working in medical devices recruitment as people focus on the type of work they will be doing.
So if you are looking for a new medical devices role or need to recruit an experienced medical devices expert please do let us know at Newton Colmore Consulting the Medical Devices Recruitment and Scientific Recruitment experts.
I’ve been recruiting for the Medical Devices sector since 2009 (before being involved with Medical Devices Recruitment I recruited in the IT sector) and when I started working in the sector I fell in love with it.
I’m asked quite often “why Medical Devices Recruitment?” and I don’t really have a specific answer to give as there are quite a few.
One of the main reasons I lover Medical Devices Recruitment is the fact I’m helping companies obtain the people they need to produce lifesaving and life improving technologies. This is something I’m very proud to be able to say. I love to learn about new technologies and how they are going to help people all around the world.
Also, the people I deal with are a delight. When I worked in the pure IT sector (not scientific software) I found a lot of the processes were always being pushed and candidates often took the first role they were offered, which meant if a company moved slowly they missed out. Medical Devices Recruitment works differently; candidates have a real passion for the type of technologies they get to work on. I’ve had candidates take roles that are paying less just because of the company feel or the type of medical device they get to work on.
So this is why I started Newton Colmore Consulting with my fellow director and good friend Matthew Lowdon. Since starting in Medical Devices Recruitment in 2009 I’ve also had focuses on Scientific Engineering, Scientific Software, Robotics, Sales & Marketing (both Medical Devices and Scientific) and Pure Science roles. These sectors work in a similar way to the Medical Devices sector.
So if you want to work with people who really have a passion for Medical Devices Recruitment, Scientific Engineering Recruitment, Scientific Software Recruitment, Robotics Recruitment, Sales & Marketing Recruitment and Science Recruitment please get in contact with us at Newton Colmore Consulting on 0121 268 2240 or enquires@newtoncolmore.com
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