Creating a Sustaining Talent Program

For Everette Brown, the culture of PTC is the “secret sauce” for attracting top talent.

As the Executive Director of Global Talent Acquisition (TA), Everette leads a talented, committed and focused global team with the mission to ensure PTC attracts, identifies and hires top, diverse talent. For Everette and his team, it’s critical that candidates are a strong cultural fit and that talent, regardless of level, will help PTC achieve its goal of serving the rare disease community.

The TA team has also embraced and championed an initiative that aims to support recent graduates, the Talent Pipeline Program (TPP), which was created in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to help graduates as they navigated a new employment landscape.

We recently connected with Everette to learn his perspectives on what makes the TA team at PTC so unique, the importance of the TPP and his vision for the future of TA at PTC. Read below as Everette shares his Remarkable Story:

We have created a strong and sustaining talent program at PTC through partnerships with internal stakeholders and by ensuring we stay abreast of the ever-changing trends in TA, especially in the rare diseases landscape, including the advancements and evolution of technology resources in our HR profession.

Our PTC Expectations guide us: we are always pursuing the “Ever Better” and “One PTC” mindset in all we do to maintain a great candidate and stakeholder experience – and our culture is the “Secret Sauce” and very attractive to candidates. Our key drivers are effective collaboration and clear communication with all stakeholders, maintaining an effective recruitment process, ensuring alignment with hiring managers and pursuing talent with a diverse, yet patient-focused mindset.

Over time, the TA team has evolved to be smarter about how we recruit talent and ensure a great candidate experience, while growing our brand recognition in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical and rare disease industry. Our team has learned to effectively leverage new technology resources to search for and find niche top talent, which was foundational to our ability to successfully find top talent when the job market was evolving post-pandemic.

One way that makes PTC stand out is our Talent Pipeline Program (TPP). This one-year, global-reaching program for recent college graduates was created so candidates can pursue a meaningful “fellowship” in a corporate biotechnology environment. Our Fellows have degrees ranging from Bachelors, Masters, PhDs, PharmDs and Juris Doctorate and support many different departments including research, legal, commercial, marketing and medical affairs. The first TPP cohort was launched in 2020; we’re now approaching the end of our second cohort in October 2023.

We’ve seen first-hand how the TPP has made an impact on the overall culture of PTC.We are proud to give the Fellows the opportunity to be a part of PTC, and in turn, we are inspired by the energy, enthusiasm andengagement the Fellows bring to our culture. Many of the TPP Fellows have expressed their sincere gratitude for being a part of the program, as many found it challenging to find opportunities during this unprecedented time.

The success of the program speaks for itself: we have been able to successfully recruit phenomenal entry and mid-level talent into the ranks of PTC. Many Fellows have since successfully converted to full-time employees, as well as been promoted within the organization: between the two cohorts, we have brought on more than 90 Fellows for one year internship/fellowship assignments and have converted/retained more than 40 Fellows to full-time employees or contractors. In the first cohort, we converted 37 and several have been promoted.

Additionally, the TPP has been thoroughly embraced by internal stakeholders including our Board of Directors, Executive Committee and Leaders. The Emerging Leaders group also sponsored two pilot programs created just for the Fellows: The North Star program and “Make a Connection” program. In the North Star program, Fellows participate shadowing experience with leaders of departments of their choice. Make a Connection supports Fellows and encourages them to connect with and share their stories and experiences with leaders.

What continues to make this a successful program is the dedication, commitment and support of all the stakeholders involved. We look forward to continuing this program and how it helps us build a strong, diverse, engaged and mission-driven community at PTC.