Keep riding the waves - a Q&A with Marc Roessle, Senior Consultant

How long have you worked at i-Pharm Consulting and what are the main responsibilities of your role? 

I’ve been at i-Pharm for the last year as a Senior Consultant. I’m responsible for finding candidates for jobs, business development, being a full 360 recruiter and acting as a role model for new people in the team who don’t have much experience. 

Tell us a bit about your Functional Specialism 

I focus on Clinical Project Management. These are people who work predominantly at CROs and oversea the entire phase of the trial from start to finish. They work on managing a bunch of different teams and ensure that everything is on track. They are also the point of escalation if there is anything that needs to be done to make sure that everything goes smoothly. 

How did you get to where you are now? 

Hard work. Personally, for me, it has just been keeping my head up and rolling with the punches. Recruitment is a constant up and down battle, if you’re on a high note keep riding the high note, if you’re on a low note, keep trying to get back up to that high note. In addition, the management here at i-Pharm is fantastic. I report into Emily Beebe (Business Manager), and she’s been great over the last year in terms of helping me perfect my graft and is an awesome leader. Also, Aoife Cronin (Senior Vice President) and David Filby (Executive Vice President) here in the US, have been excellent role models in helping me not only work with key accounts but also helping me to develop myself as a high-level recruiter and work on some of those skills that I might be lacking. 

What do you enjoy most about working at i-Pharm? 

Selfishly, I would say making money. We’re in a great market and it’s a fast paced one with a lot of demand. Outside of that it’s really just the people. I feel like everyone here is a team player, everyone’s always here to support one another. If there are any issues, or anything that needs to be taken care of, I feel very comfortable going to Emily, Aoife or David at any point as they are very easy to talk to. I know that if anyone in the team needs anything from me, they can just reach out to me and vice versa. 

What do you think makes your team a success? 

It’s both the people and the market. From a market perspective, we have so many clients who are always looking for candidates, so from a performance and billing perspective, that’s something us as Recruiters can always take advantage of and it keeps us motivated. At the same time, yes, the market is great but as a team, we all work hard and we’re all there to support each other. From a personality standpoint, we are all really different, but we all mesh really well together and there’s a lot of support. Everyone is always there to pick each other up when needed. I’ve been in recruitment environments where it gets very competitive and it can be detrimental to the team in some sense, but here we all have one common goal, and I don’t think myself or the team would be as successful if we didn’t have each other. It’s very easy working here, I don’t have the ‘Sunday scaries” and that really is half the battle of any job, you have to like where you work. 

What have been your proudest achievements, individually and as a team? 

I was recently promoted to Senior Consultant - I’ve never actually been promoted before. Any previous raises or title changes were because I moved from one company to another. So having that promotion and hitting that threshold felt really good and I think i-Pharm does a great job at recognising everyone when they do something good, no matter how big or small. From a team perspective, I think in the US we are one of the biggest i-Pharm Teams across the Globe. I know for Q1 2022 we were the best performing team and that’s just a testament not only to our hard work and how we work within the Clinical Market but also to Emily’s leadership and her support throughout. I think the biggest achievement as a team is that we are successful, everyone is billing, everyone’s happy so I think those are two key indicators. 

What’s something about you (a fun fact) that not many people know? 

I played lacrosse, I was a goalie in high school, and I played club lacrosse in college where we’d practice twice a week. It’s also me and my girlfriend’s 5-year anniversary. People know that I have a girlfriend, but they don’t know how long we’ve been together, and we met back in college. 

What would you do (for a career) if you weren’t in recruitment?  

I wanted to be a sports broadcaster, before I got into recruitment. I had an internship at CBS sports which is a huge news station here in New York and they had a separate sports division. So, I interned there and then interviewed for 5 different jobs and wasn’t having much luck. So, if I wasn’t in recruitment, I’d get into television production or sports broadcasting. 

If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would you meet? 

George Washington as he’s a pioneer and was an amazing leader. To be able to come to land and start a brand-new country out of nowhere is huge. I think leadership is very important and he did something right. If you can build a country, then you can do anything. 

What advice do you have for someone who wants to get into recruitment? 

To listen and to be vulnerable in the sense that it’s okay to make mistakes and to admit to those mistakes. Be a sponge as every situation is different, no matter if you’re a year or 10 years in; there’s always mistakes and new learning experiences. Just grind, keep moving, ride with the flows, don’t take anything personally and volume and quality will get you to where you need to go. 

Check out our Careers Site for more information on life at i-Pharm.