Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Driscoll.
Megan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am the Founder and CEO of PharmaLogics Recruiting, a global search firm located in Quincy, MA. After 4 years as a successful recruiter in the biotech space, I decided to open up something of my own. In 2003 PharmaLogics Recruiting was established with the mission of becoming the number one biopharmaceutical recruiting company in the world by placing top talent at companies devoted to the development of medicines that improve and save lives. Like many startup companies, we had humble beginnings. Our first office was sublet space in a basement. There were many starts and stops of course and, thankfully, more laughs than tears. In 2008, facing possible extinction with the looming economic crisis underway, I decided to shift our business focus away from the traditional contingent, 25% of base fee recruitment, and launched and an entirely new approach aimed at lowering costs and increasing collaboration by being paid for the hours we actually worked, and not an arbitrary fee. We called ourselves the Anti-Fee agency and things began to take off from there. We were 4 employees in 2008 with 1 million in revenue and today we have over 75 employees and over 10 million in revenue. Most importantly, our office now has windows- with views of the ocean and downtown Boston!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. I started PharmaLogics at the age 26 with little idea how to own and operate my own business, but I would say the most difficult period began once I started a family. When I was on maternity leave with my first child in 2005, I had 2 employees (out of 5 total employees) download our database in an attempt to create a competing firm. We took them to court and won (or does that count because the fee for the lawyers was equal to the settlement, hmmmm) but it was an extremely un-fun experience to navigate with a newborn only 5 weeks old. However, I learned some really important lessons about loyalty and trust, and what that does and doesn’t look like. This was an isolated painful event, but overall, I think it is hard to be a mom and a great leader of a growing company all at the same time. You tend to always feel like your best isn’t good enough. When I am asked how to manage work life balance, my best advice for female entrepreneurs is to focus on the priorities of the day, sometimes that is getting your butt to the school at 10am on a Tuesday for the school play and sometimes that’s a trip to California to visit your best client. You’ll never be able to do it all, so be happy with doing a lot of little things greatly each week and let all the non-essential priorities be pushed.
Please tell us about PharmaLogics Recruiting.
In business for over thirteen years, PharmaLogics is a global search firm exclusively focused on serving the Life Science and Medical Device industries. We offer 3 distinct recruitment platforms: 1-Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) built for companies with aggressive and large hiring plans, 2-Anti-Fee recruitment, built for small hiring projects from 1-20, 3-Small Business Platform, built for start-ups that require services beyond recruitment like onsite presence and HR support.
Our team is known for becoming a true partner in the hiring process by delivering top talent, decreasing time to fill, and reducing overall placement cost per hire due to our unique hourly-rate business models. Our ability to cut recruitment costs and time to fill without sacrificing quality, along with the partnerships we build with our clients, truly sets us apart from other recruitment firms.
Our employees are amazing and therefore, our culture is our greatest asset. We maintain a promote from within policy, we grant top performers partnership, we support the health, wellbeing, and family life of our employees through a fantastic wellness program including 3 work out classes per week and yoga, flexible schedules and aggressive parental leave policies.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
No….all the mistakes and challenges were part of the process. It’s all about the journey. You only spend 10% of the time looking at the vista, it’s the hike that takes up the 90%, so you better embrace and enjoy as much of it as you can!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pharmalogicsrecruiting.com
- Phone: 781-848-55500
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/pharmalogics/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PharmaLogicsRecruiting
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PharmaLogicsCo
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pharmalogics-recruiting
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