Navigating Talent Management Challenges in Life Sciences with Darwin Shurig CEO of Surig Solutions, Inc.

In this podcast episode, host Meg interviews Darwin Shurig, the founder and CEO of Shurig Solutions, Inc. (SSI), a talent management and executive recruiting firm. Darwin is a seasoned entrepreneur and talent management expert who has built a successful firm partnering with clients to fulfill their talent needs and strategically support initiatives. He also emphasizes the importance of hiring and retaining high-performing teams in life sciences.

Episode Highlights:

• In the ever-evolving world of talent management, Darwin sheds light on the current trends and challenges associated with recruiting top talent, particularly in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. He emphasizes the critical importance of leadership, mission alignment, and the right talent as key factors contributing to a company's success.
• Discussing the significance of retaining top talent, Darwin offers recommendations for organizations looking to keep their best employees. He stresses the importance of understanding a company's mission and creating a clear distinction between cultural fit and technical skills. He also highlights the need to focus on employee engagement, career growth opportunities, and providing a clear path for advancement.
• Darwin explains how he initiated various educational initiatives at SSI, such as the SSI Educational Webinar Series and the SSI Executive Conversations Podcast. These platforms serve as valuable resources for professionals in the life sciences industry, offering insights, knowledge, and opportunities to interact with industry experts.
• The conversation delves into the impact of COVID-19 on talent management and recruitment strategies. Darwin discusses how remote work, decision-making agility, and the cost of hiring have been affected. He emphasizes the increasing importance of autonomy for younger generations entering the workforce.
• Darwin emphasizes that attracting talent in the life sciences industry is always a challenging endeavor, with roles in clinical, regulatory affairs, scientific development, quality, and leadership positions being particularly demanding. He anticipates a growing need for commercial talent as well, driven by the burgeoning cell and gene therapy sector.

Guest Speaker Bio:
In this episode, we are joined by Darwin Shurig, the founder and CEO of Shurig Solutions, Inc. (SSI), a seasoned entrepreneur and talent management expert. Darwin has established a thriving executive recruiting firm that collaborates with clients to meet their crucial talent requirements, align strategic goals, and connect top performers with exceptional companies in the life sciences industry.

Where to Learn More:
To access more content from Darwin Shurig and SSI, you can visit their website at www.shurigsolutions.com. You can also tune in to the SSI Executive Conversations Podcast, available on various platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and their YouTube channel. For direct inquiries or contact, reach out to SSI at 317-983-HIRE or through their website.

Qualio website:
https://www.qualio.com/

Previous episodes:
https://www.qualio.com/from-lab-to-launch-podcast

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Music by keldez

Transcript

Meg Sinclair: 0:17

Hi everyone. And welcome to from lab to launch by Qualio. I'm Meg your host. Thanks for tuning in today. Before we get started, we'd love it. If you've rated the podcast, it's easy to do and share it with any of your science nerd friends. We know you have some. if you'd like to be on the show, please see the show notes for an application and we'll get connected that way today. We're excited to have Darwin Shurig founder of CEO of Shurig solutions, Inc, or SSI. Darwin is a seasoned entrepreneur and talent management expert at SSI. He has built a successful executive recruiting firm that partners with clients to fill their greatest talent needs, strategically support initiatives, matching top performers with great companies and improving the quality of their most important resource. People. He, he created the SSI educational webinar series, the SSI executive conversations, podcast candidate prep best practices, and the top talent accelerant process. You can read his full bio in the show notes, but since hiring and motivating a high performing team is one of his top priorities for every founder in life sciences, we thought we'd, we thought we'd bring Darwin's expertise and insight would be very useful today. Let's go ahead and bring him in. Welcome Darwin.

Darwin Shurig: 1:35

Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. Great.

Meg Sinclair: 1:41

Can you tell us about the origin of Surex Solutions and what inspired you to start

Darwin Shurig: 1:45

the company? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so really I, I was in corporate America for a little over 12 years. I started out in the clinical world and then, uh, moved into, uh, corporate America. Managing sales teams, business development, marketing and contract negotiation. And, um, I never in a million years thought I'd be doing this or be a recruiter, which is kind of funny or own a recruiting company, but I had an opportunity. I was a part of an acquisition and a larger company came in and acquired us. And after they integrated two, two and a half billion dollar business units, two weeks later, they let about 250 of us go. And so, uh, I had a friend that owned a recruiting firm and, uh, he brought it to my attention. It wasn't something I was. Initially super excited about, but then after I, uh, delved into it a little bit further, I just decided that the things that I didn't necessarily like, uh, about recruiters I'd experienced in the past, we, we just wouldn't do those. And I thought there might be some things that we could put our own, um, I could put my own touch on it and differentiate in the marketplace. And so that's how in 2015 I, I started the company. Isn't it funny

Meg Sinclair: 2:51

the way our life and career can take us sometimes?

Darwin Shurig: 2:55

Yes, it is.

Meg Sinclair: 2:57

In the ever evolving world of talent management, what are the present trends and challenges that you've seen in the recruitment of top talent, especially in the medical device and pharma industries?

Darwin Shurig: 3:08

Well, I think, you know, anybody that tells you that hiring talents easy for them, they might not be being completely transparent. Um, and so one of the biggest challenges I think for anybody from a talent standpoint is understanding what your strategy is going to be and what is available to you. Um, but a lot of, you know, from my perspective, a lot of recruiting can be transactional. And so anything that you, you know, if your transaction, you get what you put into it. And so I look at it, everything relevant to, um, the main reasons why companies succeed and fail. And if you look at the top five to seven reasons why company succeed and succeed across, you know, a lot of years and a lot of data. Um, three of the top reasons I'll always come back to leadership relevant to mission vision and company alignment And then the right talent, um, and if you look in the medical world, I mean, it's incredible I mean, we'll just use quality as example We could use multiple functional categories But in quality, uh, the average cost to a company for an fda warning letter is five million dollars And then in terms of the industry average you're looking at about six billion And so, um, if you look at the top 7 to 10 reasons for FDA warning letters, they all come back to poor leadership, cutting corners, poor design protocols, um, uh, software security issues. Um, or fraud. They all come back to leadership or the wrong talent. And so, um, understanding what you need people to do in positions. And then I think in terms of processes, attraction, efficiency, avoiding the cost of mishires is significant. Um, and then there's some other things that, you know, I'd share about that relevant to retention rates, but I think understanding what your strategy is and understanding how vital it is to the long term, the short term and the longterm success. of your company so that you have higher employee engagement and less wasted resources is vital.

Meg Sinclair: 5:11

Going back to that retaining top talent, it's just as important, right, as attracting it. What are your recommendations for organizations looking to retain the best talent?

Darwin Shurig: 5:21

So, and we could, we could talk the whole podcast just on this, but, uh, you know, for, for first of all, it's vitally important that companies understand what their mission is and who they want to be in the marketplace and relevant to that create through the interview process. a way to delineate cultural fit versus the technical skill in any functional area. And a lot of companies don't do that well, but you want to hire people that not only have the right skill set, but their personal why matches the company mission statement, along with having high emotional intelligence, being problem solvers, people that get along with other people, because again, then you're going to have a higher employee engagement. Um, having said that, don't be transactional with. Why you need to bring a person on for a position Especially when you look at companies that start up growing mid caps How could that role change in the next 6 to 24 months? Because again avoiding the cost of a mishire and when you look at retention annual voluntary turnover Across all industries is 25 percent a year. So a quarter of the talent walks out every single year, regardless of the company industry. Now, it's typically not the people that you want to leave that are leaving. So why are they leaving? Now, there's a lot of data behind this, but there's one particular study in the last three years where 70 percent of those That, uh, basically interviewed relevant to why they left early was because they didn't feel like they had any career growth. They didn't know where their opportunity lied. Um, 50 percent of them stated that if they'd had some conversation with their hiring manager or leadership relevant to the role or the future during that recent time, they might've stayed. So when it comes to annual voluntary turnover, that is half. To four times on average, the cost of that position. So it's a huge cost, uh, wasted resources relevant to onboarding training and recruiting. So really understanding what you need a person to do in a position and what are their opportunities for growth is, is it vertical only? Is it horizontal or how open is the company to crossover talent, but first bringing in the right talent if it's culturally, but then really having annual employee engagement programs and career ladders. Is the real secret from my perspective on how you retain your top talent because if they're engaged, they like the culture and they know where their opportunity lies, they're more likely to stay. And companies that do that tend to see better retention rates. Not only are they better relevant to the annual voluntary, but they're better in the two year, you know, five year categories as well. Yeah. And

Meg Sinclair: 7:57

maintaining that culture of quality too is easier to do when you don't have that 25 percent of people walking out the door every year. You're going to lose that every,

Darwin Shurig: 8:05

every time. And then I think the other thing, you know, we talked about earlier just about quality, but you could look at it. It's the same in almost every category, clinical trials, regulatory fair submissions, but how if you're having issues in terms of getting good data. That's going to affect how you get on the market. You know, 70 percent of submissions are not accepted the first time. A lot of that comes back to talent. That delays getting the product in the market. So all those things create doubt within your culture. Anytime you have issues that lead to fines, delays to market, and that affect you from a risk management standpoint, that's going to make people think, well, maybe this isn't the right place to be. That's a

Meg Sinclair: 8:45

good point, too, for our life sciences industry

Darwin Shurig: 8:47

perspective. Yes. Great.

Meg Sinclair: 8:50

So, Dari, when you've created several initiatives, such as SSI Educational Webinar Series and the SSI Executive Conversations Podcast, can you tell us more about these and how you're helping the industry's

Darwin Shurig: 9:02

knowledge base? Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, the first four years was just really, you know, first year to trying to stay in business and really understand what your value prop is and where you fit. But after about the four year mark, um, I really wanted to create a better presence in the industry in terms of giving back and, uh, improve our authority in the marketplace as well, based on the people we associate and the people we interact with. And so, uh, first was the webinar and I believe in bringing as much value and then kind of. Hiding in plain sight. And so, you know, we started that we've done 25 successful. We're working on the next two that we're going to schedule. But it's all about, first of all, people that, you know, we have almost pushing 30, 000 people following us on social media. So there's a lot of people that follow us because that's where they want to take their career, the areas that we're in. And so they want to learn things relevant to improve that process and be a better professional. And then there's people that follow us because they have those problems. And Okay, you're talking about something that we have that problem right now. So, um, whether it's, hey, how do we get to that person that was a guest on the, uh, on the program, or let's go talk to them because maybe they can help us with that challenge. So that's kind of, you know, how it started and it grew from there. And then with the podcast, I wanted to be able to bring, you know, the webinars are challenging. Uh, they take a little bit more time. And, um, I thought the podcast, if we could successfully launch that. Could bring even more value. Um, in terms of the time allotted to it that, you know, they're shorter. We don't do those live so we can record them and we can drop them when we want. And, um, and it's a great way. The other thing in terms of the value that we're bringing to our partners. It's now turned into another aspect of our value prop because we can promote our partners. If they've got new positive clinical data, they have a new submission pre commercial launch. We can sort of soften the market. And, you know, if you're if you're one of the top 10 med tech or pharma life science companies and people know your name, but if you're not, you know, in that top 10 to 30, there's a lot of people that don't know who the companies are. And so the startups, the growing mid caps really view us as great partners because we bring so much to the table there and we can brand them in the marketplace and it increases that exposure for them in a positive fashion to the talent in the marketplace.

Meg Sinclair: 11:26

It sounds like you're contributing not just to the educational, um, knowledge base, but also creating an ecosystem for your partners and

Darwin Shurig: 11:35

people in the industry. That's definitely the goal. Um, and then it's all about in terms of that ties into the attraction piece because, um, people haven't heard about the company and if you look at, if you think about how the industry works and. That's why we trademarked Top Talent Accelerant. That's where it came from, because if you, you know, a lot of the areas we work in, there's not enough talent, whether it's clinical, regulatory, quality, um, aspects of engineering. So if they talk to three recruiters, you know, maybe the recruiter has spoken to the hiring manager. Maybe they haven't. Maybe they understand the product's benefit to patients or access or efficiency in the health care systems and how that compares to the competition. And maybe they don't. And then they share a job description, which 30 percent of the time are wrong. And they're really a lot of times vanilla, so they don't tell a whole lot of information. And so then what happens? They have to go find information, find out if they know people that maybe have gone there, what, you know, they have to do all this research. So that's a LinkedIn snooping, right? Exactly. And so that's where TTA came from, because we create a remarkable candidate experience, um, using video technology, as well as giving them, uh, a location where they get all the information. They get to see a perspective of the culture, the hiring managers, personality, um, and they don't have to go look and search for that information. So it's a huge differentiator. Changing the candidate experience to the benefit of the company. And it's a real differentiator, uh, relevant to the white noise. So not only, you know, the webinars are one thing, but every single time we work on a position, we're branding our partners in the marketplace in a very differentiating manner. That's

Meg Sinclair: 13:12

great. How have you found talent management and recruiting changed since COVID and, and now today in the current economic environment, have you seen changes in trends? Like anything,

Darwin Shurig: 13:25

I guess it's, it's changed. I mean, the trends have changed like three, four times just since the pandemic started. Um, and last year, you know, in terms of money from the government going into things, right? It's driven hiring and then it's hurt hiring and, um, gosh, I mean, again, we could talk, we could talk probably the whole podcast just about this, but you look at. When there are companies that were created because of the pandemic, um, it's been obviously a lot of challenge, but also there's been a lot of, uh, positive disruption. But then, uh, another one of the top seven reasons why companies fail is because they can't make. Decisions or make moves in challenging extreme markets, right? Well, there's companies that have done that really well with the pandemic and then there's companies that tried to be something They weren't companies that had you know Never made a ventilator before now they're trying to make ventilators because of All this money went into that and they did that successfully at first and then it all dried up and Now they're laying off companies going out of business There's companies that had never made ppe before and now all of a sudden they made a whole bunch of money or ivd diagnostics, right and then That really wasn't who they were. So certainly, uh, in terms of remote strategies, you know, there's companies, obviously there's a lot of functional areas, certain functional areas, regulatory aspects of design quality, certainly marketing a lot of different commercial roles where the ability to work remotely. And do that successfully is, is extremely high. And a lot of professionals that did that. And then companies, you know, kind of tried to move people back on site. So there's been a huge resistance to that. You know, I think sales, the CEO sales force was going to force everybody to come back in this last year and then. There were going to be mass resignation. So then he kind of backed off that. So it's going to be really interesting because it's kind of swung one way. Now it's coming back the other. Um, but I think it's going to be really hard for the areas where people have, you know, if they're top talent, they're really good at what they do. They're going to have a lot of opportunities. And so if you're going to limit yourself to talent and you're not going to be open for strategies, you know, remote strategies, it's going to make it a lot tougher. And then. Are you willing, what areas are you willing to, you know, where are you going to set that line of demarcation and say, this is the way it has to be. And then who will end up in that seat. Is it, you know, relevant to, again, cost of mishires, annual voluntary turnover, cultural fit. So there's a lot of considerations there. It's going to be interesting. Um, certainly, Candidates have a lot of different opportunities. People are more interested in autonomy than they've ever been in discussions. It's crazy. Like they never came up for the pandemic. Now they're one of the first things, top three things that come up. Um, there are more people moving into contracting scenarios than there were before. The pandemic, which is interesting. Um, and it would appear the world of contract and consulting is only going to continue to grow and accelerate. Um, and then you've got another, you know, huge change this year because the economy kind of went off a cliff in certain ways. Um, the cost of everything the last few years is. Regardless of whether, you know, we change the terminology of things, you know, the cost has gone up, um, for everything, every type of good. And then, you know, the Fed raised the rate, so the cost of borrowing money has gone up, uh, three times. So there's a lot of companies that are holding on, you know, people are getting promotions without a title increase in pay, people that are, uh, leaving positions open, and, and companies that don't want to spend external resources. spend resources on external recruiting. So it's, it's interesting. It's starting to, you know, seems like it's starting to come back, but. A lot of the market has been down, I think overall from a lot of different data points for recruiting. And then companies gave a lot of money in terms of investment money to companies. And that's really slowed down because there's been some, you know, some bombs, some things that didn't go so well. So people are being a little bit more, um, do a little bit more due diligence and taking a little bit longer to invest in startups right now, too. So a lot of different factors. Lots going on

Meg Sinclair: 17:39

any trends with, you know, a younger workforce entering a new generation entering the workforce.

Darwin Shurig: 17:47

Oh my gosh. Well, you know, just how communication how people look at things. That is, you know, I was just at a conference and they were like, one of the, one of the people that's maybe a little bit further in their career, closer to, you know that I am made a comment about is it the z generation is it the why. So, I won't get into that too much, but I, based on that conversation, I made the comment and I'll make the same thing here. Like, how important is it whether you're a candidate to really understand what matters to you? What is your personal? Why, why are you, what is going to help you get up in the morning and be excited about what you are going to do? And I think sometimes those younger generation are too focused on titles and compensation. I think that's. Certainly a part of the conversation and important, but what they should be asking is what's the culture there like? What is my opportunity to gain new skills and who will I become if I go to this company because that in terms of the skills that they add and how's that how they grow as an individual and how they're mentored and you know, do they improve on their emotional intelligence and their ability to handle pressure and the things that go along with these type of roles. Where is that going to lead them into their career versus just a title. Or simply the comp being the only reason, um, and what's that culture like? Because again, you look at the cost of mishires, annual voluntary turnover, all those things. Um, the other thing I'll add to that real quickly is that a lot of the younger generation are more focused on the autonomy, even more so, you know, they want remote positions, they want, be careful what you wish for. Because, you know, depending on where you're at in your career, having too much autonomy can, you know, you can hang yourself, uh, in a bad way or sometimes, you know, having boundaries because you end up working too much, but you're also missing out on significant opportunities for mentorship and learning from others that because, and now you're on an island. So, um, and sometimes we don't know what we don't know. So I would, I would really think about that if I'm earlier in my career. But And I have a perspective that I only want to be remote.

Meg Sinclair: 20:05

I think that's great advice for people entering the workforce. Think about it as a journey and not the

Darwin Shurig: 20:10

destination. Absolutely. Well said. What is

Meg Sinclair: 20:14

the most challenging talent to hire in life sciences today for you, Darwin?

Darwin Shurig: 20:20

Oh my, I mean, nothing we do is easy, but I mean, anything in, in anything in clinical regulatory affairs is really hard. Scientific Um, you know, development, um, quality formulation. So it really depends on what the product category is. Um, you know, if you look at life sciences relative to cell and gene therapy, I mean, there are significant amount of clinical trials going on right now. And by 2025, I mean, I think right now there's about 23 to 24 cell and gene therapies on the marketplace. And by 2025, there'll be 10 plus new product coming on the market annually. There's so many clinical trials going on. So that is an area where, for example, um, if a life science ties into that type of those type of products, the, the ability to attract top talent in scientific development, upstream, downstream, uh, formulation, quality, or regulatory, um, leadership. And, and then think about this, like commercial talent, where's that talent going to come from, especially if companies aren't open to crossover talent, because there's going to be a whole, um, there's going to be a lot of positions where there's people that have never done that before because there haven't been enough products on the market. And so, um, so it really depends on the product category, but typically, you know, design and development are a clinical. And quality are always challenging. And then leadership, leadership's a premium, no matter what area you're talking about, or it should be.

Meg Sinclair: 22:04

Many of our listeners are aspiring entrepreneurs and founders in life sciences. What advice would you give them, um, when they're looking to start hiring their

Darwin Shurig: 22:12

teams? When you start hiring your teams. Uh, so, a couple of my friends, you know, Bernie Haffey, high performance management system, great book. Um, Karen Posey, consults. And coaches, CEOs on how to make decisions relevant to voice of the customer and then have a alignment within the company for sustainable, profitable growth. And again, understand. So I would say, first of all, make sure you really understand what your mission and your vision is. Um, and you have to live that. And so, you know, it can't be something that you do once. Think about design controls or your design history file. Okay. Most companies get in trouble, um, with the FDA because they haven't looked at their design history files. their inputs and outputs, you know, in three years, five years, et cetera. And so that is not, it's not a one time do it, put it over here and put it in a drawer. It is a process that should evolve. And from the same standpoint, you know, leadership, understanding what your mission and, uh, the company mission, vision, employee value proposition, and then make that a part of your hiring process. So that, you know, if you're not sure on, um, you know, how to delineate the interview process, you know, reach out to us. We'd be more than happy to share information with you on that. But you want to hire people that, uh, leadership IQ, uh, great, great data. Uh, they lots, a lot of data points, lots of companies, 11 percent of mishires were determined to mishire because the person did not have the actual skill that they were looking for. The other 89 percent were low emotional intelligence. They were not coachable. They had a poor temperament and play with their toys nicely, and they weren't motivated. So how important is it to hire people that have those skills and their personal wall matches the company mission and what the company is trying to accomplish so that things are not going to always go well. 70 percent of companies don't make it 10 years, right across all industries. So when things get tough, if you have people that have the right skills and they match the why, they're going to come together for higher employee engagement. Less wasted resources. So, you know, make that a focus. Don't just hand it off. And then, you know, your personal, your personal, why you got to know that really, really well, cause this stuff's not easy. Um, and. You don't want to be one of the 70%. Right? So you want to be one of those that, uh, that makes it. And so really understand that and make sure you put strong talent around you that you don't have an echo chamber. People that you trust and respect that can tell you something. And, um, because you can't be everything, especially as you start to scale, you got to have the right people around you. Trusted advisors. Absolutely. Yes.

Meg Sinclair: 24:57

Great. Um, when a founder is making the first few hires in the business, what are some questions they should absolutely ask a candidate? Like, number one question they should

Darwin Shurig: 25:08

ask. Number one question. I mean, what, the sooner that you can get past, um, you know, the fluff, The sooner that you can get Pat and a part of a big part of this is going to be whether or not you're your processes are in place and that you're attracting, you know, if you're posting and praying, or you're trying to get talent transactionally, you're gonna have harder time getting to this think about talent, like an iceberg. So if you're, you know, if you're doing it transactional, you're doing it low fee, you're doing posting and pray and you don't have a good partner. The tip of the iceberg is the talent that you're going to potentially get. You're not going to get the talent that the top talent that's the huge iceberg under the water, the 70%. Um, you know, but if you're getting, if you're getting to the right people, understand what matters to them and what they're looking for. Um, you cannot just interview people. You have to attract. So there has to be a balance of that and and then having a process of in terms of delineating the culture so that because if you do that, well, it's not easy to do. But if you have it set up right, candidates will literally tell you why you shouldn't hire them. They won't even know it, but they'll tell you why you shouldn't hire them. Um, but you want people with high emotional intelligence. You want people that are that are problem solvers, you Right and that are not always right and that want to be a part of a team and they want to do something special So understanding what it is They're looking for and who they're looking to become Because if that matches up and then you get people like that most likely it's going to work out Well, they'll figure out a way to make it work and then that product we're all in this or I believe we're all in this I mean my clinical background the reason why i'm in this space because I want to help people with unique career advancement opportunities, but ultimately banging positive products building companies are helping our families, right? Um, and, and, uh, bringing a benefit to patients. And so if they're passionate about what solution your product brings, whether it's specifically to the patient, it's access, right? Or it's increasing efficiencies in the system. So it frees up dollars to go elsewhere for our, for our families. Then if they fit the culture. So I know that's not super specific because it's really hard depending on the functional area, but you got to have people that believe in what it is that you're doing. Um, and then that are going to stick around and not fold when things get tough. Yeah, I think that's great advice

Meg Sinclair: 27:42

for founders to find your own mission and vision. Have that be really clear and then make sure that you're hiring people who share that same ethos. I think that's great

Darwin Shurig: 27:49

advice. What one other thing I got to throw this out real quick is I just thought of, but I was a moderator for Karen Posey's, uh, CEO, CEO master course. And, you know, one of the statistics on there was like 45 percent of CEOs feel very lonely. And I can relate to that at times over the last eight years. And so again, that's how important it is. You have a support system. You, you're not, you can't have all the answers. You have to provide the vision. You have to understand what as a CEO you're responsible for, but you cannot be everything to everybody. Um, and you've got to make sure that you've got strong stakeholders and a support system. Um, because, you know, CEOs live, the data is, you know, five years less than, than others. And then from a pressure standpoint, you know, they get less sleep, they work 70 percent weekends, you know, vacations. And so that's why the cultural fit and understanding company alignment is so vital. Because if you do have issues. You don't, you know, you're the ones going to have to explain to the investors and stakeholder why the clinical data, you know, didn't, didn't meet mustard. You're going to have to explain why the submission didn't go through and now money was wasted in the product's not going to be on the market longer. And when those things happen, you think the CEOs are having less stress, you think they're getting less sleep. So, you know, you got to have a good support system and understand that you need that. And be willing to

Meg Sinclair: 29:13

accept the help probably too.

Darwin Shurig: 29:15

Yes, that's why advisory boards, if you understand if you pick the right people for your board and you manage it right, are invaluable. Great.

Meg Sinclair: 29:25

Um, what is your long term vision for Shurig Solutions, Inc., and what do you see as your next big milestone or goal for the company?

Darwin Shurig: 29:33

That's a great question. Um, yeah, it's been a, it's been a really Interesting year, uh, because we'd grown so significantly the last four years. And then, um, I made a lot of mistakes scaling the company, um, in a couple of different areas. The good news is, you know, through challenges, if you're paying attention, you have a great opportunity to learn and so, um, though we had a really rough year this year, relevant to the economy and, um, the lowering of the water, getting to see, you know, boulders, we've created, uh, some, some great best practices and that's where some of the things that we're doing now. Um, you know, helping companies customize their interview process kind of came from some of the challenges of the last two years. Um, TTA, uh, we've been doing the candidate experience for our partners for almost two years, but some of the challenges that happened, that's really where the partner experience came from. And we're filling roles 40 percent more efficiently for our partners and saving them on wasted resources. So through those challenges, you know, that came. I think, you know, as the economy comes back, you know, our goal is, I think we're going to have a great opportunity to scale more efficiently moving forward. And then there's some other things that I can't go into, but we're too, too deeply, but we're in the process of, uh, starting a second company to bring some of those efficiencies maybe to other, other industries, um, you know, through a SAS model, so, um, I can't go into too many details relevant to that, but, uh, and then. Continuing to be a positive voice, you know, in the ecosystem, uh, I presented, uh, five times this year and, um, you know, the podcast is doing really well. And so our, our goal is to, to extrapolate and grow that, uh, to continue to be able to promote other companies and leaders and their technology, um, as well as, you know, career paths in the marketplace and to help candidates really look at things differently. In terms of how they want to take their career, how they should look at the process and help companies do a better job of, of customizing their process relevant to attraction and efficiency so they have better efficiency because, um, if, if the companies are healthy and companies are growing, that's better for everybody. And so our goal is to continue to evolve, to be, um, a voice in the industry that's beneficial and, and helps, you know, raise all companies, whether we're partnering with them or not. That would be the, you know, the high level goal, I guess. That sounds amazing. And

Meg Sinclair: 32:04

I smell a webinar in our future,

Darwin Shurig: 32:06

Darwin. I love it. Definitely.

Meg Sinclair: 32:11

Maybe you have to make that

Darwin Shurig: 32:11

happen in 2024. Yeah, absolutely. We also do a lot with, with charity. We, we support four charities and, um, um, looking at starting a charitable foundation and some things that are going to come, you know, we'll help fund some things for that. So. Um, yeah, very excited about the future and very excited about finishing up this year strong and what's going to happen next year.

Meg Sinclair: 32:32

I can't wait to see what you guys do in 2024. Thank you. For our last question, it's more of a fun one. We like to ask each of our guests. If we ran into you at the bookstore or your local library, in what section would we find

Darwin Shurig: 32:45

you? Oh my. So this question came up beforehand and they were asking me, some of the staff were asking me what I was going to say and some jokes that could get me in trouble and things like that. But, um, I would most likely be in the section, um, that has to do with learning something. Um, you know, I'm reading, uh, I read a lot. So I'm, you know, reading a book right now that has to do with levels of consciousness and, you know, power versus force and, um, you know, emotional intelligence. But, uh, I'm always typically reading something that is learning whether it has to do, you know, medical anti, uh, you know, uh, resistant bacteria or something that has to do with business or growth or. Becoming a better person, uh, trying to bring value to other people. So I'd be, I'd probably be in some aspect of, you know, self health, self help, or, you know, learning something that has to do with, with our industry or clinically or medically.

Meg Sinclair: 33:44

Yeah, and it sounds like you're turning that knowledge into helping people grow professionally and finding good leaders and organizations, all good stuff.

Darwin Shurig: 33:53

Ah, thank you. That's the goal. Yeah.

Meg Sinclair: 33:55

Well, thank you, Darwin, for joining us today from on from lab to launch by polio. Where can our listeners go to follow along and connect with you?

Darwin Shurig: 34:03

Absolutely. So, uh, you can find any of our content at our website, www. sureggsolutions. com. Uh, you can, uh, follow our, our podcast. You can download our podcast from anywhere that you, you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple. Uh, if you like to watch it on video, we have a SSI YouTube channel as well. And, um, you can reach out to us at 317 983 HIRE. Or, you know, directly, you can contact us directly through our website as well. Thank you so much,

Meg Sinclair: 34:35

Darwin. It's great having you today.

Darwin Shurig: 34:37

I really appreciate your time and the opportunity to be on here as a guest.