The MedTech talent landscape has undergone a significant "reset" in the two years since Elena Kyria, founder and CEO of Elemed, last joined the podcast. Driven by factors like the rise of AI, economic volatility, and post-pandemic shifts, the dynamic has swung from a "war for talent" (many jobs, few candidates) to a market flooded with applicants, often overwhelming internal recruitment teams. This shift, exacerbated by simple application processes like LinkedIn's Easy Apply, makes it challenging for good candidates to cut through the noise and for companies to manage high application volumes.
To thrive in this new environment, MedTech professionals, particularly those in Quality Assurance (QA) and Regulatory Affairs (RA), must expand their focus beyond technical competence. Elena stresses the growing importance of transverse skills (the essential human skills like communication, negotiation, and leadership) and, critically, AI literacy. With the pressure on companies to "do more with less," AI is creating an environment where smaller, highly productive teams are favored. This doesn't mean roles will disappear, but professionals must embrace technology to eliminate tedious tasks and focus on high-value, strategic work.
Navigating the job market now requires a more intentional and proactive approach, especially to access the hidden job market where the best unadvertised roles reside. Tactics include direct networking with hiring managers and active professional branding. Furthermore, the global regulatory environment's fragmentation—especially between the US (FDA) and EU (MDR/IVDR)—is impacting how companies build their teams, favoring remote work and strategic location choices that factor in the local talent pool and employment laws.
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MedTech 101 Section
In the MedTech industry, we often talk about technical skills—the specific knowledge needed for a job, such as knowing the difference between the FDA's 510(k) and the EU's MDR requirements.
Transverse Skills (historically called "soft skills") are the human abilities that apply across all roles and industries, and they are becoming the most critical skills for MedTech professionals in the age of AI.
Simple Analogy: Think of a medical device engineer:
As AI takes over tasks like drafting initial documents or summarizing regulations, the uniquely human skills—like critical thinking, ethical judgment, leadership, and strategic communication—are what add true, irreplaceable value to a MedTech company.
“It's not going to be enough to just be good at your job. You're going to need to have a little bit more understanding of how to position yourself, how to brand yourself, how building skills outside of just your technical competency [is important].” - Elena Kyria
“This is a massive opportunity... to step up and get started... you can use the technology but then you're focused on strategy, relationships, [and] the human side of it versus the people that are still very manual.” - Elena Kyria
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Etienne Nichols: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Global Medical Device Podcast. My name is Etienne Nichols. Today I want to have a conversation about the really MedTech’s talent and maybe the upgrade, if we want to call it that.
We'll figure out exactly what I'm going to call it. But today with me to talk about this is Elena Akira. Two years ago, we had a conversation about MedTech talent and how to level up climb the corporate ladder and that was recorded in Montreal.
That was a fun conversation. We've gotten lots of good feedback. It was, it was very helpful to a lot of different professionals.
I thought today let's record something similar but two years, because two years ago the MedTech world was different.
If you have been following well, even if you're outside MedTech, you can recognize that it's been fundamentally reshaped by AI, economic volatility, all of the different things that came after Covid and the great reshuffling. So glad to have you with us today. Just a quick intro if you are not familiar with Elena.
Elena is the founder and CEO of Elemed, a consultancy that is built to help MedTech companies bring life changing products to patients faster. For more than a decade she's led executive hiring across Europe, advised companies on recruitment strategy and spoken on global stages about the future of talent, personal branding and the evolving MedTech workforce.
I think she always has some talk at RAPS Regulatory Affairs Professional Society. So, she also hosts The Career Diaries by Elemed of podcast spotlighting. Do you still do the podcast?
Elena Kyria: I assume it's coming back.
Etienne Nichols: It's coming back.
And if you don't follow her on LinkedIn, definitely do that because she's always dropping a lot of really powerful nuggets through video and her video content's really fun to watch before launching Elemed.
I'll just mention she was one of the top, the highest performing RAQA recruitment consultancies at Huntress and helped build their European practice from scratch. So anyway, great to have you. What did I miss and what did I leave out?
Wow.
Elena Kyria: I mean it was just, I think it's really nice to have somebody do the intro for you.
Etienne Nichols: Oh yeah.
Elena Kyria: But thank you so thank you so much for that amazing introduction and for having me back like this.
Do you know what? I've been really looking forward to speaking to you. I've been back from maternity leave now for three months. You know, in the UK we have really long maternity leave, so your listeners in the US will not believe it, but in the UK maternity is typically one year that you take.
And so, for me, I kind of dipped out in September of 24, came back September of 25 and you know, obviously I was connected kind of during the time, but really being like full heartedly in the market,
that's been since September of this year and boy, has it changed.
Wow.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah. Wow. That. Yeah, I can only imagine being out for a little bit of a gap, you know, and, and as far as the, the maternity leave, my dad always used to tell me every job should be going to support the most important job, which is raising your kids.
So. So no, I really respect that. That's great and I'm glad. But I am glad you're with us today. So, thank you. I don't know where you want to start.
What do you want to talk about first?
I mean two, two years ago we talked about the war for talents. Today it feels it's maybe less of a war, maybe more of a reset.
Elena Kyria: Yeah.
Etienne Nichols: With different AI and learning machine Lear a talent perspective. What do you think? What do you think some of the, the, the, the foundational skills companies need to be focusing on are and, and what are your thoughts there?
Elena Kyria: Let's rewind for a second. So, let's just let me talk about what I'm seeing because I am getting a lot of people DMing me and kind of kind of asking what's going on in the market.
People are seeing, you know, that they're first of all that they're applying for jobs and they're not hearing anything back.
Companies are seeing that they're putting up applications and getting just overwhelmed by like the volume of stuff that's coming at them and kind of being in the market, speaking to people, speaking to companies.
What I can tell you is that it's really shifted. Right. So regulatory affairs, quality, it's always been what we call a candidate short market. What that means is a lot of jobs, not a lot of candidates.
Great for a recruiter. Right. That's why companies essentially would hire an agency or a specialist to kind of bring them talent in that, in that specific area.
After Covid, so into Covid, companies basically put their hiring on hold. You know, uncertainty meant they didn't know what they were going to do. They decided not to hire or push a lot of their hiring plans back.
After Covid. If you can imagine every company that needed to do hiring not just in MedTech, not just regulatory and quality, just in the world.
They all came back with like, boom, here's all the hiring that we need to do. And at the time, people that were in jobs were relatively cautious about, hey, we've just come out of this global pandemic. You know, I don't think I want to make such a big change right now. You know, it took them longer to kind of warm up into the market.
And so, everything is always demand and supply. Tension with the dynamic. After Covid and a couple. And that led. That lasted for a couple of years. Into the time that I spoke to you at wraps, we had a situation where there were a lot of jobs, not so many candidates willing to make that move.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah.
Elena Kyria: What we have seen in the last year, and you've touched on some of them, has been a complete shift in that dynamic. So, there's been reorganization of companies, there's been layoffs. You know, not just companies. We've seen it, you know, in, in the, in the, in the FDA as well.
Right. It's. Every single area has really been affected by this. And that has essentially meant that more people are coming to the market, and companies are essentially doing less hiring.
And it creates a demand supply constraint, but on the other side. And so that translates into companies putting a job out. Lots of people applying AI, you know, LinkedIn has got this fabulous easy apply button that's amazing because it makes it so easy to apply.
But what maybe they, they don't clearly communicate is that on the other end as receiving that, that means you put a job ad, and you get maybe 200 applications.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah.
Elena Kyria: You.
Not great ones. Right. Like, there still might only be like three or four good ones in the 200.
But the volume that the, that the teams are having to deal with, both the recruitment teams or company internal teams, is just immense.
And so, it's, it's, it's really degrading the overall candidate experience for someone who's actually job searching. And it's making it harder because you've got to cut through the noise.
And so, AI and we can touch on that has, has really affected that. I would say.
Etienne Nichols: Quick question before we get into AI.
Elena Kyria: Yeah.
Etienne Nichols: Because this doesn't feel like a.
Exactly a new problem.
It always feels like we've had a lot of, or as a company, you put a job out there, you're gonna get a lot of, a lot of different applicants. But maybe it has become a much more concentrated or, or extreme problem than it used to be in the past.
I, I assume and the other thing I would ask about is I, I assume companies are kind of shifting to a immediate disqualification. We, because when I, I remember when I was trying to hire somebody as a manufacturing engineer, we were hiring a few others.
I'd had a big stack of resumes. I thought, okay, disqualify this guy, disqualify this guy. Maybe a maybe. And that's how I would do my pile of resumes. I don't know how people are doing it today, but what are your thoughts there?
Elena Kyria: Yeah, So I think. So, if we were to talk about this specific, what we call vertical, so this specific skill set when I started my career, so like 13 years ago, speaking to companies, they put an ad out and they get nothing.
Crickets. Nobody would apply. Right.
And, and so that has changed with the rise of LinkedIn and that sort of thing. I think AI has made things a lot easier to do things at scale with a click of a button, which has created a lot more noise.
And therefore, people need to really be clever about how they're doing it. And so, the people that are really intentional and going about doing things differently, they're cutting through. But the ones that are just like leaning into, like, you know, easy apply, but then it's a numbers game, so you have to easily apply everywhere.
It doesn't necessarily stack up.
And even if you were to talk about. So, for example, talk about LinkedIn, right? Immediate disqualification criteria, you can put questions to say, like, you know, do you have a work permit to work in this country? Yes. No. And then if somebody says no, send an immediate or, you know, things saying, sorry, you don't meet the criteria. Yeah, but what we're finding is that not everybody's entirely truthful, right. They're like gaming, they're gaming the, to get through.
And so, it's creating a more challenging environment. Now. Not all is lost, right. You know, Elemed are still in business and we're still working on some fantastic roles. Companies are hiring.
But I do believe that looking forward into the future and from what I've seen with LinkedIn and with brands and things like that, it's not going to be enough to just be good at your job.
Right. Like, you need to, you're going to need to have a little bit more understanding of how to position yourself, how to brand yourself, how, you know, building skills outside of just your technical competency.
I think that's going to be really important as we lean more and more into the future.
Etienne Nichols: Okay, so I have two questions, and I hate that I have two questions because I don't know which one to go with first. I'm going to tell you the both of them and you can figure out how you want to do this in.
And I know we always, we always have questions that we want to cover and then I always go sideways. So, I always appreciate you're being flexible with this. When I'm thinking about these two, what you've just said, the first thing I think about is, okay, well, how with the AI, all this noise, how is it that I can create my, my profile in such a way to get the job? First of all, how do I get the job when I have all this noise, all this, these other applicants that may not be truly applicable?
And then the second one is with AI, how do I keep that job? And is AI impacting the QARA role? So, I don't know whichever direction you want to go.
Elena Kyria: They're such good questions. Okay, so with the first one, how do I get the job? You know, couple of things, really simple things. Apply for the role but then figure out who the hiring manager is and contact them directly.
Contact Elemed, you know, and see if we can help you through our network of relationships.
You know, really go.
You can, you can, you can use some of these tools that are available to you to say, like, hey, I'm open to work, and put your green banner on LinkedIn and that sort of thing.
But I do think that there's also the hidden job market, right? And that's where we do a lot of our work, and that's where the really good jobs are. They're the ones that aren't necessarily being advertised.
And so, you know, in order to access that hidden job market, you need to be a little bit more strategic with actually understanding what are the triggers for why companies might want to hire and what skills will they typically hire for and at what point in their journey, right?
And so, and, and be there to position yourself. So, it means other things like networking, branding, building relationships for the long term and being in the long game. They, they also say, like, the best time, the best time to speak to a recruiter is not when you need a recruiter.
And, you know, it's, it's really about constantly building that network because you never know when you might need to fall back on it.
Let's talk about AI, AI on jobs, because this is a really interesting one, right? And I'm going to be a little bit controversial.
So, I'll tell you what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a, a leadership dynamic, right? So senior leaders Having the pressure in regulatory quality, having the pressure of having to do more with less. This is the theme everyone I speak to. We have to do more than with less.
More regulations, more changes.
But can't really grow my team, if anything, downsizing my team. And so it creates an optimal environment for companies to look for other ways to gain efficiency, right? So how can I get more out of my people scaling up with technology?
Like quite simply, it creates a great opportunity for AI.
Now, does that mean that companies are going to overnight disappear their QARA teams?
No, but. And we did a survey to ask the question.
And it's not that companies immediately right now are seeing the impact of AI on their roles, but what I can tell you is that for sure, teams are going to be smaller, right?
They're not going to need 20, 30 people, they're going to need 10 that know how to use technology, that are highly more productive and able to actually like achieve more with less. And so for me, if we're looking at future proofing yourself, number one, if you're a leader, you absolutely need to be involved with understanding the potential of this, of this thing, the limitations of it, running some pilots and be talking about it because I'm speaking to a lot of CEOs and the CEOs are saying, you know, that's on their radar. You know, like they also want to say, we want to put AI into our products, we want to put it through our processes.
And so, they're looking to their leaders and saying, what are you doing with this? And, and so the leaders that are going to get ahead are the ones that are saying, hey, I trialed it.
This is what works; this is what doesn't. You know, rather than, I don't think it's, I don't think, I think the human element is more important. And so, I'm not touching it at all.
I think it's really important to get involved.
If you are, you know, at a mid-level in your career or a more junior level in your career, it's really about literally using it, right? And don't wait for there to be a training, don't wait for there to be guidance.
Literally wake up and try something, you know, because with AI and I can tell you this because I'm literally living it myself coming back, you know, you have to just trial learn, trial learn, trial learn. That didn't work. We're going to iterate, you know, that prompt isn't very good. We're going to change that prompt. This tool didn't work.
Let's try a different tool.
And, and, and I find that sometimes strategizing too much causes decision paralysis and you don't actually end up doing anything at all. And my concern for people that are not doing anything at all right now or have no intention to,
is that the gains that those that are using it, the gains that they're seeing and the, and the improve and the improvements that they're getting on a, by doing micro, micro things on a daily basis has an enormous compounding effect.
So, so much so that in one year's time I really do think that there's going to be two categories of professional. Those, those that are using it and know how to use it and can really change companies with it.
And those people, they can use the technology but then they're focused on strategy, relationships, you know, like the human side of it versus the people that are still very manual, like deep in day to day tedious tasks and not showing how they are embracing this thing that is coming that is essentially the same as email to writing letters, you know.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah, I hadn't heard that illustration before. That's really good. Yeah, I could totally see that.
I have on my notes here somewhere. Transverse skills. So, you talked about AI literacy. What about transverse skills? What does that mean?
Elena Kyria: Transverse skills are essentially, you know, they're the human skills, right. Or they're the skills that are not vertical. So, they're the skills that go across all roles, companies and those are things like communication, negotiation, leadership, influencing. Right. So, these like what historically have been known as soft skills that are actually hard. Right, we spoke about that in the last, in the last podcast as well, as well as obviously digital, digital literacy, general financial understanding of how companies work and how they make money. So, like as a regulatory professional, do you actually understand how, what that thing that you're doing right now, how does that connect to the bigger picture of the company and how does that, how does that make value for the company? And if you can't make that connection, then you need to focus on understanding that because being able to join the dots is going to become really, really important.
Etienne Nichols: So, you mentioned this is controversial and it is, I know. And I could maybe play the devil's advocate or the other side. When I talk to some people in the industry, they say, well, the QARA role is understanding all the regulations.
If a machine can do that and just understand those regulations, what's left? And what I would say and maybe what you would say, I don't know, I don't want to put your words in your mouth.
Is the really good QARA professionals who are able to use AI and have that literacy. They're the ones who know the right questions to ask.
Elena Kyria: Yeah.
Etienne Nichols: Would you agree and how would you expand on that?
Elena Kyria: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think it's really about using it to get you sort of like 70% off the way there. Right. The first draft, the initial summary and then the 30% is the real expertise that comes in, you know, is the real track record, is the real understanding that gray zone that, you know, the ethics side of things. Right. That's the human part.
But historically, let's say if something took you, you know, a month to do, and actually the first, you know, 70% of that was like stuff that actually can be done by an AI, actually imagine how much more impactful you can be if you're actually focusing on 30%, 100% of your time.
Right.
And so, it's not about saying it's going to replace people, but it's about saying the people that can, the people that are embracing it will immediately see how that can scale up what they're doing. Get rid of the stuff that they don't like doing, get rid of the admin, you know, the drafting, whatever.
They can focus 100% of their time on the core stuff that really adds value.
And that's where I'm looking at this in a positive way and saying, you know, this is a massive opportunity.
This is an incredible opportunity for people that want to step up and get started.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah, I think that's a really good, good way to look at it if we talk about strategy versus tactics. So, I mean strategically what you're suggesting is, okay, the, the goal, the outcome or the strategy that you should have in your mind is AI literacy.
What are the tactics? What any, any piece of advice you recommend in getting to that literacy.
Elena Kyria: So shameless plug lm.
We're running a pilot. So, I've got like 10 spots for a leadership accelerator which is going to bring together senior leaders, VP level, C level to really talk strategy about how they're going to, how they're implementing it and to idea share.
Right. And actually, I think what's really important is to surround yourself with a community of people that are doing it as well. Because I really think that there's value in experimenting and feeding back and learning from other people's learnings and having that peer to peer exchange.
So, Elemed, putting together at a leadership level, something that is going to facilitate that on the day-to-day level. You know, first it's about identifying a Use case. Right. Like so what is one thing that you know, I think I could use AI for and then try that thing. So, whether it's, it might be something as simple as right is a note taker. You know, instead of, you know, sitting there and writing my notes, I'm writing my email, maybe I'm going to trial a specific note taker that's going to listen to the meeting minutes, it's going to auto summarize everything for me and I'm just then going to integrate that into my workflow of how I work.
Right. That's an immediate time saving, really, really simple thing to do. But then there's some really amazing technologies out there around regulatory intelligence, for example, right.
That you might want to trial and start to iterate to see how that works. So, it's not with going through all your entire processes mapping out a really, really big strategy and then going right now is the time we're going to do it.
It's about small, quick win, let's try it and then let's iterate and, and, and almost like habit stack, you know, so start to add more and more things.
And the other thing that I can tell you is that don't wait for your company to be like we're going to run an AI program and now we're going to create a sandbox.
And like it's most of Medtech are small medium companies, right?
Small, small, medium companies respond really, really well to people that are proactive and just take initiative and you know, just subscribe to an AI newsletter that sends you, you know, weekly updates of all things that's hot in AI and see what you can take from it.
For example, right? There's just so much that you can do. There's so much content out there that's available.
I don't see why waiting for a training or waiting for permission is going to, is going to help you move forward. So, I've seen people in companies that are now like the AI experts in their company, right.
For regulatory, let's say they didn't wait for a job to be posted so that they could apply to be the AI regulatory expert in their team. No, they were just the ones that were just more interested, more curious, said Hey, I'm going to just, I'm just going to trial this and see if it works. And then all of a sudden, they were the ones that everybody else went to for feedback, for advice, you know, and now they've positioned themselves as, you know, someone who has the skills that others don't.
Have. Which is a great place for your career. So why not if, why not that be you, you know.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah, absolutely.
You're making me think of what you said earlier about that hidden job market, and I actually wanted to ask you a little bit about that.
Why is it? First, first of all, why are these jobs not posted? Because you mentioned, okay, in the hidden job market, these jobs aren't even posted. So that's where we play.
That's the gray area. And that's where every, that's where the good stuff is. Why aren't they posted and what's going on there.
Elena Kyria: Okay, so there are so many reasons, so many reasons. You know, one, confidentiality, quite simply, right. Like, companies might have something coming up in the pipeline. They might be reorganizing, they might be managing somebody out of, out of the business. You know, there's so much that might be going on in terms of like the dynamics that they don't want that advertised out to the market for confidentiality reasons.
That's number one.
Number two is, you know, the, there's almost something more prestigious and more exclusive feeling when things are under the radar. Right. It invokes that, that kind of more curiosity.
And so, the really good opportunities, they don't need to advertise them. Right. And they sort of already have a pipeline of potentials anyway and oftentimes it's really about timing.
Also, maybe they just don't want to announce, maybe not necessarily confidentiality, but maybe they just don't want to announce that they're hiring for a specific, for a specific role out to the mass market.
And also, maybe they don't want to deal with everything that comes back off the back of that. Right. So there's, there's so many reasons, but, but yeah, I think it's, it's a really interesting time to be in recruitment.
Etienne Nichols: Well, if I was to add on to that, because I. And apologies for bouncing back on how to keep the job, how to do that versus how to get the job, because I think both are important and my mind just goes back and forth.
You mentioned something about contacting those hiring managers. Obviously, if it's one of those that's not listed, that's going to be a little bit different. So, there's the networking aspect.
Elena Kyria: Yes.
Etienne Nichols: When you go about doing those different things.
One of the things, if, if AI literacy or proficiency is important to a company, how do you go about positioning yourself externally? Like if you're in a company right now, okay, everybody knows I'm the expert, but how do you Position yourself externally so that if you do want to get that role, that even if it's not an AI expert role, it's just a role that, you know, everybody's expecting you to have some AI proficiency in. How do you, how do you position that? You put it on your resume or what are, what are your thoughts?
Elena Kyria: No. So, no, I love that. You can, you can.
Etienne Nichols: There's more to it.
Elena Kyria: There's definitely more to it. So first of all, on LinkedIn, right, like, that's now the place where everybody hangs out professionally, so you absolutely need to be there. And it's really interesting because actually we're doing these. I'm doing. So, I only opened 20 slots and then we were sold out, so I opened another 20 and then we sold out and then I opened 10 and I said, okay, 10 and I'm done. LinkedIn profile reviews, right? And so, what I do is I go into people's LinkedIn profile and have a little look, and I just give sort of like roast my LinkedIn, if you like, type, type Elena style feedback and tell people what they're doing really well and what they can improve.
And the number one thing that I keep seeing again and again and again is activity. When I go with someone's profile and I see the activity section, either there's like literally nothing there, right?
Or there's a post from like 8 months ago, or there's loads of posts, but all they do is write congratulations. When people share that they've got a new job and there's nothing else there, right? And so, I know that a lot of people use LinkedIn for lurking, which is fine, right? That means scrolling and getting information, which is absolutely fine. But if you want to be intentional with it, quite simply, you don't even need to post, but just follow topics that are relevant to whatever it is that you're trying to build thought leadership in.
It might be AI, it might be something else.
And when you see a post that's impactful and interesting, add your 2 cents in the comments.
Then when somebody goes onto your profile, instead of seeing, congratulations, Congratulations, congratulations, maybe a little love heart, maybe a little exclamation mark, they're going to actually see some real meaningful comments about some subject matter expertise, and that immediately starts to position you as someone that knows what they're talking about.
From there, you might say, actually on a regular cadence, I might want to share some updates about what I'm seeing, what I'm experimenting with, maybe a diary and diary blog post style, or maybe just a picture of Something with a few comments.
You might want to start writing your own posts. And going from being kind of like a passive lurker to an active contributor on LinkedIn immediately is going to start to strengthen your.
Your credibility and your professional brand. I tell people all the time, people are not going onto your LinkedIn profile when you're looking for a job. I mean, obviously they're doing that, right?
If, like, for example, if a CV comes into my inbox, the next thing I do is I go to LinkedIn, I type their name and I look at the LinkedIn profile.
However, people are using LinkedIn in other ways. So, let's say you're speaking at an event.
They might go to your LinkedIn profile to check you out as a speaker. You know, they might listen to this podcast, not know who I am, then go and look at my LinkedIn profile, see more about me.
You might be in an email chain, and nobody knows who you are. And so, they might go, hold on a minute, who's that person? And go and search that name on LinkedIn.
So, people are finding you in other ways. And so, it's a great opportunity for you to be really intentional with how you want to position yourself. So, one is LinkedIn is an amazing place to do that.
Number two, speak at events if you can. Right. Event organizers are always looking for speakers. And if you are someone that's charismatic, that's good in front of a crowd, you know, that has some interesting ideas, you can write some proposals. So, you know, I know raps accept proposals, for example, for speakers. So put yourself forward for. For that on interesting topics.
People might say. They might say no, but they might say yes. And if they say yes, that's great credibility, because instead of you being a participant in the audience, you are the person speaking from experience at the front that everybody is looking to, to…To say, like that person is setting the standard.
Be active where you can and be vocal. I think that is the most important thing that you can do when it comes to building that brand and that expertise.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
If we were to shift gears then, because we've talked a lot about AI and we talked a lot about kind of positioning yourself, maybe zoom out for a little bit, look at the global landscape. It feels like things are shifting a little bit. And maybe that's just me and my own little bubble here, but we've had a lot of changes at the FDA. We've had a lot of changes, almost a bifurcation in how the regulatory landscape is looking and approaching things from The US versus the European market and even Asia.
There's China's. In the last few years, their regulatory environment has completely shifted. So I'm curious how this fragmentation has impacted the concept of a global MedTech talent pool. And are we seeing any kind of concentrations where the people are looking?
Well, I want, I want talent from this specific area, Silicon Valley, Boston, et cetera.
What strategic advice do you have for either founders looking to build a remote team or those who are looking to be on those teams? What are your thoughts?
Elena Kyria: So, if you are a founder building a team, the first thing is that if it's remote, it's a bit easier in that sense. Right. Because you can really be very broad in terms of where you hire.
And there you need to really just make sure you're understanding stuff like local employment law and the things that, you know, understanding that if you hire someone in France, it's not the same as hiring someone in the US and people have different rights in different countries. And so, you know, that's something to really make sure you understand.
But if you're looking to like have a footprint, one of the mistakes that I see companies make early stage, and this might be a founder building up a team, or it might be a company saying, hey, we need something in Eastern Europe, and then just like deciding where to go.
They don't necessarily consider in detail the talent landscape as part of that decision making. So they might look at some other factors like, you know, the tax benefits of having an office in Switzerland or you know, other incentives to, to have a footprint there.
But ultimately if you can't get the people, in the end it's all going to be for nothing. Right. Because the, the quality of your organization, like how good your company is going to be ultimately is going to be down to the quality of the people you hire.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah.
Elena Kyria: And so, one of the new things that we've introduced here at Elemed is actually being able to offer our clients data and insights. Right. So actually, being able to say, hey, you want to open something in Eastern Europe?
Okay, tell us what skills you're looking for, and we will tell you where the best place to go is based on the talent density and the cities and the countries that you should really focus on for that specific skill.
And so, like take a data first approach when it comes to hiring and building something up.
So, to your other point, that was more around, you know, what trends are we seeing? It comes back to this idea of companies.
It is easier now to hire in different countries. Right. Whereas like historically there would be so many barriers to entry to be able to hire remotely or to hire in a country where you don't have a physical presence.
And now there are so many solutions that open the door for companies to be able to do that, which is great. But what that has also led to is companies saying okay, well why would we have a whole team of 50 people in Switzerland when Swiss salaries are the highest that you can find in Europe?
And actually, we can get similar quality of talent in other countries where salaries are lower. And so it has created a bit of movement. I would say the areas that are of particular interest to what we've seen over the last few years has been this general outsourcing to countries in Eastern Europe, to Latin America and to India.
And they, they have been. Companies have been doing that with roles that are slightly more on the administrative side, I would say like of regulatory quality. And then really keeping like the strategy and the, the close work to product development in their headquarters or close to development. That's typically what we're seeing as, as some of the broader trends globally as well, which is quite interesting.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah. Some of those admin, more of the admin focus roles that go to some of these other countries where you might not have to spend quite as much on labor. I'm curious not to go directly back to AI, but it's that displacing that as well.
Yeah.
Elena Kyria: I do think that some of the, I mean I had a conversation with a very large organization that like literally took their whole complaints and like put it in another country.
And then the conversation that we had was that because the thing is as well, you know, there's always teething problems when you do things like this.
Etienne Nichols: Right. Yeah.
Elena Kyria: And just because something's cheaper doesn't necessarily mean it's better. Just because something's automated can be automated doesn't mean that it should be automated. And sometimes I see companies, they.
It's challenging because it's a challenging economic climate. But sometimes these decisions are very economic and less really understanding the people side of things. And you need people to make your company work and so we can't under undervalue that.
But anyway, the conversation that I had was very much like we've done this but probably what we're going to now do is look to bring in a software AI solution, scale back that team significantly.
A lot of those tasks are repetitive. A lot of them is like form filling, data entry that can totally be done by AI.
And so that was just one example of the types of conversations that I'm having now, but I am expecting that those more manual repetitive tasks are good task candidates for AI to be replacing them.
Not people, but tasks.
Etienne Nichols: Right, okay, well, let's talk a little bit more about the person doing those tasks because I think two years ago we talked about the specialists and the generalists. The specialist being one who's just really, really goes deep in a particular subject versus a generalist who's able to connect those insights, think laterally and so on.
With AI changing this landscape of especially the repetitive generalized tasks, is there a blending of the generalist and specialist? Or if not, what is, is there any kind of new generalist? New.
What does that look like?
Elena Kyria: For me, I think the, there is still an argument for like a really good specialist and a really good generalist.
And I don't think anymore the conversation is like specialist or generalist as opposed to specialist. With specialist that is enabled with AI that is more productive and faster and also potentially cheaper for their services.
You know, so can do more with less versus generalists versus a generalist that can also use AI. So, so I don't think it's going to be about like should a company go for a specialist or generalist because there's really an argument like when they need to go for a specialist, they will go for a specialist. If they need a good general person that's like good at everything, they'll go for the general person.
What they'll be looking at is a range of generalists, right? And so, in that suite of five generalists they're looking at, they're going to look for the one that is going to, they're going to get the most bang for their buck. That's going to be the most future looking that knows their stuff the best.
And so, the one that can say, hey, you know, everyone else is saying that they can do this in like four months, but I'm going to be able to do it in one month.
And I'm also going to be able to implement some tools and technology into your team so that your team can then take that over.
And so, I think that you know, that is going to be especially, especially in like the, the freelancer market, the consultant market where companies are going to be bringing in, you know, the, the talent like, like what we spoke about.
So, I think that in particular, yeah.
Etienne Nichols: Let’s talk more about that because the freelancer, the contractor market, I am very intrigued by that and, and how that could be disrupted in different ways. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
That side of Things.
Elena Kyria: I think it's a growing. I think it's really a growing area.
Etienne Nichols: Because, yeah, it's almost counterintuitive as to. And maybe, maybe you can explain as.
Elena Kyria: To why if you look at any kind of report out there that's talking about, like, the future of work, it will always talk about how people have side hustles and how people don't just have one career for their, like one job for their whole career now. Right.
And with the, you know, I'm a millennial, but with like Gen Z and, you know, the Gen Alpha.
They’re just inclined to have like, more things on the go at once. And so, I think that the whole kind of like consulting freelance market, it lends itself really, really well also to people being able to kind of build the careers that they want to have around the lifestyles that they want to have.
You know, and so I think that. And for companies, believe it or not, and this blew my mind at the beginning when I first started recruitment, because everybody knows that you would pay more.
I don't know if you know this. You would pay more as a company. You would pay more, more for a consultant than you were to hire somebody permanently.
Yeah, right.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah.
Elena Kyria: But companies will oftentimes hire a consultant over hiring someone perm, even if it meant hiring the consultant because it comes out of a different budget. So, they might have headcount freezes.
Headcount freezes. They can't hire anyone perm, but they can hire consultants. And even if the consultants are two or three times as much as what they would pay on perm, they would still go.
They would still go for the consultant because they have more flexibility in their consulting budget than what they do in their headcount budget.
So, I think that it's. It's a really interesting space to be in. It gives the individual person doing it much more flexibility, the chance to choose what they work on and how they work on it.
It gives the company more flexibility to scale up and scale down.
It gives them more flexibility over budget, and it creates a more competitive market ultimately, which means for the client, better results, better outcomes, you know, you know, everything that is capitalism, essentially.
But I think that one of them, the challenges is going to be how are you going to differentiate yourself? Because it can't just be your expertise.
Etienne Nichols: Right.
Elena Kyria: You know, there's going to need to be more to it than that.
Etienne Nichols: And so, I don't know if you want to go one step further, because I'm curious what you think that differentiation looks like. And we can go in a couple different directions here because I want to get back to the generalists and the specialists as well.
But I don't know if you want to go one step further as far as that differentiation, what that looks like.
Elena Kyria: I just, I just think in the, I just think brand is going to be really important.
Etienne Nichols: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Elena Kyria: Ultimately, you know, that's a good point.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah. You know, it's actually, I was talking to somebody in the Philippines who, they were talking about Nikes and the different, you know, there's the pay difference and all these things.
And they said, yeah, you know, you can get the Nike with the two E's or something, but everybody wants the one with the one. And it's interesting to me because the foot, the, what you're actually wearing makes no difference.
It feels the same. But you care about the brand. And I think that's the same with people and who you work with.
Elena Kyria: Yeah, and, and, and brand means that you can charge more.
It means that you can say no.
Right.
Like, it, it creates a supply demand constraint on the other way. Right. It's like Cristiano Ronaldo.
There's only one Cristiano Ronaldo, right? People, the, the clubs will pay whatever they're going to pay to get him, you know, the Cristiano Ronaldo of, of your, of your area, of your specialism.
And, and, and brand is a magnet, right.
So, it means that opportunities come to you rather than you having to go and seek them out. And in the typical personality type of someone working in regulated quality is not someone that wants to go out and do sales, is not somebody that wants to pick up the phone and do cold business development calls, is someone who wants to be recognized for their expertise and someone who wants to add value through their expertise. And so just spending a little bit of time building that brand is going to completely flip the way that the market looks for you.
So, you know, that's my two cents.
Etienne Nichols: I think that's good. Now, I know we're getting close on.
Elena Kyria: Time, which I actually can't believe that we're getting close on time.
Etienne Nichols: I can't remember if our. For our last one, we just said we don't care. We're just going to spend a couple hours talking, however long it takes. I don't remember. But anyway, I'm not going to do that to you this time necessarily.
So maybe we skip a little bit or if there's things you definitely want to catch.
The thing that I am curious about is, or if you could give maybe a single MedTech founder every single one of them or every ambitious MedTech professional, if you could give them.
I don't know if warning's the right word, but about the next 18 months, what would that word of caution or word of advice be?
Yeah, let's. Let's talk about that. And then I want to talk a little bit about underrated areas of MedTech, whether it's knowledge or geographic region. But let's talk about the advice first.
Elena Kyria: My advice is just to get started. Like, literally.
I always have this analogy of, like, you don't get pumped by going to the gym and just staring at the weights and you need to actually, like, pick them up and do some reps.
And I think that that is the most important thing right now, even if you're a founder of a company, you know, because also it needs to come from the top. If you're doing it, your team will want to do it and interact with it.
If you're not, you're kind of relying on everyone else to do it. But you're not necessarily creating a culture in your company where people are embracing it.
So just literally make a commitment to yourself and fulfill the commitment to yourself to get started.
Etienne Nichols: I'm going to mention something about that because I assume you're specifically talking about AI.
So, I actually did a recent episode with on pedagogy versus andragogy, which I don't use those words myself. Pedagogy being how we teach kids.
A lot of times it's okay, we're going to teach you a language. So, this is a letter, this is this, this is all. Or maybe piano, whatever it is, it's.
You teach all the basics, the atomic level, and then you build on that. Whereas as adults, Andrew Goji, if we don't learn that way, I've got a problem, and I got to fix it.
I'm going to go to YouTube and watch how someone else did this, or I'm going to translate a sentence or learn a single song on a piano. Whatever it is, I'm solving the problem for today.
And I think maybe that's the way to look at this as well. So, you've got a problem. Okay. AI is now a tool that has to be in your toolbox.
See if that tool fits the job. So, every problem you face, that's just my two cents.
Elena Kyria: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Etienne Nichols: Any underrated areas in MedTech that you think are going to be explosive, whether it's talent, funding, growth, whatever, in the next three years. Any thoughts there? Because I know you work with so.
Elena Kyria: Many companies, I think, like More broadly speaking, I really think the.
Transverse skills, like the soft skills, are becoming more and more and more important.
And I think that, like, the people that I'm seeing get promoted, that are going further, you know, are the ones that have that broader understanding. They're good communicators, they're good networking and doing the things that aren't necessarily inside their job description.
And I think that this is going to become really, really important to the future because once you take expertise and information out of what you do, the only thing that's left is human, the human side.
And so therefore, you need to invest in that, and you need to make sure you're developing that, because that is also a skill.
So that's my two cents.
Etienne Nichols: Well, those you've been listening definitely follow Elena on LinkedIn because, I don't know, you seem to have mastered that aspect of it and you obviously have all the technical and the business behind you and so on.
But what blows my mind is, I mean, our first conversation, I think it was on LinkedIn, you just had like greenlight guru and Elemed and a smiley face like, plus, you know, let's talk or something like that.
And it's just like it was such a different communication style than anyone else out there who's cold calling everybody. And so, I just think that's pretty great. So, leading by example, I think that's.
Elena Kyria: Thank you so much, Etienne, and thank you for having me on the show. It's always so fun and I feel like next time we need to do, we need to do a two-hour special.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah, I would be willing to do that. We should do that sometime. No, there's plenty to talk about, but this has been good. I think we covered a lot of ground for today.
Any last pieces? Any, any last thing you want to say to the audience? Call to action or anything?
Elena Kyria: No, I think from my side, you know, it's, it's, it's. Don't be afraid. It's an amazing opportunity. And also, most people don't really know what they're doing, right? So, like, honestly, I can tell you that, you know, like, most people really have no idea and so just be, just be one of the people that, that tries and in trying you will learn so much.
And failure is okay because failure is also learning. And I think that that's really, really important. And building that, that little repertoire of experience is going to compound over time.
Etienne Nichols: Yeah. So good. Okay, thank you so much. Those who've been listening, you've listened to the Global Medical Device podcast. We appreciate it and we will see you all next time.
Take care.
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