Hiring well is hard. Hiring inclusively, consistently, and at the pace life sciences companies often need to move, is harder still. Yet inclusive hiring practices are not a luxury or a compliance exercise. They are how you build teams that think differently, challenge assumptions, and ultimately do better science and build better products.

This guide is for hiring managers, HR leads, and founders in biotech, medtech, healthtech, and diagnostics who want a practical, honest framework, not a list of platitudes. Work through it section by section, and you will have a process you can actually use.

Start with your sourcing strategy

Most bias enters the hiring process long before anyone reads a CV. It enters when you decide where to advertise, who you ask for referrals, and which networks you treat as the default.

A few questions worth asking before you post a single role:

  • Where do you currently find candidates? If the honest answer is "LinkedIn and word of mouth," you are drawing from a narrow pool.
  • Are you advertising on platforms that reach underrepresented groups in STEM, such as specialist job boards for disabled scientists, organisations supporting women in engineering, or networks for Black and minority ethnic professionals in healthcare?
  • Are you leaning too heavily on employee referrals? Referral schemes are efficient, but they tend to reproduce the demographic makeup you already have.
  • Have you considered partnering with universities, apprenticeship programmes, or professional bodies that actively support diverse talent pipelines?

Sourcing is a numbers game in the best sense. The wider and more intentional your reach, the more genuine choice you have.

Write job adverts that do not put people off

Job adverts are the first conversation you have with a candidate. Many adverts in life sciences are unintentionally exclusionary, not because of malice, but because they were written quickly, by one person, using a template that has not been reviewed in years.

Check your adverts against this list before publishing:

  • Have you listed only the skills and experience that are genuinely essential? Long "requirements" lists discourage applications, particularly from women and candidates from underrepresented groups, who are statistically less likely to apply unless they meet nearly every criterion.
  • Is the language neutral? Tools such as the Gender Decoder can flag coded language (words like "dominant" or "aggressive" that skew masculine in perception).
  • Have you included a genuine flexibility statement, not just "we consider flexible working requests," but something that tells candidates what flexibility actually looks like in this role?
  • Is there a clear, specific salary range? Salary transparency reduces negotiation gaps and signals fairness.
  • Have you included an invitation for candidates to request adjustments at any stage? This is a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010, but it also sets a tone.
  • Have you avoided unnecessary degree requirements? Many roles in life sciences have been degree-gated by habit rather than genuine need. Skills-based criteria open the door to people who took different routes.

Keep the advert to what matters. If you find yourself writing more than 600 words, cut it back.

Build a structured interview process

Unstructured interviews feel natural. They are also one of the least reliable predictors of job performance and one of the most fertile grounds for unconscious bias. Structured interviews, where every candidate is asked the same questions, assessed against the same criteria, and scored consistently, are measurably fairer and more predictive.

Here is a straightforward framework:

Before the interview:

  • Define the competencies you are assessing and write them down. Do not leave them in someone's head.
  • Write your questions in advance, one or two per competency, using a mix of behavioural ("tell me about a time when...") and situational ("how would you approach...") formats.
  • Share the questions with the interview panel and agree on what a strong, adequate, and weak answer looks like for each.
  • Send the questions to candidates in advance if possible. This is common practice in some sectors and research suggests it reduces anxiety without reducing the quality of information you gather. It is particularly helpful for neurodiverse candidates.

During the interview:

  • Stick to the agreed questions. Follow-up probes are fine, but avoid going off-script in ways that only happen for some candidates.
  • Take notes against the criteria, not general impressions.
  • Avoid small talk that strays into personal territory (family, where someone is "really" from, how they spend their weekends).

After the interview:

  • Score independently before discussing as a panel. Group discussion before individual scoring leads to anchoring, where the first strong opinion shapes everyone else's.
  • If there is disagreement, go back to the evidence, not gut feeling.
  • Keep records. If a candidate asks for feedback or raises a concern, you need to be able to show your reasoning.

Reduce bias at every stage

Structured process helps, but it does not eliminate bias on its own. Here are additional practical steps:

  • Anonymise CVs at the sifting stage. Remove names, addresses, and educational institution names where possible. There is good evidence that this reduces name-based and institution-based bias. Several applicant tracking systems now support this.
  • Diversify your interview panels. A panel of people who all share the same background will, consciously or not, tend to favour candidates who remind them of themselves.
  • Watch for "culture fit" as a reason to reject. It is one of the most common ways bias is laundered through a hiring process. If you are going to use it, define what you mean precisely. Usually what you actually want is "values alignment," which you can assess with specific questions.
  • Check your assessment tools. If you use psychometric tests or work samples, have they been validated across diverse populations? Some widely used tools have known issues with cultural bias.
  • Train your hiring managers. Not a one-off e-learning module, but a real conversation about how bias works, what it looks like in practice, and what the process is designed to prevent.

Measure your progress

Inclusive hiring practices only improve if you track what is happening. You do not need sophisticated analytics to start. You need consistency.

At a minimum, track:

  • The demographic profile of applicants at each stage (application, sift, first interview, offer, acceptance). Where are people dropping out?
  • The source of your hires. Which channels are producing diverse candidates?
  • Offer acceptance rates. If certain groups are accepting at lower rates, that is a signal worth investigating.
  • Time to hire and candidate experience scores, broken down where possible. Slow, opaque processes disproportionately disadvantage candidates who cannot afford to wait.
  • Adjustments requested and provided. Are candidates asking for adjustments? Are those requests being met?

Review this data quarterly, not annually. Patterns emerge faster than you think, and quarterly review gives you time to correct course before a cohort of hires is complete.

A process is only as good as the people running it

Checklists and frameworks matter. But the biggest variable in any hiring process is whether the people running it genuinely believe that inclusive hiring makes the team better, not just more compliant.

In life sciences, the argument is not hard to make. Diverse teams catch more errors, generate more creative hypotheses, and build products that work for more people. That is not idealism. It is how good science works.

At Sajawo, we work with growing life sciences companies to build hiring processes that are fair, practical, and fit for the pace of the sector. If any part of this guide has raised questions about your current approach, we are always happy to have a straightforward conversation about where to start.