People searching for help with a pharmaceutical career meet several kinds of provider that look similar from the outside and solve different problems. This page describes four of them and says where this practice differs. Everything stated about another provider is taken from that provider's own public pages, and where their model is not published the page says so rather than guessing.
A disclosure first, because it changes how you should read the rest. This page is published by MoreThanCareer.de, which is one of the options. Treat it as an informed account from an interested party. The provider pages are linked so you can check them.
A Switzerland-focused career service aimed at people entering or moving within the Swiss job market, with a strong weighting towards internationals arriving in the country. Its published material centres on Swiss application conventions, the CV and motivation letter as Swiss employers expect them, and the mechanics of the Swiss market for someone who has not worked in it.
Where it fits: you are targeting Switzerland specifically, you are new to the Swiss market, and the country-specific conventions are the thing standing between you and interviews. That is a real and well-defined problem and a Swiss specialist is a sensible answer to it.
Where it does not: a cross-border pharmaceutical search, or a search that needs someone who has recruited inside pharma rather than someone who knows one national market well.
Built for the transition out of academia into industry, with a scientist and doctoral researcher audience. The problem it addresses is translation: a PhD or postdoc record written in academic terms does not read as industry-relevant to an industry reader, and the people who need that solved are numerous and badly served.
Where it fits: you are finishing a doctorate or a postdoc, you have never worked in industry, and the question you cannot answer is which industry roles you are actually a candidate for.
Where it does not: a mid-career or senior move inside pharma, where the problem is positioning against people who already do the job rather than translation out of academia.
A pharmaceutical-sector coaching practice whose published positioning is on coaching and professional development within the industry. Its emphasis, from its own material, sits on the coaching relationship and on personal and professional development rather than on the hiring process as a mechanism.
Where it fits: you want development coaching from someone who understands the industry context, and your question is about direction or performance rather than about why applications are not converting.
Where it does not: a search problem. If the issue is that a strong record is not producing interviews, the useful expertise is in what happens on the hiring side, and coaching qualifications are a different discipline from recruiting experience.
A German outplacement and career consultancy, working across sectors rather than in pharma alone, and operating substantially in the employer-funded outplacement model, where the departing employer pays for the support.
Where it fits: you are leaving a role under a severance or Aufhebungsvertrag arrangement and outplacement support is on the table. Take it. Employer-funded support costs you nothing and a generalist consultancy with scale runs a competent process.
Where it does not: two situations. If the employer is not paying, you are buying a generalist service at your own expense when a sector specialist exists. And there is a structural point worth understanding about who the client is: in employer-funded outplacement the employer commissions and pays for the service, and a candidate-funded arrangement puts you in that position instead. Neither model is dishonest. They answer to different people.
Three things, stated plainly.
The experience is from the hiring side. Seventeen years in recruitment, fourteen of them in pharmaceutical and CRO environments, the most recent nine at Bayer AG and the five before that at ICON and Syneos Health. Over 50,000 CVs read and more than 10,000 candidates personally screened. That is a different qualification from a coaching certificate, and it is the relevant one when the problem is that good applications are not converting, because the answer lies in what happens after you press send.
Reverse recruitment is a service here, not a metaphor. A CV and LinkedIn rewrite first, then a live search across LinkedIn, Google Jobs and company career pages, each role presented with a written read on it, and once you green-light a specific role, a tailored CV and cover letter written and submitted for that vacancy in your name. Plus the target company list, networking guidance and message templates, and network introductions where the match is genuine. What it is not is a promise to present you to employers as a matter of course.
Both sides of the market, with the rules published. Pharmaceutical employers retain this practice as a freelance recruiter; pharmaceutical professionals pay it for coaching. That is a real conflict if it is not managed, so four rules are published and applied: no candidate is submitted to a mandate without explicit written consent; a candidate is told when a role in play is one recruited for; candidates never pay a placement fee; and information is not carried between the two sides. Most providers are on one side of that line. This one is on both and says how.
Ask yourself what the actual obstacle is.
If it is a country's conventions, take the country specialist. If it is getting out of academia, take the academia specialist. If it is direction rather than search, take a development coach. If your employer is paying for outplacement, take the outplacement. And if the obstacle is that a strong pharmaceutical record is not producing interviews, take somebody who spent years deciding which records did.
No, and it says so at the top. It is published by MoreThanCareer.de, which is one of the options described. Everything stated about another provider comes from that provider's own public pages, and their sites are linked so you can check. Read it as an informed account from an interested party.
It depends on what the actual obstacle is. If it is a country's application conventions, a country specialist. If it is getting out of academia into industry, an academia-to-industry specialist. If it is direction rather than search, a development coach. If your employer is funding outplacement, take the outplacement. If a strong pharmaceutical record is not producing interviews, someone with hiring-side experience in pharma.
Who commissions the work. In employer-funded outplacement the departing employer pays, so the service answers to the employer. In a candidate-funded arrangement you commission it and it answers to you. Neither model is dishonest and employer-funded support is worth taking when it is offered, because it costs you nothing.
They answer different questions. A coaching qualification is training in how to run a developmental conversation. Recruiting experience is knowledge of what happens to an application after it is sent, how a shortlist is actually assembled and why a strong candidate is passed over. When the problem is that applications are not converting, the second is the relevant one.
Yes, and the rules that keep the two apart are published. No candidate is submitted to a mandate without explicit written consent, a candidate is told when a role in play is one recruited for, candidates never pay a placement fee, and information is not carried between the two sides.
A CV and LinkedIn rewrite first, then a live search across LinkedIn, Google Jobs and company career pages, each role presented with a written read on it, and once you green-light a specific role, a tailored CV and cover letter written and submitted for that vacancy in your name. It also includes the target company list, networking guidance and message templates, and network introductions where the match is genuine.
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